by Jack Kerouac & edited by Douglas Brinkley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2004
Brinkley’s intelligent choices allow us to see both the familiar Kerouac and a mysterious stranger as well.
An eclectic sampling of the many facets of the legendary peripatetic writer, selected from assorted journals and notebooks Kerouac kept during the time he was working on his first two novels.
Editor Brinkley acknowledges that this is not for scholars: he has silently cut portions, rearranged others, eliminated the author’s doodles and marginalia, and supplied only a modest number of footnotes. Instead, this is an edition for temperate Kerouac fans (true fanatics must await a more scholarly treatment) and for those handful of folks who have never heard of On the Road. Still, the footnotes are not always complete (Brinkley’s comment about Hecuba, for example, neglects to mention that Kerouac is alluding to Hamlet in the passage); nor does the editor gloss every allusion (he neglects to tell us that a Randolph Scott film Kerouac refers to is probably Trail Street, 1947). Cavils aside, the volume has numerous virtues, the most significant of which is the much more capacious Kerouac it reveals. Readers who know him only as a “Beat Generation” writer will be surprised to see the depth of his religious struggles (included are some psalms Kerouac composed) and to learn of his devotion to his mother. Some readers may marvel that one of his favorite novelists was Anthony Trollope, that he loved Major League baseball (in some passages he compares his performance to a hitter’s), that he chided himself occasionally for not working out at the Y, that he revised repeatedly and tenaciously (no “automatic writer,” Kerouac). Readers will probably not be surprised to read his accounts of binge-drinking (he died of cirrhosis at 47), of his passions for Melville, Dostoyevsky, and Twain, of his obsessions for travel (back and forth across the country, time after time). In these journals appears some of that Whitmanesque energy and effluence and exuberance (and superfluity) for which his fiction is known.
Brinkley’s intelligent choices allow us to see both the familiar Kerouac and a mysterious stranger as well.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2004
ISBN: 0-670-03341-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
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by Elijah Wald ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2015
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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