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A young man searches for meaning, creates art, and grapples with fame as he traverses the stomping grounds of the Beat Generation-from Mexico City to Manhattan-in Jack Kerouac's semi-autobiographical novel This urgently paced yet deeply introspective novel closely tracks On the Road author Jack Kerouac's own life. Jack Duluoz journeys from the Cascade Mountains to San Francisco, Mexico City, New York, and Tangier. While working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the Cascades, Duluoz contemplates his inner void and the distressing isolation brought on by his youthful sense of adventure. In Tangier he suffers a similar feeling of desperation during an opium overdose, and in Mexico City he meets up with a morphine-addicted philosopher and seeks an antidote to his solitude in a whorehouse. As in Kerouac's other novels, Desolation Angels features a lively cast of pseudonymous versions of his fellow Beat poets, including William S. Burroughs (as Bull Hubbard), Neal Cassady (as Cody Pomeray), and Allen Ginsberg (as Irwin Garden). Duluoz draws readers into the trials and tribulations of these literary iconoclasts-from drug-fueled writing frenzies and alcoholic self-realizations to frenetic international road trips and tumultuous love affairs. Achieving literary success comes with its own consequences though, as Duluoz and his friends must face the scrutiny that comes with rising to the national stage.… (more)
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After Kerouac finally descends from the mountain and heads toward his familiar haunts in San Francisco and on the road, the book becomes slightly more like "The Dharma Bums," the novel which chronologically precedes "Desolation Angels" in the grand Vanity of Duluoz arch. Even more than in any of his previous works, Kerouac appears to strain under the pressure of balancing his wine- and people-loving sides with his side that just wants to return to his contemplations in solitude. Solitude and desolation play great roles in this book, contrasting with Jack's sociability, rising fame, and excitement about the ascendancy of the Beat Generation.
Altogether, not always Kerouac's most readable work, but well worth the effort.
This doesn't hold up to my recollection, but how could it? Dharma Bums may be his only work still read, or worth reading, in a few more decades. It's all Jack, straight through.
Well, I liked this book much more the first time I read it. This time, I just liked it okay. I don't remember Kerouac being so whiny. Even when "On the Road" is published near the end of this novel, he just seems put out. I thought I remembered this book as a fun adventure story, but this time around, it felt more like a sad man who is lost and all alone in the fame he thought he wanted.