Jack Kerouac

La collezione "Conoscere un'opera" offre di sapere tutto su Sulla strada di Jack Kerouac, grazie a una scheda di lettura tanto completa quanto dettagliata. La scrittura, chiara e accessibile, stata affidata a uno specialista universitario. Questa scheda di lettura conforme a una carta di qualit creata da un team d'insegnanti. La presente guida contiene la biografia di Jack Kerouac, la presentazione dell'opera, il riassunto dettagliato (capitolo per capitolo), le ragioni del suo successo, i temi principali e l'analisi del movimento letterario dell'autore.

'See my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart...'Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books 50 Covers competition For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin's iconic book design with twelve influential American literary classics representing the breadth and diversity of the Penguin Classics library. These collectible editions are dressed in the iconic orange and white tri-band cover design, first created in 1935, while french flaps, high-quality paper, and striking cover illustrations provide the cutting-edge design treatment that is the signature of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions today. On the Road Jack Kerouac's masterpiece of the Beat era was first published in 1957 and continues to provide a vital portrait of a generation adrift, as well as inspiration for travelers, dreamers, and artists in every generation that has followed.

The Haunted Life is the coming-of-age story of Peter Martin, a college track star determined to idle away what he knows will be one of his last innocent summers in his tranquil New England home town. But with the war escalating in Europe and his two closest friends both plotting their escapes, he realizes how sheltered his upbringing has been. As he surveys the competing influences of his youth, he struggles to determine what might lead to an intellectually authentic life. The Haunted Life is ultimately a meditation on intellectual truth, male friendship and the desire for movement - all themes that would dominate Kerouac's later work.

'His first novel is a revelation ... the writing is vivid, serious and extraordinary ... wonderful' The Times The Sea is My Brother is Jack Kerouac's very first novel, begun shortly after his tour as a merchant sailor in 1942. Lost during his lifetime, it is an intense portrait of friendship and brotherhood and a meditation on the desire to escape society, following the fortunes of two men as they impulsively decide to work their passage on the S.S. Westminster: drinking, arguing, playing cards, dodging torpedoes and contemplating the vast, terrible beauty of the sea. Published with fragments of early stories and letters, this visceral work gives a unique insight into the young Kerouac and the formation of his genius. 'What's clear from this newly published first novel is that Kerouac was positively fizzing with talent at an early age' Sunday Times

'One of the most true, comic and grizzly journeys in American literature' Time Desolation Angels is the wild and soulful story of the legendary road trip that Jack Kerouac took before the publication of On the Road, told through the persona of Jack Duluoz and accompanied by his thinly-disguised Beat cohorts Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs. As they hitch, hop freight trains, walk and talk their way across the world, from California to Mexico, London to Paris and on to opium-ridden Tangiers, Kerouac chronicles their poetry, partying, mountain vigils and spiritual contemplation with unsurpassable energy and humanity. 'Nerve-jangling, sentimental, sincere and funny' Sunday Times

In 1960 Jack Kerouac was near breaking point. Driven mad by constant press attention in the wake of the publication of On the Road, he needed to get away to solitude again or die, so he withdrew to a cabin in Big Sur on the Californian coast.

Jack Kerouac called Doctor Sax, the enigmatic figure who haunted his boyhood imagination, 'my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover'. In this extraordinary autobiographical account of growing up in Lowell, Massachussetts, told through his fictional alter ego Jack Duluoz, he mingles real people and events with fantastical figures to capture the accents, scents, sights and texture of his childhood: playing among the river weeds and railroad tracks, going to church, witnessing life and death on the street corners. Written when he was staying with William Burroughs in Mexico in 1952, Doctor Sax was Kerouac's favourite of all his books: a dark, vivid and magical evocation of a boy's vibrant inner life.

The tale of Kerouac's alter-ego, Vanity of Duluoz presents Jack Duluoz's high school experiences as a sporting jock in Massachusetts and his time at Columbia University on a football scholarship. Just as Jack's glamorous new adult life begins, so does World War II, and he joins the US Navy to travel the world. As Jack experiences more, he realizes the limits of his former plans and returns to New York at the start of the Beat movement, to a riot of drugs, sex and writing. Vanity of Duluoz was Kerouac's final work published before his death in 1969.

'A remarkable ear for the cadences of a phrase or sentence, a sense of how to register in words the sheer, sweet flow of things' Guardian This semi-autobiographical tale of Kerouac's own trip to France, to trace his ancestors and explore his own understanding of the Buddhism that came to define his beliefs, contains some of Kerouac's most lyrical descriptions. From his reports of the strangers he meets and the all-night conversations he enjoys in seedy bars in Paris and Brittany, to the moment in a cab he experiences Buddhism's satori - a feeling of sudden awakening - Kerouac's affecting and revolutionary writing transports the reader.Published at the height of his fame, Satori in Paris is a hectic tale of philosophy, identity and the powerful strangeness of travel.

An experimental novel which remained unpublished for years, Visions of Cody is Kerouac's fascinating examination of his own New York life, in a collection of colourful stream-of-consciousness essays. Transcribing taped conversations between members of their group as they took drugs and drank, this book reveals an intimate portrait of people caught up in destructive relationships with substances, and one another. Always fixated by Neal Cassady - the Cody of the title, renamed for the book along with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs - Kerouac also explores the feelings he had for a man who would inspire much of his work.

" An] essential Beat masterpiece." --The Village Voice. Perhaps one of the last great dual correspondences of the twentieth century, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters reveals not only the process of creation of the two most celebrated members of the Beat Generation, but also the unfolding of a remarkable friendship of immense pathos and spiritual depth. Through this exhilarating exchange of letters, two-thirds of which have never been published before, Kerouac and Ginsberg emerge first and foremost as writers of artistic passion, innovation, and genius. Vivid and enthralling, the letters, which date from their first meeting in 1944 to Kerouac's untimely death in 1969, chronicle the endless struggle, anguish, and sacrifice involved in giving form to their literary visions.

Never before published in Kerouac's lifetime, Jack Kerouac's Wake Up is a clear and powerful study of the life and works of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, from the author of On the Road. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Robert Thurman.Wake Up recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha's royal upbringing and his father's wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. Departing from his father's palace, Siddhartha adopts a homeless life, struggles with his meditations, and eventually finds Enlightenment. Written at the end of Kerouac's career, when he became increasingly interested in Buddhist teachings, and collected for the first time in one book, this fresh and accessible biography is both an important addition to Kerouac's work and a valuable introduction to the world of Buddhism itself.Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. His first published novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957, that made Kerouac famous. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Subterraneans, Big Sur, and The Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in Florida at the age of forty-seven.If you enjoyed Wake Up, you might like Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'[Kerouac] defines the attitudes of an entire generation'Guardian

This definitive Kerouac collection--the only anthology of his work ever published--is an essential introduction to one of the country's most influential writers. "Kerouac's work represents the most extensive experiment in language and literary form undertaken by an American writer of his generation."--The New York Times Book Review This one-volume omnibus, planned by Kerouac himself before his death and completed by his biographer, Ann Charters, makes clear the ambition and accomplishment of Jack Kerouac's "Legend of Duluoz"--the story of his life told in the course of his many "true-story novels." As Kerouac once wrote, "The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through the eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz, the world of raging action and folly and also of gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of his eye." This compilation presents selections from the "Legend of Duluoz" novels, in chronological order, from Dr. Sax to On the Road to Big Sur, and also includes poetry, letters, and essays on Buddhism, writing, and the Beat Generation. The Portable Jack Kerouac offers a total immersion in the mind of an American master. Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

'The tender and achingly poetic account of a love affair' Lester Bangs, Rolling StoneLeo Percepied, aspiring writer and self-styled freewheeling bum, gravitates to the subterraneans, impoverished intellectuals who haunt the bars of San Francisco. One of them is Mardou Fox, beautiful and a little crazy, whose dark eyes, full of suffering and sweetness, find recognition in Leo. But, afraid of his growing involvement, Leo sets out to destroy their love. Written in three days, The Subterraneans is, like all Kerouac's work, closely related to his own life while encapsulating his great vision of America.

An illuminating glimpse into the life and art of Beat legend Jack Kerouac through a collection of letters that "reveals the boldness and originality of Kerouac's artistic vision" (The Boston Globe). "It remains clear from his later letters that Kerouac understood what he was doing as a writer. He consistently explains his aesthetic, his plan to create the Duluoz Legend of books, and the essentially benign charity of his vision."--San Francisco Chronicle The first volume of Jack Kerouac's selected letters was hailed as an important and revealing addition to Kerouac scholarship. This second and final volume, comprising letters written between 1957, the year On the Road was published, and the day before his death in 1969 at age forty-seven, tells Kerouac's life story through his canid correspondences with friends, confidants, and editors--among them Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Philip Whalen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Johnson, and Malcolm Cowley. Documenting his continuing development as a writer and his travels, love affairs, and complicated family life, the letters also reveal Kerouac's amazing courage in the face of criticism and his never-ending quest to be the best writer possible. Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969 offers unparalleled insight into the life and mind of this giant of the American landscape.

An "indispensable" (Chicago Tribune) collection of more than sixty previously unpublished works from Jack Kerouac, ranging from stories and poems to plays and excerpts of novels "Fascinating . . . provides a poignant picture of a life brimming with promise."--The Boston Globe Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write. Atop an Underwood brings together works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two years old, including an excerpt from The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences, including the source of his spontaneous prose style. Uncovering a fascinating missing link in Kerouac's development as a writer, Atop an Underwood is essential reading for Kerouac fans, scholars, and critics alike.

Another addition to Penguin Modern Classics' key Kerouac holdings. Two ebullient young men search for Truth the Zen way: from marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, and "yabyum" in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude in the high Sierras and a vigil atop Desolation Peak in Washington State. Published just a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums is sparked by Kerouac's expansiveness, humor, and a contagious zest for life.