Visions of Cody
Selections from the Novel
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Visions of Cody
Narrated by:
Graham Parker
Buy Now for £4.86
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Narrated by:
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Graham Parker
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By:
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Jack Kerouac
“The centerpiece of all [Kerouac’s] novels.”—The Washington Post
Originally written in 1951–1952, Visions of Cody was an underground classic by the time it was finally published in 1972, three years after Kerouac’s death. Utilizing a radical, experimental form (“the New Journalism fifteen years early,” as Dennis McNally noted in Desolate Angel), Kerouac examines his own New York life in a collection of colorful stream-of-consciousness essays. Always transfixed by Neal Cassady—here named Cody Pomeray—along with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Kerouac also explores the feelings he had for a man who inspired much of his work.
Transcribing taped conversations between members of their group as they took drugs and drank, Visions of Cody reveals an intimate portrait of people caught up in destructive relationships with substances, and one another, capturing the members of the Beat Generation in the years before any label had been affixed to them.©1960 Jack Kerouac; ©1972 The Estate of Jack Kerouac, All Rights Reserved; (P) and ©1996 Penguin Books USA Inc.
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Critic reviews
"[Y]ou will find some of Kerouac's very best writing in this book. It is funny, it is serious. It is eloquent. To read "On the Road" but not "Visions of Cody" is to take a nice sightseeing tour but to forgo the spectacular rapids of Jack Kerouac's wildest writing." —The New York Times Book Review
“Visions of Cody is [Kerouac's] greatest book, according to his own opinion, and its music is testimony to [his] verbal inventiveness and virtuosity . . . the range and variation of style within his remarkably growing bookshelf is just as remarkable . . . there is a grace, a majesty, and a tenderness to his language . . . both the inspiration and the content of this literature is of an intuitive, emotional, and mystical nature.” —The Village Voice
"The most sincere and holy writing I know of our age." —Allen Ginsburg
“Visions of Cody is [Kerouac's] greatest book, according to his own opinion, and its music is testimony to [his] verbal inventiveness and virtuosity . . . the range and variation of style within his remarkably growing bookshelf is just as remarkable . . . there is a grace, a majesty, and a tenderness to his language . . . both the inspiration and the content of this literature is of an intuitive, emotional, and mystical nature.” —The Village Voice
"The most sincere and holy writing I know of our age." —Allen Ginsburg
It is written in a stream of consciousness style with breathless sentences and is a wonderfully disjointed journey written from transcribed conversations between Duluoz (Kerouac) and Cody (Neal Cassady).
It is written as sketches or poetry rather than a novel and generally covers the trip by Duluoz from New York to to visit Cody in San Francisco. The first part is Duluoz planning and the second part is their adventures.
The writing is so sumptuous and evocative. There are bums, 50 cent whores, pool halls, trains, bars and diners.
There is much drinking and pot smoking and late night parties with waitresses, their are crazy characters such as Carlo Marx, and Dean Moriarty. Essentially the book is about rebellious young people trying to build a life after the failure of the American Dream.
Rumour has it that Kerouac wanted to write like Proust had in his epic In Search of Lost Time. He quotes Proust appreciatively. Rumour also has it that Duluoz (French Canadian slang for louse) was created in Liverpool where Kerouac was stationed in the merchant navy. All Kerouac's books are essentially parts of one single, larger work.
Anyhow I have chosen to review Visions of Cody rather than his other titles as it is my favourite and contains some of Kerouac's best writings and sadly wasn't printed until twenty years after it was written in 1952 because of sexuality explicit content which, these days, is hardly noticible.
Most importantly, Graham Parker's reading together with the accompanying music take what is already an outstanding book and make it into a sensory work of art.
Fast paced trip through the Beat Generation
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