THE SUBTERRANEANS.

by Jack Kerouac

The Subterraneans{Paperback,1989}

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, American, The United States Of America, 20th Century

Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.

Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this novel, which introduces us to the San Francisco beat generation of the 1950s by making us live the love story a couple of times, almost step by step, we are immediately familiar with Jack Kerouac's verve. Verve because his writing is one of speech, of choppy sentences, of reflection on the spot throughout a novel, which is only after the fact, only once we think about it again, because, at the first reading, we are caught in the whirlwind of this jerky, hatched writing. At the end of the book, he says it himself: "And I go home having lost his love. Writing this book." It is striking because we are witnessing the birth of a generation like Percepied, the main character who tells this book.

[Sam Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an admitted Kerouac fan and I think most people who read Kerouac begin and end with On the Road, which was of course groundbreaking in its day. I loved On the Road and have read it repeatedly on and off over decades. Subterraneans, however, sat on my shelf in the I'll-get-to-it pile. This book (more a novella than an novel)chronicles his affair with Mardou Fox (Alene Lee was her real name), a young black woman. While some have called it racist, and others misogynistic (the Beats weren't the most enlightened guys when it came to women), I think it has to be taken as a product of its time. Consider that an interracial relationship would have been pretty radical in the 50's, and both Kerouac's alter ego, Leo and Mardou both realize this.

What struck me was the utter nakedness of Kerouac in this completely stream of consciousness book. He shows himself to be sexually confused and conscious of that. He knows he's broken in many ways, discussing his mental state and his very strong and probably damaging relationship with his mother. He talks about wanting to live the life of freedom and kicks while simultaneously wanting to settle down, and he knows that he won't be successful at either. This is a completely introspective book and he spared himself nothing.

While some will find the wild prose off putting, I loved it. Reading this book is more like being carried away in a river current than actually reading. In the end, it broke my heart and made me sad for Kerouac and his confusion, his belief in his own failure on every level, and his seeming acceptance of that.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kerouac's kind of a dick in this one, whining and chasing after this black girl Mardou all through the book. Once she caves in to his non-existent charms he dumps her like he's Tommy Lee or something.
When he's not crying for her to take him back he's busy fetishizing her blackness like she's a pickaninny doll and then drunkenly makes in-crowd jokes to his pals about Buddha and Boddhisatva. What a shithead.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly sad novel. I fall in and out of love with Kerouac's prose, but his story rips your heart out. It was recommended to me by a colleague who told me that this book is about "people who make decisions by not making any choices."

[Matthew Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

115th book of 2020.

A beautiful novel, with the heartache and wistfulness of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. There are several connections to be made: Chapman, Proust (of course) and Othello. Before I begin, and speaking of music, was this Bowie song conceived because of this novel? He has said in many interviews that Jack Kerouac was very important to him... Bowie's "Subterraneans" here.

This is my 9th Kerouac now in my journey to read them all; by read them all, it’s more like living them all, living your life alongside Jack, which is often disorientating, sad, wistful, and wild. There are distinct ‘versions’ of Kerouac, which I have discussed in previous reviews. Like anyone who would write about themselves throughout their life, Kerouac goes through some metamorphoses. I won’t say it all again, but I will briefly comment on the slight shift here: On the Road Kerouac is quite unlike others; he is obsessed, firstly, with Neal Cassady, who really is the spotlight of the novel. It feels young – it is hopeful, from what I remember, but also sad in a sort of running without direction way: in the being young and not knowing what you’re ‘really’ doing, kind of way. The Subterraneans has part of that, but it’s also a push into the later and more melancholic and honest Kerouac – like the only we see in my favourite, Big Sur - which, frankly, rips the heart out.

This novel is about Jack (this time called Leo Percepied) and his relationship and love with Mardou (by the blurb) ‘part Negro, part Cherokee, beautiful and a little crazy’. Interestingly the blurb also states, ‘Leo sets out to destroy their love’. This is partly the case, but also partly the pain of the novel – it should be worded ‘destroy his own love’ – because the acts in this book are self-destructive, in fact, I’d argue, a lot of Kerouac’s life was comprised of acts of self-destruction. Even his death.

Leo and Mardou have plans, and it feels very much like verse two of Fast Car:

You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
Won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

Or, in Kerouac:

‘Ah Mardou, I’m all mixed up – I can’t make up my mind – we ought to do something together – I know what, I’ll get a job on the railroad and we’ll live together –’ this is the great new idea.

Kerouac wrote this novel in three days, and it rushes, burns with the energy from that – the frustration, the bubbling feeling of escape, of life, of love, of the world being his oyster in one minute of fantasy, and then the low point – reality clouding over again – no money, struggling love, not wanting to desert his mother. He is ‘all mixed up’ and we can read it there on the page – he is aching for something he can’t have. It’s in his reach, but he won’t jump to take it. I think this book has a lot of resentment over that fact. It’s something I’ve felt myself during this lockdown, the almost spasming desire to escape, for freedom. Kerouac lived his whole life like that, running, escaping, being free, but always returning, always being in the hold of his mother’s ‘apron strings’.

But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way.

Above all, this book is about jealousy. I recently reviewed Shakespeare’s Othello, in which I compared it to Greene’s The End of the Affair and the beautiful and moving “Swann in Love” from Proust’s Swann's Way. So now, I compare both to this. Kerouac’s goal in life was to fill a bookcase shelf with his “Duluoz Legend”, which would be like a Proustian epic, an American In Search of Lost Time, if you will. There is a moment that mirrors poor Swann’s jealousy: Leo goes to Mardou’s house and sees no light on – he is checking if she is in – and this feels the same as when Swann was standing below Odette’s window and seeing the light on and wondering if she was with a man in there, wondering if his love was being betrayed. Both these scenes are like Hopper paintings in my mind’s eye: a dark house with just a single light on, glowing yellow amidst all that darkness, glowing, potentially, with betrayal.

City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder

Mardou has moments of realism too. She says to Leo, we were going to Mexico, and then you were going to get a job and we’d live together… Dreams left by the wayside. So, I hear Chapman singing You still ain't got a job… So, this novel is not just about failing love, but failing life, dreams, even ideas. A million ideas die every day, Kerouac’s novel is a testament to that. But, despite his jealousy, he tried, he made a schedule to fit his loving in with his dream (the balance between love and dreams like in the movie La La Land) - This is the cleverest arrangement I ever made, why with this thing I can live a full love-life… and at the same time write those three novels and be a big – etc. I suppose it’s also learning about those early, naïve loves, that only loving sometimes isn’t enough – that we can love someone with our entire hearts, but if they don’t love us back, then our love is meaningless. Parts of this book wept with meaningless, with banality. At one point, Leo, Kerouac, reflects: art is short, life is long - but, maybe, truly, it is the other way around. And he knew it.

So, not the final words of Chapman’s song, but the lines that will end this review. Leo is Othello – and they are both anyone who has ever lived.

I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it

[Terence M [on a brief semi-hiatus] · Rating 2 out of 5]

After looking at a GR reader's list of 'books read' today, I was wondering about Kerouac and thinking, I am quite sure I read more than "On The Road" back in the day, so I looked at the GR list of Kerouac books.

I read "On The Road" in about 1957 - I was 16. I had been 'into' early rock 'n roll since '55 and I was listening to folk music about the same time. Rock was very cool and although I loved Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Louis, Little Richard, et al., I was more inspired by folk music, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie etc., and what they, and their music, represented.

Coffee shops, or coffee houses, were the 'go' back then and the owners encouraged young 'folkies' to audition for the positions as resident singers. I couldn't get enough of our own folk-singers, all of whom sang what today are called "covers", no-one would have dreamed of writing and singing their own songs. So, for the cost of a couple of cups of coffee, plus maybe some toasted raisin bread, I could spend hours in a dimly lit coffee lounge, (candles, regular candles like those we saw at church, nothing fancy) and absorb the music and enjoy chatting with the customers, and the folkies. Several years later, at age 20, I was the Tuesday night 'resident folkie' at a coffee lounge not far from my home. I was learning classical guitar at the time, so it was good practice for my 'finger-style' playing, so beloved of folkies back then. This was before my all-time hero, Bob Dylan, changed to 'steel strings' and then, a bit later, he introduced his bloody electric guitar! We older folkies all screamed "Sacrilege!" but he is still the best of the best to me😎.

Way back then, somebody gave me a copy of "On The Road", saying that I just had to read it, and I did. I never confessed that it meant nothing much to me, and just as I did a year or two later with "Atlas Shrugged", I waxed lyrical about how amazing Jack Kerouac and his book were.

Now, looking at the blurbs, I can remember 'reading' "The Dharma Bums" and "The Subterraneans" because, how could I have not? They were de rigueur at the time!

Can I remember anything much about either book? No, I cannot, but nonetheless I have been inspired, to add here, my 65 year-old memories as a "review" of each book!

Edit: 26/07/2023:
I want to mention that sometime in 2022, I tried to read (not listen to) an old copy of "On The Road". The attempt was a dismal failure and I "dnf'd" about a quarter of the way into the book.

I "got" the "no punctuation, no paragraphs, no etc, scroll format" of the book, because that was one the features most commented upon following publication of OTR, but pretty much everything else about this alleged ode to the "Beat" generation eluded me.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

”And I go home having lost her love and write this book.”

This short novel concentrates on a short love affair that happened over a summer. While other Beat characters are present for context and flavor (The Subterraneans), the focus stays fairly tightly on Leo (Kerouac’s stand in) and his romantic interest Mardou. A pretty big deal is made of the fact that Mardou is brown skinned, which, in context of the times (early 1950s) would have indeed been a big thing.

But none of this is important. It hardly matters at all, actually. Because the reason you want to read this book is Kerouac’s prose — that jazz inspired, Benzedrine powered Bebop prose that comes at you not so much as a stream of consciousness, but more like a fire hose of consciousness. Its startling and erudite descriptiveness in its driving, syncopated rhythms is concentrated in this short novel, and may well be the single best example of Kerouac’s mastery of this unique style.

[Kuszma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valamikor a múlt század második felében a Múzsának bohókás ötlete támadt. Odahajolt pár fiatal, drogprevenciós célokra aligha alkalmazható írópalánta füléhez, és azt súgta: "Jack, az irodalom annyi, hogy leírod, ami az eszedbe jut. Csak leülsz, és leírod. Jó lesz, meglátod." És lőn, megszületett a spontán írás. (Érdekes belegondolni, mi lett volna, ha ez a Múzsa mondjuk a bútorasztalosságra akarta volna inspirálni hőseinket. Nyilván most Amerika tele lenne diszfunkcionális hintaszékekkel és éjjeliszekrényekkel.) No most nekem a spontán írásról nincs nagy véleményem, vallom, hogy amennyiben a lendületből papírra vetett szövegeket figyelmesen átolvassuk és kijavítjuk, húzunk belőlük és (ritkábban) írunk hozzájuk, attól többnyire jobbak lesznek. (És ebben bizonyosan egyetért velem a kiadói lektorok klánja*.) Meggyőződésem, hogy ha akad is húszból egy ember, aki képes a legjobbat kihozni a módszerből, a többiek között felülreprezentáltak lesznek a kutyaütők, akik annyira el vannak ájulva saját írói késztetésüktől (nem képességeiktől, csupán a puszta késztetéstől!), hogy attól máris Irodalom Istenanya felkent grállovagjainak tekintik magukat, és a világ a hülye, ha ennek az ellenkezőjét érzékeli**.


(Beszóltál a könyvemre, kishurka? - érdeklődik Kerouac kedvesen.)

No most mindennek fényében az a fura, hogy ez a spontán írás dolog esetenként mégis működik. Kerouac-ék egyik orbitális szerencséje az volt, hogy ez a gondolat akkor eredetinek hatott, ráadásul képes volt olyan friss erővel megragadni az átélt élmények nyers valóságát, ami valóban új színt vitt az irodalomba. Új életformát illusztráltak ezek a srácok, újszerű nyelvvel kísérleteztek, és ez minimum érdekes eredményeket szült - ha pedig a módszer művelője mintegy mellesleg még jó író is volt (mert a nemszeretem módszerek művelői is lehetnek jó írók), akkor a költői erő vagy a humor akár el is vihette a hátán az egész szövegkását.

No most ifjúkori emlékeim szerint ez időnként Kerouacnak is sikerült. De nem ebben a kötetben. Vannak persze felvillanások, lenyűgöző szóképek, az őszinteség bizsergető bugyborékolásai. De egyik sem képes sokáig feledtetni, hogy valójában ez egy zűrös pacák által összedobott katyvasz, aminek születését semmi más nem indokolta, mint hogy elhagyta őt a nője, és ezt ki kellett írnia magából. Elismerem persze, hogy bizonyos korlátok közt szerethető katyvasz ez, de azért csak katyvasz. Fárasztott.

* És - akármennyire is fájna neki bevallani - titkon egyetértene velem Kerouac is, aki a rendelkezésre álló bizonyítékok alapján maga is rendszeresen átírta szövegeit. Szóval szép dolog a buddhista légzéstechnikára támaszkodó improvizáció, de az elemző újraolvasás ebben az esetben is elkerülhetetlen.
** Kerouac írói hitvallásának párlata A modern próza eszméje és módszere című lista. Ebben olyan (amúgy izgalmas) javaslatok vannak, mint hogy "Légy szerelmes a saját életedbe" (4. pont), vagy "Amit érzel, megtalálja önmaga formáját" (5. pont). Ugyanakkor ott van az is, ami nézetem szerint írók százainak vágta gajra az önelemző készségét, az a fránya 29. pont: "Minden körülmények között zseni vagy". Pedig hát nem.

[David Carrasco · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿Qué pasa cuando el poeta del frenesí beat se queda atrapado en un sótano emocional?

Olvídate de las carreteras abiertas, los paisajes en fuga y la épica de la velocidad. Aquí no hay horizontes que perseguir, solo callejones oscuros y jazz en sótanos llenos de humo. Los subterráneos es Kerouac encerrado en San Francisco, sin escapatoria, girando en círculos en torno a un amor caótico y febril. Si En la carretera era la exaltación de la libertad y la juventud, esta novela es el derrape existencial de quien ya no sabe dónde más huir.

La historia —o mejor dicho, la espiral— gira en torno a Leo Percepied (trasunto de Kerouac), un escritor atormentado que se enamora de Mardou Fox, una joven bohemia afroamericana de ascendencia nativoamericana. Lo suyo es un romance devorado por la inseguridad, el ego y la autodestrucción. Él la desea, la idealiza, la asfixia con sus inseguridades, y en el proceso nos arrastra a lo más profundo de sus obsesiones. No hay estructura convencional ni progresión narrativa clara: todo es un flujo de conciencia que avanza como un solo de jazz descontrolado.

Pero hay algo más en esta historia que la hace aún más tensa, más cargada de incertidumbre: su dimensión racial. Una relación interracial en los años 50 no era cualquier cosa, y Kerouac lo sabe. Leo y Mardou no viven su historia en un vacío romántico, sino en un mundo donde sus diferencias pesan, donde la mirada de los otros se filtra en cada gesto. Y esa sensación está ahí, implícita, soterrada en cada duda, en cada gesto, en cada momento de desconexión entre ellos y en la mirada de quienes los rodean. ¿Está Leo realmente enamorado de Mardou o simplemente fascinado por su otredad, por la idea de una mujer que encarna un universo que él solo puede rozar desde fuera? Hay un subtexto incómodo en todo esto, una tensión que Kerouac deja vibrando en el fondo como una nota de bajo en un blues melancólico.

Si en En la carretera la prosa de Kerouac era un himno a la velocidad, aquí es puro delirio confesional. Las frases son largas, atropelladas, vertiginosas, llenas de comas y de digresiones entre paréntesis, que siguen a otras digresiones entre paréntesis, y a otra más, para volver al tema principal. Es puro jazz en palabras. Leo Percepied piensa, recuerda, duda, se obsesiona, todo en la misma respiración. Es un monólogo febril que mezcla filosofía barata, revelaciones poéticas y accesos de autocompasión.

Hay algo de la verbosidad de Thomas Wolfe en la prosa de Kerouac. Ambos comparten esa tendencia a la prosa torrencial, expansiva y poética, con frases largas y una cadencia que parece imitar el flujo mismo del pensamiento y la emoción. Pero Kerouac toma esa musicalidad de Wolfe, esa intensidad lírica casi obsesiva, esa necesidad de capturar cada sensación con un lenguaje desbordante, y la lleva un paso más allá, incorporando el ritmo del jazz y la espontaneidad de la prosodia del bop. Leyéndolo, sientes que estás escuchando una jam session de Charlie Parker o Thelonious Monk: un flujo improvisado y rítmico que parte de una idea central, se desborda en digresiones vertiginosas y luego regresa, a veces transformado, a su punto de origen. Y, no obstante, la esencia sigue ahí: una voz profundamente personal, febril, que no teme perderse en la grandilocuencia o en la introspección más cruda. Si Wolfe es la sinfonía grandiosa, Kerouac es el solo de saxofón en un club lleno de humo, donde cada nota es un latigazo de vida.

Y, sin embargo, también hay algo hipnótico en la manera en que Kerouac nos lo cuenta, como si estuviéramos escuchando a un amigo perdido en su propia historia a las tres de la mañana, con un cigarrillo a medio consumir y una copa que nunca se vacía del todo. Es ese tipo de confesión febril que parece desmoronarse sobre sí misma, pero que en el fondo es un retrato brutal de lo que significa amar y perder en un mismo movimiento.

«Algún día no la encontrarás allí arriba, cuando quieras encontrarla, la luz estará apagada, alzarás la mirada y Heavenly Lane estará a oscuras, y Mardou se habrá ido, y esto ocurrirá cuando menos te lo esperes, cuando menos lo desees»

Porque eso es Los subterráneos: una inmersión sin botella de oxígeno en la ansiedad, el deseo y el fracaso. Una novela sobre la obsesión masculina, sobre la incapacidad de amar sin destruir, sobre los límites de la libertad cuando lo que deseas es pertenecer a alguien. Y también una crónica de los márgenes: Kerouac nos mete de lleno en la subcultura beat de San Francisco, con su jazz frenético, sus bares, sus antros y sus personajes al filo de la sociedad.

Comparada con En la carretera, esta novela es más claustrofóbica, más íntima, más desesperada. Si la primera era un canto a la amistad y la búsqueda de sentido en el movimiento, Los subterráneos es el testimonio de alguien que ya no cree en la carretera como vía de escape. Aquí no hay épica, solo el vacío de quien se ha quedado sin dirección.

Pero lo más fascinante de todo es que, a pesar de la angustia, a pesar de la toxicidad de su relación con Mardou, hay momentos de belleza pura, de lucidez poética. Kerouac podía ser un desastre en su vida personal, pero cuando escribía, atrapaba verdades incómodas con una precisión dolorosa.

Y lo más demoledor es que Kerouac lo acepta. No lucha contra su fracaso, no intenta disfrazarlo de enseñanza o redención. Su derrota es absoluta, y la asume con un estoicismo amargo, como alguien que ha bebido demasiado y ya no tiene fuerzas ni para justificar sus errores. No hay épica en su desmoronamiento, solo un murmullo de resignación: así es la vida, así es el amor, así soy yo. Los subterráneos no es solo la historia de un romance fallido, es la confesión de un hombre que se sabe perdido y que, en lugar de buscar una salida, se sienta a contemplar el desastre con una mezcla de autocompasión y lucidez brutal.

“Y yo me vuelvo a casa, habiendo perdido su amor.
Y escribo este libro.”

Los subterráneos es una novela que no te deja indiferente. Es breve, pero te deja agotado, como si hubieras estado atrapado en la mente de alguien que no sabe cómo dejar de pensar. No es la obra más accesible de Kerouac, ni quizá la más celebrada, pero tiene algo que la hace única: es el reverso oscuro del mito beat, el momento en que la velocidad se convierte en vértigo y el sueño se desmorona. Porque, después de todo, cuando pasas demasiado tiempo en los subterráneos, la luz del día se vuelve insoportable.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Urban legend has it that On the Road is the primary example of Kerouac's "spontaneous prose," but the description works much better for The Subterraneans, for better and for worse. (He actually reworked On the Road heavily before it was published, but wrote TS over a three day period. It took me slightly longer to read it.

Let's start with the "for worse" part. Man, Kerouac could be a sexist pig. The cavalier treatment of women in TS will drive many readers bat-shit. It's an honest and accurate picture of the protagonist's (and I think it's fair to say, Kerouac's) consciousness, and you can learn a lot about masculine consciousness (of a certain time and place), but still....There's almost no sense that Kerouac took women seriously as intellectual/creative or for that matter sexual equals. (See Joyce Johnson's brilliant Minor Characters for an incisive take on women and the beats; she did some time as Kerouac's girlfriend). Similarly, the racial stereotyping creeps into the novel through a variety of windows and side-doors, often in the guise of celebration. Not nearly as bad as Mailer's White Negro, but a less obnoxious cousin. For all Kerouac presents his protagonist as a guru of bop prosody, I never get the feeling that he understands much about the discipline demanded by bop, looking at it as pure improvisation.

Now for the "for better" elements. The prose is frequently quite energetic and at times brilliant. You can see how Kerouac influenced songwriters like Dylan and Tom Waits, both of whom boil down the energy into more focused forms. Kerouac paints sharp and often satirical portraits of the people hanging around the literary world of beat San Francisco. And, to circle back to the problems, the picture of male psychology *is* striking and honest. Kerouac isn't exactly celebrating the shortcomings of his main figure, but he also doesn't really have much of an idea of an alternative to the self-indulgence.

An odd book. Definitely worth it for Beat fans. Nowhere close to my favorite Kerouac (On the Road Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels).

[Peter · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book contains two shortish stories, The Subterraneans and Pic, both take place during the 1950s.

'The Subterraneans' is set in San Francisco and the main storyline is of a white man having a sexual relationship with a black woman and its subsequent breakup. The story is part biographical and explores the Bohemian subculture of authors and artists of the time.

Whilst the book does touch on some of the intricacies of interracial relationships, what stands out most is the writing style. There is an almost total lack of punctuation, an entire page consisted pretty much of one or two run-on sentences, paragraphs ran to several pages and there was a very liberal use of brackets, some of which seemed never ending. Couple this with the fact that the ideas bounced around all over the place made this a very hard story for me to follow. I considered stopping on more than one occasion, but I did finally start to get it and continued to see what happened next. Ultimately however, I felt my initial thought was best and I should have thrown in the towel. The main character was a racist, sexist bore with no redeeming features.

'Pic' is a very different, it's the story of a young black orphaned boy who makes a road trip with his older brother initially from North Carolina to New York and from there then on to California following the sudden death of their grandfather.

It is hard to think why a middle-aged white guy would want to try and replicate the voice of black youth but to my middle-aged white male ear he seemed to be relatively successful in doing so. This story has echoes of the author's 'The Road' about it but whilst better than what went before, for me, did not raise the overall book much above the mundane.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kerouac's American Bohemia

Kerouac's novel "The Subterraneans" is based on a summer love affair between Kerouac and a young black woman in New York City in 1953. The setting of the story was moved to San Francisco at the behest of the publisher.

The book tells the story of the love, and its end, between Leo Percepied, the Kerouac character, and Mardou Fox. Mardou is half Cherokee and half black. She has grown up in poverty in Oakland and has suffered serious emotional breakdowns. She has gone from lover to lover among the Bohemia of San Francisco until she meets up with Leo.

The book shows some of Kerouac's understanding of his own character. He describes himself (page 1) as both an "unself-confident man" and as an "egomaniac". A few pages later (page 3) he confesses that "I am crudely malely sexual and cannot help myself and have lecherous and so on propensities as almost all my male readers no doubt are the same."

The Subterraneans are a group of hipsters, aspiring artists, drop-outs, con men who inhabit that bars and streets of San Francisco graphically described in this book. The book is full of mean streets, cold water flats, alleys, run-down stores, cheap bars, late evenings, pushcarts, and sad mornings.

Leo is initially sexually attracted to Mardou. When he learns and listens to her he truly falls in love. She is indeed a lovable character. The picture of the love is convincing. Unfortunately Leo/Kerouac remained throughout his life a mother's boy. Mardou tells him, properly and sensibly "Leo, I don't think it good for you to live with your mother always" (p.47) Leo nonetheless can't part from his mother. He also has doubts about his ability to commit to a black woman, particularly given the prejudice of his mother and sister. He dumps Mardou. It is his loss.

The book is written in long stringy sentences to imitate the "bop" improvisatory style of jazz riffs. I was put of by the style when I began the book but came away concluding it fit the subject matter. The apparent spontaneity and the sincerity of the narrative move the story along.

The book describes well the American hipster of the 1950s. It is ultimately a story of the need for love and the difficulty of commitment. It is a sad story and I think in the emphasis on the wildness of Bohemia can easily be misunderstood. Kerouac may have been somewhat wiser as a writer than he was as a man. He was able to take his inability to form a lasting relationship with a woman and describe it. He turned his experiences and personal difficulties into a poignant and lasting novel.
Art in Kerouac as in so many writers becomes a way of understanding and transcending one's life.

Robin Friedman

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to rise, do some typing and coffee drinking in the kitchen all day since at that time work, work was my dominant thought, not love- not the pain which impels me to write this even while I don't want to, the pain which won't be eased by writing of this but heightened, but which will be redeemed, and if only it were a dignified pain and could be placed somewhere other than this black gutter of shame and loss and noisemaking folly in the night...

[Ryan Milbrath]

Written in 1958, The Subterraneans is Kerouac’s attempt at a memoir about the time-honored literary theme of relationships. At a superficial level, it is merely a novella about how a relationship can crumble in the face societal pressures. However, like relationships, one should never take a person, or written work, at merely face value. The Subterraneans is much more than a romance in the vein of “He’s just not that into you.” The relationship itself is something of taboo in the 1950s, Kerouac’s style of prose experimental, and his description of the beat culture in this book sets in motion the evolution of Beats to Hippies and, now, the Hipsters.



This novella takes the opportunity to explore the relationship between an African American woman (Mardou Fox) and a Caucasian male (Leo Percepied). This relationship mirrors Kerouac’s own relationship with Alene Lee during his stints in San Francisco. Kerouac never makes a solid attempt at examining how the relationship between him and Alene could be viewed as taboo by the dominant culture of 1950’s America. It’s unique that ultimately the relationship fails because of other factors: his drinking, both of their needs to be independent, his longing for her and ultimately her rejection that comes in the form of sexual promiscuity. I believe Keroauc never considered the relationship taboo, because of his bohemian ethics and his rebellion against dominating culture of the 1950s. In it’s simplest form, he doesn’t talk about it, because it doesn’t see it as effecting his relationship since it doesn’t affect him.



The prose of the novella indicates a challenge to the conventional structure and organization of a novel. It takes influence from the modernists like Joyce in its “stream-of-consciousness” style. Yet, I feel Kerouac is more poetic in his construction of sentences than Joyce. Kerouac wrote a lot. He carried a journal around with him and wrote about random experiences during the day. In fact, this novella, feels like a long unbroken experience. While I was reading it, it felt like I embarrassed, as if I stumbled upon some personal journal entry by a person I barely knew.



The other significant facet of this novella is Kerouac’s description of the culture surrounding the Beats. The discussions of poetry, the mindless hedonism, the excessive drinking, the apathy and emotions all seem to be the direct result of the romantic movement – modern day Byron’s, Shelly’s, and Blake’s. In the end, like all counter-culture movements, it seems like a dead end that evolves over time to encompass new young adults and adolescents. At the same time that Kerouac involves himself with the “The subterranean” he disassociates himself from them by casting an ironic eye-brow raise to his own infatuation with dime-store poetry and red-wine. To me, Kerouac transcended the Beats because he never seemed pretentious about a culture he helped create.

[Lemar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The boys beat on curbstones seeing symbols in the gutter” An elderly couple, faces wrinkled by laughter and lined by worry stroll the Paseo holding hands. In many worlds theory they are out there now, Alene Lee and Jack Kerouac, aka Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox, having found the resolve and strength to leave it all behind, the fame, the booze, the parties, the life. For love, for life. But not in this world. If he wasn't a good man he wouldn't have hated himself as he put his boozy self first.
Jack Kerouac was driven to communicate his experience on Earth. He gives all. The facts, the impressions, the doubts of others, the self doubts; this essential honesty is imparted with a manic contagious rush that transports us to his moment. He and his fellow Beats absorb the pain, then seek anesthesia, they stare into the abyss, they resonate to the speed fury of bebop, determined to seize the day even as their hearts break with foreboding. Every time he begins to strut he calls himself out,

“(difficult to make a real confession and show what happened when you’re such an egomaniac all you can do is take off on big paragraphs about minor details about yourself and the big soul details about others go sitting and waiting around)"

“all those good things, good times we had, others I am now in the heat of my frenzy forgetting but I must tell all, but angels know all and record it in books”


That’s how I see him, a brilliant demented angel recording all in books. And I'm grateful. At times in the Subterraneans he is unlikable. At these times though, he does not like himself. That makes me like him, because I feel that way about myself. He is in love with Mardou, her mother a Black woman, her father a Native American, and in 1953 that is a big deal, so he explores it, in his breathy exhaustive style. He made me uncomfortable at times but I would rather read that than have him shy away from confronting his inner monologue. I learned something more about racism, and I use that to change. There is an evolution of consciousness in this country, so what did these hopped up beatniks really think about Black people? They loved Bebop, hung out with Black friends, what was really going on inside their heads? What did they think about Native Americans? Jack Kerouac is the guy who tells us. He did the work, He sat down at his typewriter and took the time to communicate to us beings from his future.

“She was afraid of all the behatted men ranged in the bar, now I saw her Negro fear of American society which never gave me any concern” “‘You don’t understand’”

“I saw the vision of her father, he’s standing straight up, proudly, handsome, in the bleak dim red light of America on a corner, nobody knows his name, nobody cares - “

“I’d been out there and sat down on the ground and seen the rail the steel of America covering the ground filled with the bones of old Indians and Original Americans, - In the cold gray fall in Colorado and Wyoming I’d worked on the land and watched Indian hoboes come suddenly out of brush by the track and move slowly, hawk lipped, rill-jawed and wrinkled, into the great shadow of light bearing burden bags and junk”

I’m adding a lot of passages because the rhythm of the writing, the ancient anglo-saxon alliteration, the bebop phrasing, sweeps the reader into a state of mind. Rather than offering a dryly carefully crafted rendering of facts, he transports us out there onto that windy plain, sitting on the ground.

“But they were the inhabiters of this land and under these huge skies they were the worriers and keeners and protectors of wives in whole nations gathered around tents - now the rail that runs over their forefathers’ bones leads them onward pointing into infinity, wraiths of humanity treading lightly the surface of ground so deeply suppurated with the stock of their suffering you only have to dig a foot to find a baby’s hand - the hotshot passenger train with grashing diesel balls by, browm, browm, the Indians just look up-I see them vanishing like spots-"


We get to know Mardou, to understand why he fell for her. Her wisdom awed him, she was well read and charted her own path. Alene Lee never cashed in on the fame that was there for the taking.

I’m left with the impression that he knew that a life with Mardou is as close as he would ever come to escaping a life cut by the ruin of alcohol, but he falls short, and we are there to experience it with him, to hold his hand, shake our heads in sadness, separated by time, but there when he reached out, and we make that connection, complete that desperate circuit, in reading this heartfelt lovelorn book. Kerouac saw the world in imagery of suffering, angels, bodhisattvas and junkies. He crystallized his moment and succeeded in delivering it to us. Akira Kurosawa made a terrific movie called Drunken Angel, maybe Kerouac saw it, I bet he would have nodded his head at the title.

[Pradnya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book with long long sentences. That's why I took long time to read it. 2021 has started with busy days and if only it'd have been a simple prose, I might have read a bunch of pages every night. But no complaints.
I loved the book. I am all in for simple, straight stories. I have reached a point where I want to know about common people's common stories than high drama. (I still love Crazy rich Asians though) A white writer falls in love with an unexceptional black woman, 10 years younger to him, while he is struggling to make his life, earn fame and wishing someone in life to made, Mardrou, the woman, smart but saddened by circumstances accepts him. The story goes through some months after that and many events till he decides to leave her.
I loved the dialogues, the conversation style. It's not usual one. I loved the characters, almost simple and well-formed that I believe it's a real life story. There's no hero's journey, no clever story or climax. The sentences are so long, I think one can actually count how many full stops are in the book. Overall, loved it.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

There they are -- the Subterraneans -- drunk as skunks while they burble on about literature and their love lives. Jack Kerouac (Leo Percepied in the book) wants nothing more than spend all his hours with these pseudo-intellectual lowlifes, but at the same time attempt to maintain a relationship with Mardou Fox, a young black woman. The Subterraneans is the story of this relationship and how it winds to a close with Jack deciding in the end he wanted life on his own boozy terms.

The pity of it is that Jack really appears to have loved Mardou, and Mardou was worth the trouble. Jack writes about himself as a not terribly lovable character, as essentially unworthy. So he gives up and returns to the "boys."

[Jorge García · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Los subterráneos" es una música para ser oída de noche, con sus largos fraseos que suben y bajan, bocanadas de aire etílico y versos que estallan contra la ciudad: San Francisco, ciudad de maricas, poetas y vagabundos.
Tened cuidado de no perderos en esta ciudad subterránea, de andar por la calle equivocada, en la que todo envejece mal: el canto por el amor perdido, la energía sexual que fluye por las páginas, o ese amor pagano. Tal vez no sea más que el culto a sí mismo del dios Kerouac.
Entonces el ritmo se detiene, se corta la respiración, la ciudad pierde su magia, y la música se hace cháchara, ruido, vana música de fondo para curarse del tedio. Bajo el sopor de la música nocturna, te extravías en cualquier portal, fuera del abrigo de las largas noches de alcohol y sexo.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

All of you who gave this book more than 1 star are full of SHIT. Everyone knows this book lacks merit, structure, and any sense of style. This was not rebellion against format it was plainly a drunk white guy writing BS and all of you fell right for this dumbass book. I can not believe I read 33 pages of this crap and trust me I tried to love this book, but its just an insult to the English language or just language in general.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Jack. As always, the enthusiasm and momentum in his writing is infectious. I haven’t read anything by Kerouac for a few years before picking this one up, and I’d forgotten about the weirdness of trying to settle into it like it’s a linear story intended to be clearly followed in detail when really it’s a tilt-a-whirl kind of ride not about to stop and explain itself so all I can do is hang on, watch the colors spinning past, catch enough bits and pieces of the conversations and memories to be able to follow along. Once I remember that, and let go of what I think I know about grammar and punctuation, this evens out into a smooth read.

The scenes that lend themselves best to the carnival feel of Kerouac’s writing are the late-night, not entirely sober party scenes. These are vibrant and cacophonous and we can see how easy it is to get swept up in the enthusiasm of this group of people and their wild migrations from home to a bar to a virtual stranger’s house, everyone talking and yelling over each other and chasing some big idea to the next stop.

Plot in a nutshell: Boy (Leo) meets girl (Mardou), boy crushes on girl, boy and girl date/hook up/get a little soulmate-y, boy flakes on girl and gets jealous of her flirting with other boys, boy decides he’s done with girl then decides he’s not, girl breaks up with boy. It’s sweeter than this, of course, and more frustrating, and somewhat more complex once all the secondary characters are added into the mix, but this is the jist of it. Leo pines for Mardou early on in the book, mentioning his great pain frequently and desire to die occasionally. It feels a little indulgent, all the moping, kind of a prod for us to start a Leo pity party that makes me glad when they do get together, because he steps away from the pathetic for a while when he’s with her.
I think I would label this one of the truest love stories I’ve ever read. It’s not the fairy tale, happily ever after variety, but Leo and Mardou’s relationship feels real. They get together in a lopsided, fumbly sort of way (she takes a while to warm up to him), make grand statements and promises in the rush of a new relationship, and then fail each other in small ways until the magic fades. There is no final reunion scene, or red-roses apologetic gesture, just the sadness of something ending that could maybe have been better than it was. In many ways, I like this better than I would a fluffy happy ending. By the end, I’m also more inclined to indulge Leo in his mopey sadness, because I’ve seen his ambivalence in action (want the girl, but jealousy and wanting other girls and a certain amount of self-sabotage get in the way), and it makes me a little sad, too.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my spin through Kerouac's books, my friend said after reading On The Road and The Dharma Bums that my next task should be The Subterraneans.

Apparently, he wrote this 110-page book in only three days. While the bulk of On The Road was written in this way, making it an American classic, I have to say that for this book, it didn't work as well.

Here, Kerouac shows a more poetic than prosaic style. The sentences seem more like lyrics than in the other two books. Yet here that seemed to take away from the effect rather than enhance it.

It's a story about an affair with a biracial woman, Mardou, whose mother was black and whose abandoning father was Cherokee. Kerouac is at his best when he's detailing her torment and how her relationship with Leo soothes that pain.

His two other classics were, in its simplest form, buddy novels. While you could make a case that Mardou is his buddy here, the more direct connection is the fact that like Dean Moriarty in On the Road and like Japhy Ryder in Dharma Bums, Mardou Fox leaves, and that leaves a hole in the protagonist never to be filled. Here, though, the reasons for it seem almost cliche. Guy gets too close to woman, tries to create some distance, ends up losing what he had and forgets how good he had it.

One thing I couldn't get passed is how Faulknerian the structure of this is -- which is a fancy way of saying that in 110 pages, there's only about nine paragraphs. Perhaps its my own style of writing and reading, but that grates on me.

If you love Kerouac's other books, I suggest a trip through The Subterraneans. But if you've never read a Kerouac novel, this is not the entryway.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s what I had forgotten about Ti Jean.

The legend of Kerouac, promoted by the publication, highly edited for public consumption, of On the Road, in 1957, portrayed the Beats as upbeat, glorying in the joy of the road and of life lived on the edge.

But that was bullshit. Already in 1951, when Kerouac finished his OWN draft, the single scroll, now finally published, in uncorrupted format, as The Original Scroll, Ti Jean was so thoroughly disillusioned and eye-full and awake to the sorrow of his sad brief life — so sad was the book as he wrote it, and which the marketplace altered and corrupted.

So with the Subterraneans, written in 1953, during his years of neglect, and only published after the success of On The Road, already past 30, written in a ‘white heat’, 3 days, in his honest, sorrow’d, unbowdlerized style, the book is so utterly sad, disillusioned, self-aware... Ti Jean tried to play along with the myth for a few years, but he couldn’t really do it. Unlike Ginsberg, whom I met in 1973 or 1974, when he came to my college to sit cross-leg’d and chant for an hour “Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō”, who kept the Myth of the Beats going all those years.

Anyway..., revisiting this, so many years after it fashioned my youth, I can see what a fabulous writer Kerouac was, what heart — even when pathos descended to bathos — and that the cynicism of those who return to Kerouac in their 40’s, only to realize — or to prove, really — that they’ve ‘outgrown’ him, will pass, years later, when they are no longer threatened by the illusions of their *own* youth — and can see him unfiltered and so full of woe.

By the way, Alene Lee was something of a genius. Lucien Carr, who conducted an affair with her for many, many years, said that he had his IQ tested as 155, but that he always considered that Lee was smarter than him — that they all, Burroughs, Ginsberg, himself, considered her as an equal. That’s something that doesn’t quite come through as clearly, though Kerouac knows it, to the uninitiated. The book also contains an interesting scene with William Gaddis (Harold Sand), along with the famous scenes with Gore Vidal and Alan Ansen and others.

[tunalizade · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ve bu kitabı yazıyorum.” diye biten, yollarda aşk molaları veren bir kitap Yer altı Sakinleri. An itibari ile gündemde olan 138 yasak kelimeden biri olan “Beat” kuşağının öncülerinden Jack Kerouac’ın samimi kitabı. Jack Keouac yine yollardadır, her zamanki gibi ama bu sefer aşk için yolculuklarına mola verir, yeraltı sakinleriyle sohbet eder, onlarla takılır, aşk yaşar. Elinde yine içkisi vardır, sigarası vazgeçilmezidir zaten ve uyuşturuculardan da tatmadan edemez. Kafası bir milyondur, âşıktır âşık olmasına ama alkol, ot derken özgüvensizliği bedenine sahip olur, çenesi düşer, boş laflar eder ve hiç de planda olmayan aşk yolculuğu hiç planda olmayan molalarını kendisi verir. Ve dediğine göre oturur üç gün üç gece bu kitabı yazar. Sevindirir, hüzünlendirir, dersler verir.

Ayrıntı Yayınları’nın Yeraltı Edebiyatı Dizisi’nden çıkan kitap 160 sayfalık bir hayat hikâyesi.

Zeynep Demirsü’nün çevirdiği kitap, bu edebiyat tarzını sevdirir cinsten ve dokunaklı. Yazar kitabı 1958 yılında yazmış 1960 yılında da Ranald Macdougall tarafından sinemaya uyarlanmış. Türkçe’ye ise 2010 yılının eylül ayında kazandırıldı.

Jack Kerouac kitabın bir bölümünde şöyle der:
“güneşi, gemileri görebiliyorduk, dışarıda aylak aylak dolanmakta olan insanoğlunu, bunun cidden ne muhteşem bir şey olduğunu ve nasıl olup da asla değerini bilmediğimizi, kaygılarımızın ve derilerimizin içinde kasvette başka bir şeyin olmadığını, gerçekten tıpkı ahmaklar gibi olduğumuzu ya da körleşmiş, şımarık, tiksindirici veletler gibi, hani surat asarlar ya; çünkü… istedikleri… bütün… şekerleri… alamamışlardır.”

Spontane şekilde üç günde yazılmış ama uzun bir süre anlatan ve Jack Kerouac’ı olduğu kadar Beat kuşağını ve diğer sakinlerini anlatan kitap, okunmaya değer.

[trestitia ⵊⵊⵊ deamorski · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Yürek parçalayacak denli arı, berrak, aklı başında, mutlu bir öğle sonrasına uyanıyorum. Kuşlar hâlâ şarkı söylüyor; çocuklarda şarkı söylüyor şimdi. Sanki ben tozlu bir çöp kovasında uyanan bir örümcekmişim, sanki dünya bana göre değilmiş ama tam diğer yaratıkları göreymiş gibi daha havai, kendi içlerinde daha kararlı ve tutarsızlığın lekesine daha az meyilli yaratıkların…”

Tanrım Jack, Jack, JACK!!!
İsim olarak yeterince düşkünlüğüm yokmuş gibi.
Her neyse.

Beat kuşağı, asla kitaplarını okumadığım, tam metinlerini tatmadığım ama hakkında en fazla bilgiye sahip olduğum hareket sanırım. Çünkü Beat her zaman yasak olmuştur bana ve evet #yasaklıkitaplarımıokuyorum sayın okuyucu. Kerouac da en çok okumak istediğim, o olsun diğerleri olmasa da olur dediğim ‘babe’ Beat içinde, kendime en yakın gördüğüm, kendimi gördüğüm, hele ki mektuplardan sonra.

Ginsberg ve Jack’in birbirinine yolladığı mektupları (ithaki yay) okumaktayım -2 yıldır- ancak ilk kitapların bitirildiği döneme girince, artık kitapları okumalıyım dedim, paralel götürüp daha iyi özümsemek istiyorum çünkü Beat dediğiniz şey yazarların, özellikle Jack için birebir kendisidir, yarı kurgu olsa da otobiyografiktir eserleri. Yeraltı Sakinleri de öyle.

Arka kapak yazısı şahane gerçekten, 50'lerin Amerikasında Jack’in negro bir kadın olan Mardou'ya aşkı. “Ah pişmanlıklarımın Mardou’su, o şeyin düşüncesi bir kez olsun kırıştırmıyor senin alnını, öpmem gereken alnını, senin kendi gururunun acısı…”
Ama o aşkın, Jack’in ihmalleri, savurganlığı, kuşku, korku, kıskançlığıyla, sürekli sarhoşluğun altında, kendi elleriyle paramparça edişinin öyküsü, lirik itiraf, isyankar ağıt, kabullenişli itiraz; 3 gün 3 gecede yazılmış. “metaliğe kurşun attığımdan içki içmiyordum yine; bu aşkı kurtaracak şey yoksulluktu… bu yüzden yitirmiştim aşkı. Ayyaş, ahmak, şair…” Mardou'ya hak vermemek yabana atılamaz yani.

Jack’in ilk kitabı olmasa da ki ilk kitap çevrilmemiş bizde (NEDEN!) Beatnic’e girmek için güzel kitap, roman için. Çünkü Ginsberg’ün şairliği ve Burroughs’un romanları çok daha kurmaca ve ağırdır. Ama özellikle Kerouac’un yazımı için şahane seçim, benje.

Önce, benim kadar olmasa da, biraz bilgi edinmekte fayda var üslup ve içerik hakkında, yoksa bam diye çarpabilir. Her ne kadar ayrıntı yayınları yeraltı edebiyatı altına alsa da ben ayrı tutulması taraftarıyım. Her neyse, Beat’in olayı şudur; uyuşturucu, seks, edebiyat, tanrı, arkadaşlık, çalışma hayatı, para, sefillik, lüks, seyahat, yaşama çabası, varoluş, coşku, kin, öfke, maniklik,,, hepsi deneyimle, ki anahtarı buradadır işin, ancak böyle ortaya çıkar. O yüzden yazılar da tamamen bu aykırı, marjinal ve gerçek ‘şey’leri içeriyor. [bohem ve hippilerle karıştırmayın Beat’i, hatta bu üçünü birbirine karıştırmayın, aman] Haliyle çelişki, iç düşünce, savlar, aforizmalar, süre gelmiş tüm diğer sanat akımları, bok, boktanlık… Yazının kendisi ise, Kerouac için daktiloya vurulan, kağıda işlenen ilk haliyle, o hamlıkta kalıyor. Düzeltilmiyor demiyorum, hamlık, yaşamının harflere, kelimelere giydirilmiş hali. Karmaşık, kesik kesik, bir kreşendo bir sessizlik, konudan konuya atlayış, anlık sıçrayış, imlâsız, çıktığı gibi. Tabi bu kitapta bu ağırlıkta bir yazım biçimi yok çok, ama yine o kopukluğu, ya da düzensiz sürekliliği, ya da durmak bilmeyen sınırsızlığı hissediyorsunuz.

Bir de dramatikleştirdiği cümleler var allahım bayılıyorum, aykırı biçemin içinde klişe biçemin bi anda karşınıza çıkması zevkli bir aykırılık doğuruyor (hehe): “Sorma denize kara gözlü kadının gözleri neden tuhaf ve yitik…” ya da “Ben tabi huzursuz, gelgitler içinde ve kesinlikle tutarsızlıktan yoksun; acım ya da çilem biraz olsun belirmedi henüz. Melekler benimle kalın.” ya da “Yüzümün görüntüsünü yalayıp yutan, yüzündeki neşeli açlığı görüyorum, ölebilirim; kalp radyomu güzel bir müzikle k��rma, ey dünya!”

Yaşamını yazdığı için yaşarken nasıl yaşıyorsa yaşadığını da öyle yazıyor (hehe) notunu almışım şunun yanına: “Günün geç saatlerine dek böyle sürüp gidiyordu, yalnızca parçalarını, onları da bölük pörçük anımsadığım, upuzun bir öykü, bağlaç ve virgüllerle bağladığım bir perişanlık kütlesi yalnızca.”

Bir de alt metin arayışına girmeye hiç gerek yok, en fazla, bu kitap için 50’lere siyahlar ve siyah kadınların beyaz ve edebiyat (ki Beatnic) çevresindeki yerinin bilmemnesi fln diyebilirsiniz. En fazla içkinin bokları diyebilirsiniz, en fazla ilişkilerin yozlaşması, ya da kitaba adını veren sakinlerin anlatımı vesaire ama gerek yok, her şey ortada; öyle bi çaba yok çünkü. Kıskanç ve sorumsuz ve sarhoş bir herif ve yitirilen bir aşk var ortada.

“Kendi kendime ‘Güzel, evcimen bir tavuklu akşam yemeği neye yarar? Sen Yuri’yi, odaya girdiğin anda orayı terk etmesine sebep olacak kadar çok severken neye yarar? O, kıskançlığımın baskısını ve senin düşte bir kehanet gibi görünen mümkünatını bunca hissederken neye yarar?’”

Ah tanrım neye yarar.

Irkçı bir yaklaşım olacağını biliyorum ama negro bir kadına olan aşkı okumak beni muazzam zorladı. Estetiğimin dışında çünkü (ben de kendi estetiğimin dışındayım mesela) ama Kerouac öyle güzel sevmiş, o bokun püsürüğün ve kendi karaktersizliğinin içinde öyle güzel sevmiş ki göz ardı edebildim ben, bahsetmediği sürece (yapabileceğim bir şey yok, bu erotic romance okurken de böyle oluyor), ama isterdim ki elmacık kemikleri çıkık bir soluk benizli sevsin. Ama sevmedi, sevdiğini sevmeyi beceremedi, öyle ki kitaba girip Jack’i sarsmak, tokat atmak, bağırmak geçti içimden ‘yapma, yitireceksin’, öyle ki toplumsal ayrılık ve ırksal tereddütler işin içine girince gözlerim dolu dolu oldu, çünkü herif güzel herif, güzel seviyor, ben hep sevmekten yanayım (ucuz sol söylem gibi oldu), estetik olmasa da.

“Çünkü şimdi Mardou’yu istiyorum. Daha yeni altı ay önce bir hastalığın ruhuna bir kök saldığını anlattı bana. Bu onu daha da güzel kılmıyor mu?” ile başlayan 2 sayfa süren bu aşktan İSTİYORUM.

Kitaba sadece ilişki temelli yaklaşmamak gerekiyor, alt metin aramayın desem de verdiğim örneklerin yanında, yaban, eksik, harika felsefeler var, vurucu ifadeler, haklı tespitler, her şey hakkında. Mesela imge olarak dişil = kuyu, eril = kule olarak niteliyor (bir yerde de oda kadın, tasarım erkek oluyor) ki üzerinde durmadığı bu ifade üzerine saatlerce, saatlerce..! Hele sayfa 98’in ikinci paragrafından başlayıp 99’a süren paragraf sonuna kadar olan ve kitabın sonunda yenilenen öz ve inşaa mevzusu, ah tanrım!

“‘…tek bir aşkı istiyorsun. Yani kadının içinde öze sahip olur erkekler, bir öz var…’ (‘evet’ diye düşündüm, ‘bir öz var ve bu senin rahmin’) ‘…ve erkek özü avuçlarının içinde tutuyor ama onu orada bırakıp büyük soyut şeyler inşa etmeye koşuyor.’”
İşte Kerouac da kendi ifadesiyle “Öyleyse yazmak niye? Uyluklar özü barındırır ve benim orada kalmam gerekiyorsa da, oradan gelmiş ve sonunda oraya dönecek olsam da bir koşu gidip bir şey inşa etmek ve daha da çok inşa etmek zorundayım… hiç uğrana… Buadelaire şiirleri uğruna…”

Mesela “ESER’in (work) aseksüelliği”, saatlerce…

Yarı otobiyografik desem de anladığım kadarıyla olaylarda değil mekan ve bi’ takım küçük şeylerde değişiklik var, tüm bunlar ve karakterlerin gerçek kimlikleri için kitabın Wikipedia sayfasına bakabilirsiniz (ben Kerouac üzerine yazılan başka bir kitaptan baktım ve wikiyi çok geç fark ettim :D)

Farkındaysanız yeraltı sakinleri dediği güruhtan bahsetmedim çünkü çok az, çünkü dediğim gibi öyle bi kaygı yok, çünkü sadece Mardou oradan çıkma bi kadın, o kadar. Tabii metinin en cuk yeride Dostoyevski'te olan çağrıyı görmezden gelemem.

Çevirisi çok güzel, zor olmasalar da dildeki kasıtlı bozuklukları rahatsız etmeden çevirmesini gerçekten başarılı buldum kendimce (sadece bir yerde ‘i said to myself’ kısmını atladığını gördüm ki o da başka bir şeye bakarken tesadüfi oldu, ama üslubun arasında karışıp gitmişti ilk okuduğumda).
Tavsiyem arkada 30 ile 60'ların cazı çalarken dinleyin.

Ben seni okuyabilmek için iyi oldum, keşke sen de sevebilmek için iyi olsaydın, ah! Sen kendin demiştin, şairin acısına değmez diye.

Ah tanrım, TANRIM.
xoxo
iko

[Lee Foust · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, after having reread On the Road for a lecture I was supposed to give but didn't, I couldn't help but return to this, one of my favorites, to again walk the tragic lovelorn streets of North beach with Leo Percepied and co.

The Subterraneans is remarkable for its form--practically one long sentence with innumerable but smooth as silk and poetic as fuck digressions--which impressed me the first time I read it and continues to impress me now, nearly 40 years on. It's far greater in just about every way, to me, than the more famous On the Road even because of its brevity. It might have been too dense, too exhausting to keep up such a dense, spontaneous prose style and utter honesty for two or three hundred pages, exhausting for both author and reader, it might not have been as good as this pure blast of emotion, self-recrimination, and meditation on the author's intense desire for love but obvious inability to live it.

It's melancholy tragic, and yearns in its every line for an understanding of self that always eludes its narrator, or seems to, given that no amount of self-recrimination in retrospect ever seems to alter his love/self-destructive behavior. He even pooh-poohs his lover's therapy, which he distracts her from, as a dead-end because problem-solving based even as he here writes his own problem over for us to see, never stopping himself to consider that he could change or fix his behavior in any way. He's aware yet always unaware, or somehow ancient Greek in outlook, Oedipus who has left the crossroads behind and who seems never to have had the luxury of choice for the writing appears to come before the living practically, the doom dreamed into being rather than ruminated on afterward. He plunges forward through desire, love, and then love's sabotaging in a reckless state of abandon, as if that were the real goal, to see but never perceive.

Precious to me that William Gaddis, then, makes a cameo here, given The Recognitions's thematizing this very concept. How perfect.


PS I put this on a list I made back on another review as one of the greatest San Francisco novels of all time. it is, interesting, and feels VERY San Francisco and North Beech (where I was the night manager of Columbus Books, a second-hand shop near City Lights on Columbus Ave., for some years back in the 1980s). Odd and kinda sad to admit it was Kerouac's publisher, apparently, who demanded he move the scene from NYC in order to somehow avoid lawsuits since his fiction was too close to reality to please the lawyers. I'm literally amazed as this information as the city at times, its fog, its feelings, street names, neighborhood moods, really works here at a level seemingly far more important than a mere casually setting chosen to content the penny-counters and legal eagles. Thus the power of fiction conquers all again. it's a super San Francisco story that actually happened in NYC. But many of these people actually did their time in the Bay Area as well, and, well, Bohemia is ubiquitous. Having myself been a San Francisco Bohemian for a decade, this can only ring true as a Fender Strat, even at three decades distance. The streets and the Boho way of life abide.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

While at a used bookstore, I overheard two clerks in another aisle trying to decide where to shelve this book. They didn't mention the author or the name of the book, but location questions such as 'philosophy?' and 'biography?' and 'just plain fiction?' encouraged me to find their aisle and say, simply, "I'll take it." (Paperbacks were on sale that day for a quarter.) At that time, I had just finished Burrough's "Junky" and had just started on Ginsberg's poetry. Obviously, the universe conspired: "This too! Now!" Kerouac's prose/poetry here, such as'...the keenpure lostpurity lovelyskies of old California in the late sad night of autumn spring comefall winter's summertime...' is beautiful. The plot is a love story of sorts: Kerouac seems to have his hands full with a wide assortment of 'underground' lovers. Kerouac's impact (along with Burroughs/Ginsberg/Cassady) on the impending 1960's sexual revolution is arguably immense. But then again, these four guys and their women/men seem to have been there and back by the close of the 1950s (on a roll of sex/drugs/bopjazz). And arguably, Walt Whitman had been there and back by the close of the 1870s. Now, on to more Kerouac! And Burroughs! And Ginsberg! And I do want to know where Cassady fits in. Apparently, this novel was written in just three days. It almost feels like, given the popularity of Kerouac's other work, the author was pressured to meet a deadline. While messy, one can't deny Kerouac's honesty, his way with words.

[Dan Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in three nights – and, yes, for good and ill it reads that way – it boils down to the story (according to Kerouac, a true story, with the names changed and the location switched from Greenwich Village to San Francisco) of a Canuck-American writer in his early thirties in the early 1950s who falls for a ten-years younger African American “bohemian” woman. They’re both fragile psychological messes, and he’s a drunk – the affair flairs up, burns bright, and then his drunken antics and his weakness kills the fire. It reminded me of one crazy sweaty drunken summer affair I had when I was a few years younger than the guy in this book – insanity feeding off insanity, the highs are very, very high, the lows are very, very low...

[Francesca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant reread: this time around I found it fun, quick and enjoyable. I liked the narrative quips and loved the opening paragraph. Plus I found the depressive yet self-adoring narration particularly relatable.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Y yo me vuelvo a casa, habiendo perdido su amor. Y escribo este libro." Y con esta frase, Jack Kerouac ha podido conmigo.

[Vittorio Ducoli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kerouac quarant’anni dopo: giudizio oggettivo o disillusione senile?

Esagerando certo un po’, si può dire che sono cresciuto a pane e Kerouac: la mia postadolescenza è stata infatti fortemente condizionata dalla lettura di questo autore. In particolare la trilogia costituita dalla bibbia della beat generation, Sulla strada, da I vagabondi de Dharma e da Big Sur mi aprì negli anni ‘70 orizzonti culturali inediti, con risvolti anche pratici sul mio stile di vita, quali ad esempio l’illusione di una liberazione individuale ricercata attraverso lunghi viaggi europei in autostop e il (moderato) uso di droghe leggere; quanto al sesso libero, altro cardine della prassi della liberazione della beat generation, beh, lì ero (purtroppo) molto più indietro… (anche riguardo a Buddha e allo Zen, del resto).
È quindi stato con un senso quasi di valutazione critica di un passato ormai remoto ma molto importante per la mia formazione, oltre che per capire se avrei trovato lo stesso fascino letterario e esistenziale che mi aveva avvolto da giovane, che ho iniziato a leggere I sotterranei, propostomi dal mio metodo automatico di scelta delle letture dopo oltre quarant’anni di assenza di qualsiasi contatto con Kerouac.
Purtroppo (o per fortuna, chissà) il tentativo di confrontare ciò che ero con ciò che sono attraverso la lettura di questo libro e il suo recepimento da parte di un me ormai sulla soglia del sessantennio è fallito, soprattutto perché a mio modo di vedere I sotterranei non è il romanzo adatto a confrontare le sensazioni e le emozioni che regala con ciò che mi diede Kerouac in gioventù, essendo un romanzo affatto diverso da quelli che ho all’epoca amato tanto.
La sua diversità si sostanzia essenzialmente nel suo contenuto. Se infatti i romanzi della trilogia narrano davvero la storia di una generazione, le contraddizioni della società statunitense del primo dopoguerra, lanciata verso l’affluenza e il consumismo e nello stesso tempo intrisa di un conformismo politico e morale in stridente contrasto con i bisogni da lei stessa generati, narrano davvero del disagio giovanile rispetto a tali contraddizioni e del tentativo di superarle e negarle attraverso una liberazione individuale fatta di viaggio, droga, alcool e sesso, e delle disillusioni rispetto a tale tentativo, I sotterranei narra invece una vicenda strettamente privata, che sia pure immersa nell’atmosfera di quella generazione, di quella cultura alternativa non riesce, a parer mio, a divenire un tassello del grande affresco kerouachiano.
I sotterranei fu scritto da Kerouac nel 1953, sembra di getto, subito dopo la fine della sua breve ma intensa storia d’amore con Alene Lee, una ragazza di colore che frequentava il giro degli intellettuali beat nel Greenwich Village di New York. Kerouac, che all’epoca aveva pubblicato il suo primo romanzo, La città e la metropoli, ottenendo una certa notorietà, ci racconta le varie fasi di questa storia d’amore, nascondendo come suo solito i personaggi reali dietro nomi fittizi: l’autore diviene Leo Percepied, io narrante, mentre Alene è nel romanzo Mardou Fox. Dietro pseudonimi possono riconoscersi anche alcuni dei protagonisti di quella stagione culturale, come Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso ed altri. Anche il Village viene sostituito dall’ambientazione della vicenda a San Francisco.
Leo conosce Mardou durante una delle tante serate passate insieme ai suoi amici scrittori nei locali di San Francisco, fatte di discussioni sulla letteratura, concerti jazz (era l’epoca d’oro del bebop), sbronze colossali e uso di droghe di vario tipo. Leo è colpito dalla bellezza della ragazza, ma lei inizialmente non lo bada molto: i due vanno comunque presto a letto insieme e si innamorano. Leo sembra avere trovato nella dolce Mardou, con la quale ha anche un’ottima intesa sessuale, la compagna ideale, e progetta di portarla in Messico non appena grazie ai romanzi che sta scrivendo avrà soldi a sufficienza. Ben presto però si evidenzia tutta la sua inadeguatezza a gestire un rapporto maturo: non aiuta Mardou assillata da difficoltà economiche, la lascia sola per dedicarsi a scrivere, si rifugia spesso dalla protettiva mamma, preferisce la compagnia degli amici alla sua ed ha anche qualche remora di carattere razziale nei suoi confronti. Giunge così a sperare di poterla lasciare, ma nello stesso tempo è geloso dei legami che Mardou, ormai sempre più disillusa, sta intrecciando con altri esponenti del gruppo. Così, l’inevitabile accade: Mardou va a letto con un giovane poeta e chiede a Leo di lasciarle la sua indipendenza. Leo, disperato per l’amore perso, inizia a scrivere il libro che abbiamo appena letto.
Una vicenda quindi nella quale mancano come detto quei fattori di universalità che caratterizzano le opere di Kerouac che reputo maggiori. L’elemento sicuramente di maggior spicco del romanzo, quello che lo salva dalla mediocrità, sta nella sua ambientazione in un preciso momento della storia culturale degli Stati Uniti e nella capacità di Kerouac di restituirci (almeno in parte), attraverso la sua prosa esplosiva, l’atmosfera di quel momento. Su questi aspetti ritornerò in seguito perché a mio avviso meritano un’analisi approfondita. Ritengo qui utile invece sottolineare alcuni degli aspetti contenutistici del romanzo che mi hanno colpito e che possono contribuire a connotarlo meglio.
Innanzitutto c’è da notare la contraddittorietà dell’atteggiamento di Kerouac nei confronti del sesso. La storia d’amore con Mardou è essenzialmente, anche se non solo, una storia di sesso, anche quasi esplicito (il libro fu infatti processato per oscenità e fortunatamente assolto alla sua prima apparizione in Italia, nel 1960); del resto la comunità beat e lo stesso Kerouac consideravano la liberazione sessuale come parte fondamentale della liberazione dell’individuo, in questo – come in molte altre cose – precursori dei movimenti di massa del decennio successivo. Rispetto a ciò, colpisce come l’omosessualità venga invece condannata senza appello: tra l’altro spesso nel romanzo compare l’appellativo frocio in senso fortemente dispregiativo. Analogamente si ha la netta sensazione di un forte maschilismo della comunità intellettuale che ruota attorno al rapporto tra Leo e Mardou: uomini sono tutti i poeti e letterati che ne fanno parte, ed accanto a loro vi sono le loro donne, che spesso sono oggetto di dispute sessuali. La stessa figura di Mardou, che pure ha un suo spessore caratteriale, come emergerà soprattutto nel finale, appare quasi sempre come vittima accomodante delle intemperanze di Leo, che è (o si ritiene) il dominus del rapporto. Emerge a mio avviso una visione, da parte di Kerouac perlomeno, di liberazione sessuale pro domo sua, che dovesse comunque essere incanalata entro binari che egli riteneva accettabili. Qualche dubbio viene al lettore anche riguardo alla posizione dell’autore rispetto al problema del razzismo: non dimentichiamoci che siamo nei primi anni ‘50, periodo in cui negli Stati Uniti questo problema era connaturato alla società. Come detto in alcuni passaggi il protagonista esprime giudizi sulle difficoltà sociali comportanti il fatto che Mardou sia nera: il fatto è che egli non si dissocia affatto da queste difficoltà, anzi in qualche modo le utilizza per rafforzare il suo contraddittorio proposito di lasciare Mardou. Si può desumere insomma, dall’analisi di come questi argomenti sono trattati nel romanzo, l’immagine di un movimento beat molto arretrato rispetto ad alcuni dei temi che sarebbero stati centrali nei movimenti di carattere sociale e politico del decennio successivo: la liberazione cui aspirano Leo e i suoi sodali sembra essere basata più sulla libertà individuale di scopare, di ubriacarsi e di assumere droga che sulla messa in discussione delle convenzioni che facevano di questi comportamenti dei tabù funzionali al mantenimento dello status quo.
Un altro elemento che mi ha colpito del romanzo, che come detto è fortemente autobiografico, è rappresentato dal rapporto di Leo con la madre. Seppure solo accennato in pochi passi del libro, questo rapporto appare nettamente edipico: la madre è il porto sicuro e protettivo nel quale rifugiarsi, l’unica creatura in grado di dare davvero a Leo/Jack il ben-essere di cui ha bisogno per scrivere.
Se, a parte questi elementi di complessità che sono comunque secondari nell’economia complessiva del romanzo, la vicenda che esso narra, il suo contenuto, sono esili e financo banali, come è facile constatare, va però detto che a ciò fanno da contraltare la sua forma, il modo in cui il romanzo è scritto, e l’atmosfera nel quale è immerso e che ci consegna, elementi peraltro legati tra di loro in modo indissolubile.
Kerouac è lo scrittore della prosa spontanea, un modo di scrivere che, prendendo in qualche modo le mosse dal flusso di coscienza, lo rielabora incorporandovi la lezione di autori come Fitzgerald e Miller nonché operando, mi azzardo a dire, una sorta di crasi tra Faulkner e Hemingway, fornendole il rumore di fondo della società degli anni ‘50. È un modo di scrivere peculiare, zeppo di espressioni colloquiali, che alterna dialoghi diretti a riflessioni, divagazioni e sensazioni ambientali, che in Kerouac si evolverà comunque nel tempo e che nei decenni successivi sarebbe diventato in qualche modo il marchio di fabbrica di molta letteratura statunitense, approdando anche a lidi per così dire manieristici. Kerouac è stato in questo senso un innovatore, e proprio Miller lo riconobbe tra i primi scrivendo nel 1960 la prefazione all’edizione italiana de I sotterranei, quando disse: "Jack Kerouac ha violentato a tal punto la nostra immacolata prosa, che essa non potrà più rifarsi una verginità.".
Ne I sotterranei la prosa di Kerouac assume un accento particolare, che non si ritrova con la stessa intensità nelle opere maggiori: un accento fortemente musicale e sperimentale. I periodi si succedono lunghi, senza interruzioni in capitoli, grondanti divagazioni e lunghe parentesi, intrisi di salti logici e temporali non sempre agevolissimi da seguire, caratterizzati da un ritmo interno a cui è necessario fare l’abitudine pagina dopo pagina. Questo sperimentalismo linguistico va ricercato forse in due cause precise, una esterna ed una strutturale: l’essere il romanzo (sembra) stato scritto sotto l’influsso della benzedrina e il fatto che racconti una vicenda del tutto privata, essendo una sorta di seduta di autocoscienza del protagonista, nella quale quindi gli avvenimenti, i dialoghi, gli elementi oggettivi della narrazione devono lasciare spazio al flusso di coscienza. C’è però altro: c’è il fatto, evidenziato dallo stesso autore, che egli si era riproposto di fornire alla sua prosa lo stesso respiro di una frase bebop, del sassofono di Charlie Parker che suona, guardando Leo e Mardou, in uno dei passaggi del romanzo. Sempre Henry Miller definisce infatti Kerouac ”lo spontaneo prosodista bop”.
Questa musicalità interna alla prosa, questa prosodia è probabilmente lo sforzo maggiore che l’autore fa per legare la vicenda del suo amore per Alene/Mardou alla sua epoca, all’atmosfera culturale in cui si svolge. Se è infatti vero che tutto il romanzo è di per sé immerso in tale atmosfera, gonfio come è di citazioni letterarie, di lattine di birra e di sbronze, di stanze disordinate, di cavalcate notturne in una San Francisco grigia e squallida, è altrettanto vero che questa atmosfera può essere descritta coerentemente solo fornendo alla sua descrizione scritta il ritmo dell’epoca, ed il ritmo di quell’epoca era sicuramente il bebop. Non ho la controprova, ma ritengo seriamente che scritto in un altro modo, più convenzionale, il romanzo avrebbe fatto rasentare, se non superare, la soglia del ridicolo alla gran parte delle situazioni che descrive.
Siamo quindi di fronte, a mio avviso, ad un romanzo viziato da una insanabile dicotomia: quella tra la sua forma e il suo contenuto. Magnifica la prima, forse ancora più significativa in termini di intensità rispetto alle opere da me più amate, quasi inconsistente il secondo. Come è possibile ciò? Ritengo che questa dicotomia possa in buona parte essere spiegata dalla analisi delle date che accompagnano il testo: scritto come detto nel 1953, quando Kerouac aveva al suo attivo un solo romanzo, subito dopo la fine della storia con Alene, viene pubblicato solo nel 1958, un anno dopo l’uscita di Sulla strada. Questo può forse rivelare come il testo originariamente fosse stato dettato dall’urgenza di Kerouac di riflettere su una vicenda personale che lo aveva molto ferito e che solo alcuni anni dopo, quando Sulla strada lo stava consacrando scrittore di successo abbia attribuito un valore editoriale a quel suo scritto.
Sia come sia, mi sento di poter dire che I sotterranei, proprio per il minimalismo del suo contenuto, sia da considerare un’opera minore nel panorama letterario di Kerouac, soprattutto rispetto ai tre grandi romanzi che ho amato e amo di più. A mio avviso è preferibile un’opera letteraria che dica molto pur utilizzando una forma discutibile (Stendhal docet) piuttosto che un’opera vuota scritta splendidamente: e se I sotterranei non si può certo definire vuoto credo di poter affermare che il suo grado di riempimento sia alquanto parziale.
Certo non è per me facile capire quanto questo giudizio sia influenzato dai miei quasi sessant’anni, ma in ogni caso… ridatemi Sulla strada.