The Subterraneans
by Jack Kerouac
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack KerouacEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01-27
ISBN: 0802131867
Number of pages: 111
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of The Subterraneans
Book Review: Dynamic look at the creative and emotional drives of Kerouac
Summary: 3 Stars
This short novel--the third novel of Kerouac's to be published--is written with nonstop ferocity. The narrator, Leo Percepied, Kerouac's alter-ego here, tells with rapid-fire think-speak the story of his love affair with Mardou Fox, one of the San Francisco "subterreaneans" (nee " the Beats"). (As one reviewer already pointed out, the novel was supposed to be set in New York City but was changed for legal reasons.) Leo seems interested in Mardou partly "because she was Negro" (p. 2). Part of Kerouac's romanticization of the African American experience in his writings (see, for instance, the "joy, kicks, darkness" passage in "On the Road" and his exaltation of Charlie Parker as a Buddha-like figure in "Mexico City Blues") is partially explained here when he writes of Mardou, "no girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in hell and the hell the selfsame streets I'd roamed in watching, watching for someone just like her and never dreaming the darkness and the mystery and eventuality of our meeting in eternity" (p. 36). Kerouac was genuinely attracted to suffering--at least at this point in his life--as a heroic ideal, which was often embodied, for him, in the American-minority experience. Kerouac reportedly wrote the novel in three days while on some uppers and it shows. "The Subterraneans" jumps and juts in-between thoughts and ideas without any cues, and is chock-full of incomplete and run-on sentences. At first, the furious pace is quite engaging and fun, but, predictably, it becomes tiresome (this is most evident when Leo retells Mardou's story about her nervous breakdown). Although of minor interest in the overall scope of literature, it is a must read for any fan of Kerouac, as it describes the dynamics of his drive to write in 1953. For instance, he seems more committed to writing than to loving Mardou. Mardou tells Leo that men "are so crazy, they want the essence, the woman is the essence, there it is right in their hands but they rush off erecting big abstract constructions" (p. 16). Ultimately Leo leaves her to erect the [little] abstract construction known as "The Subterraneans." Leo also exhibits disappointment at the fact that Mac Jones (based on John Clellon Holmes and his big advance for the publication of his novel "Go" in 1952) was given a huge advance to write about the stuff he had been writing about for years with little to show for it in the way of compensation. Along with glimpses into the destructive alcoholic tendencies of Kerouac, which seem to have been romanticized since his death, "The Subterraneans" is a very insightful look into the lives of Jack Kerouac.
Summary of The Subterraneans
Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac's early classic, On The Road. Centering on the tempestous breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox--two denizens of the 1950s San Francsico underground--The Subterraneans is a tale of dark alleys and dark rooms,of artists, of visionaries,
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