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Doctor Sax
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.
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.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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3396 people want to read
About the author
Jack Kerouac
359 books11.6k followersJean-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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews
November 13, 2009
Forget, for the moment, about On the Road: anyone about to read Kerouac should start here. Dr. Sax is the crystallization of Kerouac’s creative integrity and vision. Here, his style is unencumbered by the editorial “corrections” that helped make On the Road a best-seller, but compromised its thematic execution – and the imagination that produced the mythical Dr. Sax is the same that, in the guise of Sal Paradise, seeks redemption. Here, revealed in its purest realization, is the source of the loss and desperation that haunt On the Road, and lead to the physical, emotional and creative breakdown in Big Sur. As a portrayal of imagination and its inevitable, universal loss, it’s an inspirational heartbreak.
November 30, 2011
Thing is, most of Kerouac's work is not linear and neat and tidy. It's poorly punctuated stream-of-consciousness, skipping from image to image to emotion to sensation. So if you think you like Kerouac because you liked On the Road, you may not like this book. And if you only like Kerouac when he's writing traditionally crafted fiction, then maybe you just don't like Kerouac.
Not all of Kerouac's books deserve 4 or 5 stars, but this one earned it. The genius of it is that he recounts--as if he were still a child--the moments in his childhood when he realized his childhood was ending, and that "Dr. Sax" was coming to carry him away into the rest of his life. Losing a prize marble, surviving a devastating flood as others suffered, watching a man die, finally plucking up the courage to take a midnight trip through town to explore the ruined haunted house he'd always feared and wondered about--these are the moments that Kerouac hangs his story on. And he does so by recalling them using a child's unlimited sense of imagination.
Yes, it's a difficult read, but I think half the thing that makes it difficult for some people is that they go into it with the wrong expectations. Don't expect On the Road or even Visions of Cody. Expect to enter the mind of a child who sees vampires and ghosts and monsters... as well as beauty and poetry and life.
Not all of Kerouac's books deserve 4 or 5 stars, but this one earned it. The genius of it is that he recounts--as if he were still a child--the moments in his childhood when he realized his childhood was ending, and that "Dr. Sax" was coming to carry him away into the rest of his life. Losing a prize marble, surviving a devastating flood as others suffered, watching a man die, finally plucking up the courage to take a midnight trip through town to explore the ruined haunted house he'd always feared and wondered about--these are the moments that Kerouac hangs his story on. And he does so by recalling them using a child's unlimited sense of imagination.
Yes, it's a difficult read, but I think half the thing that makes it difficult for some people is that they go into it with the wrong expectations. Don't expect On the Road or even Visions of Cody. Expect to enter the mind of a child who sees vampires and ghosts and monsters... as well as beauty and poetry and life.
February 17, 2020
26th book of 2020.
I'm reading a lot of Kerouac at the moment; this is my 7th. You may imagine my excitement then, on finding that this is Kerouac's own favourite of all of his work, and my edition has a quote from Time that reads: Kerouac's best book.
It is not. I'm sorry Jack, but this was mostly nonsense to me. There were some good lines, you can't help that, but on the whole, nonsense. About Doctor Sax and his big cape, and a Castle and vampires and a giant snake that wants to what, eat the world, or something?
Kerouac wrote this whilst staying in Mexico City with William S. Burroughs - I imagine a lot of drugs were used in its making. I also read somewhere (can't remember where) that Kerouac stopped chapters because Burroughs had simply walked into room in real life, so he wrapped up and ended where he was. Madness. I respect it, in an odd way. But it didn't make for a very good book. Though Kerouac says this is his favourite, out of the 7 I have read so far, this is the worst. Sorry. We disagree on something.
I'm reading a lot of Kerouac at the moment; this is my 7th. You may imagine my excitement then, on finding that this is Kerouac's own favourite of all of his work, and my edition has a quote from Time that reads: Kerouac's best book.
It is not. I'm sorry Jack, but this was mostly nonsense to me. There were some good lines, you can't help that, but on the whole, nonsense. About Doctor Sax and his big cape, and a Castle and vampires and a giant snake that wants to what, eat the world, or something?
Kerouac wrote this whilst staying in Mexico City with William S. Burroughs - I imagine a lot of drugs were used in its making. I also read somewhere (can't remember where) that Kerouac stopped chapters because Burroughs had simply walked into room in real life, so he wrapped up and ended where he was. Madness. I respect it, in an odd way. But it didn't make for a very good book. Though Kerouac says this is his favourite, out of the 7 I have read so far, this is the worst. Sorry. We disagree on something.
August 13, 2018
Μετά την πρώτη μου γνωριμία με τον Κέρουακ είχα υποσχεθεί ότι θα επιστρέψω γιατί λάτρεψα με την γραφή του. Ηθελα τόσο πολύ να μου αρέσει και αυτό το βιβλίο όμως δε μου άρεσε. Νομίζω βασικά δεν το κατάλαβα καν όσο και αν προσπάθησα.
July 2, 2013
Oh God--what a magnificent book with language so beautiful that I have to gasp between sentences. Kerouac himself said it was his personal favorite (while drunk during an interview for Italian tv). No one--I mean, no one--has ever captured the terrible magic and mystery of childhood lost better than Ti Jean.
August 31, 2008
It took me a couple of times to get through Dr. Sax. Kerouac is my favorite and I feel a crazy connection with him, but for heaven's sake...
You can tell that this was written when he was hanging out with stupid, trippy Burroughs. It has a lot of the Electric Kool-Aid test in it - as in disturbing imagery, nonsense alliteration, etc.
The times that I really started to enjoy it was when he left the Dr. Sax part (even though the imagery of the great snake, that might be made up of doves, is something that is very haunting to me)and talked more about his childhood, what it's like to be a kid. Kerouac has such an amazing memory that all those weird little mind games that every kid grows out of, he's able to remember and portray on paper.
You can tell that this was written when he was hanging out with stupid, trippy Burroughs. It has a lot of the Electric Kool-Aid test in it - as in disturbing imagery, nonsense alliteration, etc.
The times that I really started to enjoy it was when he left the Dr. Sax part (even though the imagery of the great snake, that might be made up of doves, is something that is very haunting to me)and talked more about his childhood, what it's like to be a kid. Kerouac has such an amazing memory that all those weird little mind games that every kid grows out of, he's able to remember and portray on paper.
September 3, 2020
Dr. Sax
The year 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's (1922-- 1969) "On the Road." The Library of America, among others publishers, has marked the occasion with the publication of a new volume including five Kerouac "Road Novels". I wanted to reread other works by Kerouac besides the "road novels" that are in danger of being overlooked, and I turned to "Dr. Sax". Kerouac wrote "Dr. Sax" in 1952 while living with William Burroughs in Mexico City. It was a difficult time for both writers. Kerouac had already written "On the Road" but could not get it published. Burroughs had just accidentally killed his lover, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of "William Tell". "Dr. Sax" proved even more difficult to publish than "On the Road" and did not appear in print until 1959.
"Dr. Sax" differs from "On the Road" and the other books in the LOA collection in that it is set in Lowell, Massachusetts, the town where Kerouac grew up. Lowell is a small mill town on the banks of the Merrimack River. During Kerouac's boyhood, it was home to a substantial French-Canadian immigrant population, to a community of Greek Americans and to several other diverse ethnic groups. Kerouac's parents were both immigrants from French Canada. They spoke a dialect of French in their home and Kerouac did not learn English until he was about seven years old. A fascinating part of "Dr. Sax" is the French dialogue among Kerouac and his family -- with Kerouac immediately providing an English rendition in addition to the French.
The book is written from the perspective of an adult -- Kerouac in 1952 in Mexico City -- looking back and reflecting upon his childhood and early adolescence from the standpoint of his ongoing difficult life as a writer struggling for publication and combating his own inner demons of drugs and alcohol. It opens with a dream, and Kerouac tells the reader that "memory and dream are intermixed in this mad universe." The book features a strange character the young Kerouac invented named Dr. Sax, a sinister figure in a cape and slouch hat. Dr. Sax is accompanied by other bizarre characters including Count Cordu the Vampire, the Great Snake, the Wizard, and others who live in a large weed-grown abandoned house on a snake-infested hill just outside of Lowell. Kerouac conceived the idea of Dr. Sax from various comic books that were popular when he was a child.
"Dr. Sax" is memorable largely for the picture it draws of Kerouac's childhood and of Lowell. (Kerouac is named Jack Duluoz or "Ti Jean" in the book.) It gives good portraits of Kerouac's mother and father and of the family's many moves among the poorer neighborhoods of the town and of Kerouac's older sister and ill-fated brother Gerard who died when he was ten. Kerouac, Ti Jean is portrayed as a sensitive, imaginative and athletic child. The book offers portraits of Kerouac playing baseball and marbles, going to church, engaging in pranks and fights with his childhood friends and enemies, watching movies and reading books, experiencing the first flush of sexuality and learning to masturbate, and learning of death, in the person of Gerard and several others. The book also shows a great deal of Lowell and its environs, especially of a large flood that destroyed much of the city's downtown in 1936.
The story of young Ti Jean and of Lowell is punctuated by comic-book like tales of Dr. Sax. Dr. Sax also appears as a shadowy figure commenting upon and observing the life of young Kerouac and his family and friends. There is something sinister about Sax throughout most of the book. He is partly drawn from William Burroughs, as he is shown travelling through South and Central America for various "powders". In the lengthy final chapter of the book, Ti Jean accompanies Dr. Sax in a bizarre chapter in which Sax purports to ward off the forces of evil that threaten Lowell. The story gets a sharp wizard-of-Oz-like twist at the end.
With the comic characters and the surprise ending, there is a great deal of mad humor in Dr. Sax, but the tone still is predominantly one of melancholy and reflection. In one particularly good scene, Kerouac's dying uncle prophetically tells him: "my child poor Ti Jean, do you know my dear that you are destined to be a man of big sadness and talent-- it'll never to live or die, you'll suffer like others -- more" The Dr. Sax figure, similarly, seems to show the price Kerouac paid for becoming a writer. The book suggests -- with its subtitle "Faust Part Three" that Kerouac's writing was part of a Faustian bargain with Dr. Sax in which Kerouac paid for his literary imagination with a sad and tormented life.
Dr. Sax was Kerouac's favorite among his own novels, and many readers would among his work regard it as his best or second-best after "On the Road." (Other works have their own partisans as well.) This book will interest readers who want to see a lesser-known side of Kerouac. The book is written in a variety of styles. It is erratic and not easy reading. Those who are interested in Kerouac's portrayals of his life in Lowell might also enjoy "Maggie Cassidy" and Kerouac's first and underappreciated book, "The Town and the City".
Robin Friedman
The year 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's (1922-- 1969) "On the Road." The Library of America, among others publishers, has marked the occasion with the publication of a new volume including five Kerouac "Road Novels". I wanted to reread other works by Kerouac besides the "road novels" that are in danger of being overlooked, and I turned to "Dr. Sax". Kerouac wrote "Dr. Sax" in 1952 while living with William Burroughs in Mexico City. It was a difficult time for both writers. Kerouac had already written "On the Road" but could not get it published. Burroughs had just accidentally killed his lover, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of "William Tell". "Dr. Sax" proved even more difficult to publish than "On the Road" and did not appear in print until 1959.
"Dr. Sax" differs from "On the Road" and the other books in the LOA collection in that it is set in Lowell, Massachusetts, the town where Kerouac grew up. Lowell is a small mill town on the banks of the Merrimack River. During Kerouac's boyhood, it was home to a substantial French-Canadian immigrant population, to a community of Greek Americans and to several other diverse ethnic groups. Kerouac's parents were both immigrants from French Canada. They spoke a dialect of French in their home and Kerouac did not learn English until he was about seven years old. A fascinating part of "Dr. Sax" is the French dialogue among Kerouac and his family -- with Kerouac immediately providing an English rendition in addition to the French.
The book is written from the perspective of an adult -- Kerouac in 1952 in Mexico City -- looking back and reflecting upon his childhood and early adolescence from the standpoint of his ongoing difficult life as a writer struggling for publication and combating his own inner demons of drugs and alcohol. It opens with a dream, and Kerouac tells the reader that "memory and dream are intermixed in this mad universe." The book features a strange character the young Kerouac invented named Dr. Sax, a sinister figure in a cape and slouch hat. Dr. Sax is accompanied by other bizarre characters including Count Cordu the Vampire, the Great Snake, the Wizard, and others who live in a large weed-grown abandoned house on a snake-infested hill just outside of Lowell. Kerouac conceived the idea of Dr. Sax from various comic books that were popular when he was a child.
"Dr. Sax" is memorable largely for the picture it draws of Kerouac's childhood and of Lowell. (Kerouac is named Jack Duluoz or "Ti Jean" in the book.) It gives good portraits of Kerouac's mother and father and of the family's many moves among the poorer neighborhoods of the town and of Kerouac's older sister and ill-fated brother Gerard who died when he was ten. Kerouac, Ti Jean is portrayed as a sensitive, imaginative and athletic child. The book offers portraits of Kerouac playing baseball and marbles, going to church, engaging in pranks and fights with his childhood friends and enemies, watching movies and reading books, experiencing the first flush of sexuality and learning to masturbate, and learning of death, in the person of Gerard and several others. The book also shows a great deal of Lowell and its environs, especially of a large flood that destroyed much of the city's downtown in 1936.
The story of young Ti Jean and of Lowell is punctuated by comic-book like tales of Dr. Sax. Dr. Sax also appears as a shadowy figure commenting upon and observing the life of young Kerouac and his family and friends. There is something sinister about Sax throughout most of the book. He is partly drawn from William Burroughs, as he is shown travelling through South and Central America for various "powders". In the lengthy final chapter of the book, Ti Jean accompanies Dr. Sax in a bizarre chapter in which Sax purports to ward off the forces of evil that threaten Lowell. The story gets a sharp wizard-of-Oz-like twist at the end.
With the comic characters and the surprise ending, there is a great deal of mad humor in Dr. Sax, but the tone still is predominantly one of melancholy and reflection. In one particularly good scene, Kerouac's dying uncle prophetically tells him: "my child poor Ti Jean, do you know my dear that you are destined to be a man of big sadness and talent-- it'll never to live or die, you'll suffer like others -- more" The Dr. Sax figure, similarly, seems to show the price Kerouac paid for becoming a writer. The book suggests -- with its subtitle "Faust Part Three" that Kerouac's writing was part of a Faustian bargain with Dr. Sax in which Kerouac paid for his literary imagination with a sad and tormented life.
Dr. Sax was Kerouac's favorite among his own novels, and many readers would among his work regard it as his best or second-best after "On the Road." (Other works have their own partisans as well.) This book will interest readers who want to see a lesser-known side of Kerouac. The book is written in a variety of styles. It is erratic and not easy reading. Those who are interested in Kerouac's portrayals of his life in Lowell might also enjoy "Maggie Cassidy" and Kerouac's first and underappreciated book, "The Town and the City".
Robin Friedman
December 8, 2018
Seems like Jack Kerouac can go wrong after all. This novel showed me personally how wonderful ideas do not automatically guarantee a wonderful story.
In a lot of ways, Doctor Sax is as pure as writing can get. It feels raw, unpolished, honest. On an emotional level, this makes it extremely personal; from a reader point's of view, however, ... boring. Kerouac has always phrased his thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style, yet I personally prefer his stories after their fair share of editing.
It's a shame, since the ideas here are lovely. Kerouac has named this his favorite out of his own books and I can see why. In it, he reconstructs his childhood. We see the world through the eyes of a child, somebody on the verge to growing up. For the moment, however, the world is still full of magic as well as beauty and unexplored secrets. If only it wasn't such a drag to get through it. Childhood certainly didn't feel like that.
In a lot of ways, Doctor Sax is as pure as writing can get. It feels raw, unpolished, honest. On an emotional level, this makes it extremely personal; from a reader point's of view, however, ... boring. Kerouac has always phrased his thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style, yet I personally prefer his stories after their fair share of editing.
It's a shame, since the ideas here are lovely. Kerouac has named this his favorite out of his own books and I can see why. In it, he reconstructs his childhood. We see the world through the eyes of a child, somebody on the verge to growing up. For the moment, however, the world is still full of magic as well as beauty and unexplored secrets. If only it wasn't such a drag to get through it. Childhood certainly didn't feel like that.
January 5, 2011
This was a sad read for me, marking the time in my life when I definitively fell out of love with Kerouac. There are, to be sure, flashes of brilliance in Dr. Sax, but the overall meandering stream of consciousness (this time trying to recapture his adolescence) left me underwhelmed, without an authentic point of connection. Kerouac, for me, now becomes one of those authors that I like the idea of, more than the reality of reading their work.
January 12, 2012
This actually applies to the audio-play (best I can describe a screenplay turned into an audiobook).
Well, it was interesting. Not bad, and it's hard to complain too much about a work that's that short. It would have been a fairly good kid's fantasy story along the lines of something Neil Gaiman might have written, except Kerouac was deliberately messy with the narrative and added a lot of unnecessary strange language. Of course, the reason this is called "Dr. Sax" instead of "Dr. Violin" is that we're talking jazz here, not classical music. He improvises on top of his basic structure. It's actually not bad, but it's not exceptionally good either.
It's still something I'd recommend given how little effort it would take.
Well, it was interesting. Not bad, and it's hard to complain too much about a work that's that short. It would have been a fairly good kid's fantasy story along the lines of something Neil Gaiman might have written, except Kerouac was deliberately messy with the narrative and added a lot of unnecessary strange language. Of course, the reason this is called "Dr. Sax" instead of "Dr. Violin" is that we're talking jazz here, not classical music. He improvises on top of his basic structure. It's actually not bad, but it's not exceptionally good either.
It's still something I'd recommend given how little effort it would take.
June 30, 2008
Dr. Sax is a cool, surreal and proficient beat novel. The narrative dream logic glides through a world of magical realism surrounding the protagonist's life. Beautiful, sometimes profane, always interesting, I consider this Kerouac's best. A potent flight of the imagination.
May 16, 2015
I love Kerouac, and this is hands down my favorite Kerouac book ever.
October 12, 2023
Though this is not a long book, it took me many days to read it. In 1952, Jack Kerouac traveled to Mexico City and lived with William S Burroughs, one of his buddies. Over a number of days, possibly the same number of days it took me to read it, he wrote feverishly until Dr Sax was done.
After Kerouac published his first novel in 1950, The Town and the City, which got positive reviews, he felt a need to break out of the narrative style of 1950s literary fiction. He wrote several books that he was not able to get published until after the wild success of On the Road in 1957. Thus, Dr Sax was not published until 1959.
In a paradox that perhaps defined the man, the books he had poured his new freer style into were suddenly seeing publication, but the public attention drove him deeper into an elusive search for spiritual understanding and finally into depression and despair.
In any case, Dr Sax tells the underside of his childhood only somewhat covered in The Town and the City. As I read as much as I could absorb each day, I became accustomed to his voice and style to the point that I fell under his spell. Just about everything I have read by Kerouac so far has had that effect on me.
He is remembering his childhood from that child’s point of view with all the influences of his family, the Catholic Church, his friends, his reading, his dreams and nightmares. He had imaginary heroes of which Dr Sax was the most mythical. Scenes of baseball games, wild romps through the town where he grew up in New Hampshire, a major flood on the Merrimac River that ran through Lowell, and most of all encounters with Dr Sax, fill the pages in Kerouac’s unique style. That style is a cousin to stream of consciousness with the rhythms of jazz, almost like a scat at times.
Was this all a dream of Jack’s? Was it a battle of good versus evil? In the end Dr Sax says “The Universe disposes of its own.” For Jack, the book was a step to finding his own voice. Having read the Tao Te Ching numerous times, I felt this book was an American version in some mysterious way.
After Kerouac published his first novel in 1950, The Town and the City, which got positive reviews, he felt a need to break out of the narrative style of 1950s literary fiction. He wrote several books that he was not able to get published until after the wild success of On the Road in 1957. Thus, Dr Sax was not published until 1959.
In a paradox that perhaps defined the man, the books he had poured his new freer style into were suddenly seeing publication, but the public attention drove him deeper into an elusive search for spiritual understanding and finally into depression and despair.
In any case, Dr Sax tells the underside of his childhood only somewhat covered in The Town and the City. As I read as much as I could absorb each day, I became accustomed to his voice and style to the point that I fell under his spell. Just about everything I have read by Kerouac so far has had that effect on me.
He is remembering his childhood from that child’s point of view with all the influences of his family, the Catholic Church, his friends, his reading, his dreams and nightmares. He had imaginary heroes of which Dr Sax was the most mythical. Scenes of baseball games, wild romps through the town where he grew up in New Hampshire, a major flood on the Merrimac River that ran through Lowell, and most of all encounters with Dr Sax, fill the pages in Kerouac’s unique style. That style is a cousin to stream of consciousness with the rhythms of jazz, almost like a scat at times.
Was this all a dream of Jack’s? Was it a battle of good versus evil? In the end Dr Sax says “The Universe disposes of its own.” For Jack, the book was a step to finding his own voice. Having read the Tao Te Ching numerous times, I felt this book was an American version in some mysterious way.
May 1, 2025
Jack Kerouac's Doctor Sax is part of the author's Duluoz Legend, a fictionalized autobiography that encompasses most of the fiction he wrote. This book covers Kerouac's boyhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is full of experimental language, making it a difficult books for people who don't want to press on with a book once they encounter language they don't understand. My feeling is that it is better to keep pressing on: Any attempt to try to understand everything will guarantee you miss the point.
Who is Doctor Sax? Apparently he is a phantom dreamed up by young Jack Duluoz (aka Kerouac) inspired by comic books and other fiction beloved of young boy -- not to mention the movies.
The more Kerouac I read, the more I like him. I think that his novels are underestimated (except for On the Road, which is his most straightforward story).
Who is Doctor Sax? Apparently he is a phantom dreamed up by young Jack Duluoz (aka Kerouac) inspired by comic books and other fiction beloved of young boy -- not to mention the movies.
The more Kerouac I read, the more I like him. I think that his novels are underestimated (except for On the Road, which is his most straightforward story).
September 17, 2007
An unreadable book. It's the same several scenes over and over and over and over again in a rambling and rhythmless stream-of-conciousness 'style'. If you love love love Kerouac, maybe you can take this hazy alcoholic spluge-tome, and maybe you'll even convince yourself that you like it, but I really liked Jack Kerouc once, and this was the beginning of the end for me.
June 7, 2014
Doctor Sax is best read aloud. The style which Jack Kerouac writes in, a self proclaimed 'spontaneous prose,' makes the early portions of the novel frustrating (indeed, not until I was able to figure out that the story of Doctor Sax is a momentary residence within the imagination of a young boy, I thought Kerouac's 1-2 page chapter "style" was one created from smoking a joint and writing only as long as the high lasted)...(I tell you this, dear reader, so that you may sit back and enjoy the devilishly good word turns).
Jack Kerouac has amazing moments of capturing childhood:
“He gets sore and sick of my machine – He and Lousy start wrestling – (Meanwhile little George Bouen has started off on his 5 Flap Mile and I started machine and directed takeoff but now I turn from my duties as track official and inventor and leader of commands and puffings)…”
“We fished out crap from the stream. An unknown and forgotten morning took place in the yard of a rickety two story house corner of Lakeview and Bunker Hill where we threw firewood and balls all up and down the air and mothers yelled at us, new friends, - like the forgetting of the memory of the next Monday morning in school – ugh it’s impossible to forget the horror of school..coming…Monday-“
Once the narrative line of the story is known, the breaks and turns in the storytelling function like the flitting of a mind full of imaginary marble races and vampires. Kerouac also captures the speed of experience, the moment when a dish is complete:
“Joy of the morning was particularly keen and painful in the marble slab counter where a little soda was freshly spilled - I romped, we romped on up the Moody. We passed several regular journeyman Canadian grocery stores crowded with women (like our Parent’s) buying hamburger and huge pork chops of the prime (to serve with hot mashed potatoes in a plate in which also hot porkchop fat is floating around beautiful with luminescent golds to mix the mash of hot patate, add pepper).”
I recommend this novel for those who enjoy poetry, and I will actively seek copies out and put them into the hands of anyone who performs spoken word.
Jack Kerouac has amazing moments of capturing childhood:
“He gets sore and sick of my machine – He and Lousy start wrestling – (Meanwhile little George Bouen has started off on his 5 Flap Mile and I started machine and directed takeoff but now I turn from my duties as track official and inventor and leader of commands and puffings)…”
“We fished out crap from the stream. An unknown and forgotten morning took place in the yard of a rickety two story house corner of Lakeview and Bunker Hill where we threw firewood and balls all up and down the air and mothers yelled at us, new friends, - like the forgetting of the memory of the next Monday morning in school – ugh it’s impossible to forget the horror of school..coming…Monday-“
Once the narrative line of the story is known, the breaks and turns in the storytelling function like the flitting of a mind full of imaginary marble races and vampires. Kerouac also captures the speed of experience, the moment when a dish is complete:
“Joy of the morning was particularly keen and painful in the marble slab counter where a little soda was freshly spilled - I romped, we romped on up the Moody. We passed several regular journeyman Canadian grocery stores crowded with women (like our Parent’s) buying hamburger and huge pork chops of the prime (to serve with hot mashed potatoes in a plate in which also hot porkchop fat is floating around beautiful with luminescent golds to mix the mash of hot patate, add pepper).”
I recommend this novel for those who enjoy poetry, and I will actively seek copies out and put them into the hands of anyone who performs spoken word.
November 19, 2022
2012 Review: This is my first review for this site for any book I've listed. Dr. Sax was one of the last Kerouac books I had to read. I've been reading his work for the past sixteen years, studied Kerouac and his works in college as an undergrad, and I continue to read his books and love them. So, with that said, I had heard about Dr. Sax being one of the most unique books Kerouac had ever written; hell, even Carloyn Cassady urged him to write more books like Dr. Sax and mentions it in her memoir.
I bought this book, read this book, and fell in love with it. It contains such wild and accurate images of how a child sees the world and can only be best described like magical-realism much in the fashion of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Franz Kafka. I have read some reviews where readers were lost with the book, with the plot, and didn't know what to make of it. The best I can offer concerning those predicaments is to just let go of reality and think back to how you imagined grander and more fantastical elements into your life when you were a child allowing you to see the world in a way that gets lost to us as we age.
If you continue to read the “Duluoz Legend” and read Maggie Cassidy, Vanity of Duluoz, On the Road etc., you will see how Kerouac portrayed the chilling and horrifying act of becoming an adult.
2022 Update: After reading Dr. Sax again this year, it still remains one of my favorites of Kerouac. I can understand why people may get lost with this book. Let me make a suggestion: Think of the narrative in this book as a child would tell a story. It would be dis-jointed and filled with monsters and grand romances. Such is Dr. Sax.
I bought this book, read this book, and fell in love with it. It contains such wild and accurate images of how a child sees the world and can only be best described like magical-realism much in the fashion of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Franz Kafka. I have read some reviews where readers were lost with the book, with the plot, and didn't know what to make of it. The best I can offer concerning those predicaments is to just let go of reality and think back to how you imagined grander and more fantastical elements into your life when you were a child allowing you to see the world in a way that gets lost to us as we age.
If you continue to read the “Duluoz Legend” and read Maggie Cassidy, Vanity of Duluoz, On the Road etc., you will see how Kerouac portrayed the chilling and horrifying act of becoming an adult.
2022 Update: After reading Dr. Sax again this year, it still remains one of my favorites of Kerouac. I can understand why people may get lost with this book. Let me make a suggestion: Think of the narrative in this book as a child would tell a story. It would be dis-jointed and filled with monsters and grand romances. Such is Dr. Sax.
May 6, 2017
Doctor Sax is yet another one of Kerouac’s experiments with free-verse autobiographical writing, and it tells the story of his childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. Yet while it might be about his younger years, it was actually written in 1952, when the author was thirty years old and living with William S. Burroughs in Mexico City.
You can tell he was living with Burroughs – the other great stalwart of the beat generation had clearly rubbed off on him, and much of his style can be seen in Kerouac’s words. Unfortunately, because of this, it feels like you’re reading a cheap combination of the two, a voice that belongs to neither Kerouac or Burroughs; there’s also less cohesion here than there is in other Kerouac works, although he can be forgiven for that because his work doesn’t really make much sense at the best of times.
Still, it’s interesting enough just to read about the enigmatic Doctor Sax, a character which haunted Kerouac as a child and which followed him in to adulthood. The author himself described him as “my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover” – you’ll understand that description if you read through the book and make it to the end.
You can tell he was living with Burroughs – the other great stalwart of the beat generation had clearly rubbed off on him, and much of his style can be seen in Kerouac’s words. Unfortunately, because of this, it feels like you’re reading a cheap combination of the two, a voice that belongs to neither Kerouac or Burroughs; there’s also less cohesion here than there is in other Kerouac works, although he can be forgiven for that because his work doesn’t really make much sense at the best of times.
Still, it’s interesting enough just to read about the enigmatic Doctor Sax, a character which haunted Kerouac as a child and which followed him in to adulthood. The author himself described him as “my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover” – you’ll understand that description if you read through the book and make it to the end.
December 11, 2012
I was quite dissapointed in this book. I'm not sure what was wrong with Kerouac but his style just wasn't there. The book was a strange mixture of childhood dreams, adolescent sex, baseball and B horror movies. There didn't seem to be any lasting or coherant thoughts to hold it together. The only part I did like was the letter from Dr. Sax about the party. Still one bad book is not enough to put me off, I will keep reading him.
July 20, 2018
Jack Kerouac's Doctor Sax is simply incredible, a beautiful, sometimes vulgar, always lyrical work that stunningly evokes the ups and downs of childhood. Told in experimental, stream of consciousness fragments, Keroauc's prose is full of vibrant and tender reflection, poetic density and endless, scattered inner rambling that I see as literary perfection.
May 22, 2022
DR. SAX-JACK KEROUAC
✒"-I'll be damned,said King Snake with amazement-The Universe disposes with its own evil."
🧒Ovaj roman treba čitati pre najpoznatijeg Keruakovog dela Na putu.
🧒U romanu je opisao svoje detinjstvo,suočavanje sa svetom i žovotom.
🧒Stil kojim je pisano je komplikovan ali utoliko zanimljiviji. To su nabacani utisci,jake boje,mešavina mašte i realnosti,zvukovi i mirisi. Rečenice su isprekidane,interpunkcija skoro proizvoljna,jezik mešavina engleskog i englesko-francuskog.
🧒Keruak jakim bojama ocrtava događaje koji su obeležili odrastanje-poplavu,mrtvog čoveka,smrt svog brata, porodicu,drugove iz detinjstva.
🎷Dr Sax je misteriozna ličnost, u početku izaziva strah kod dece,ali on je dečakov vodič koji ga upoznaje sa svetom odraslih.
🎷Dr. Sax je život-odrastanje,spoznaja i suočavanje sa sopstvenim strahovima.
🎷U mešavini vampirskih legendi,astečkih motiva i života u gradićima po kojima je Keruak odrastao,saznajemo šta je to što ga je formiralo kao ličnost i kao pisca.
#7sensesofabook #bookstagram #knjige #readingaddict #literature
✒"-I'll be damned,said King Snake with amazement-The Universe disposes with its own evil."
🧒Ovaj roman treba čitati pre najpoznatijeg Keruakovog dela Na putu.
🧒U romanu je opisao svoje detinjstvo,suočavanje sa svetom i žovotom.
🧒Stil kojim je pisano je komplikovan ali utoliko zanimljiviji. To su nabacani utisci,jake boje,mešavina mašte i realnosti,zvukovi i mirisi. Rečenice su isprekidane,interpunkcija skoro proizvoljna,jezik mešavina engleskog i englesko-francuskog.
🧒Keruak jakim bojama ocrtava događaje koji su obeležili odrastanje-poplavu,mrtvog čoveka,smrt svog brata, porodicu,drugove iz detinjstva.
🎷Dr Sax je misteriozna ličnost, u početku izaziva strah kod dece,ali on je dečakov vodič koji ga upoznaje sa svetom odraslih.
🎷Dr. Sax je život-odrastanje,spoznaja i suočavanje sa sopstvenim strahovima.
🎷U mešavini vampirskih legendi,astečkih motiva i života u gradićima po kojima je Keruak odrastao,saznajemo šta je to što ga je formiralo kao ličnost i kao pisca.
#7sensesofabook #bookstagram #knjige #readingaddict #literature
March 31, 2024
Would still recommend, unlike any other Kerouac but quite a slog
May 21, 2024
4.5/5. a warm, vivid recollection of boyhood that captures the beautifully distorted lens of youth like no other work i have experienced. the loving sincerity of kerouac’s remembrances are both deeply honest and emphatically intelligent, buoyed by the act of an adult writer looking back at his life. ‘i got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove.’ - this is a work tinted in grainy nostalgia.
October 11, 2022
Μερικές σκόρπιες αγαπημένες μου φράσεις από το βιβλίο:
….Αποχαιρέτησε τούτους τους αμμόλοφους που χάνεις…
….είναι ο Βλιβλίος το Τέρας (Blook στο πρωτότυπο)….
….. ο ήλιος ο ηλιάτορας (!@#$%?????)....
….. πάντα να απεχθάνεσαι το να χάνεται το πρωί….
….. Η Αιωνιότητα και η Βροχή είναι Γυμνές….
….ο πελώριος φουσκωμένος σαν αερόστατο καρπουζόκοσμος…
….θυμάμαι…το γυαλί μιας παγκόσμιας θλιμμένης κόκκινης πραγματικότητας που είναι η κατάρα της θνητότητας…το χιόνι να λιώνει.
.................................................
Το Dr. Sax είναι ένα από τα πιο ‘’περίεργα’’ βιβλία του Kerouac που έχω διαβάσει και επίσης το μόνο στο οποίο υπάρχει έντονο το μυθοπλαστικό στοιχείο. Χαρακτηρίζεται από την Αυθόρμητη Πρόζα (σαν σόλο Jazz σαξόφωνου) κατά την οποία πασχίζεις να βρεις πού ξεκινάει η πρόταση που μόλις διάβασες για να την ξαναπιάσεις από την αρχή μπας και βάλεις σε σειρά το ‘’τι θέλει να πει ο ποιητής’’!!
Μιας και είπα ποιητής, να επισημάνω ότι ο «ποιητής Κerouac» είναι πολύ έντονα παρών στο κείμενο, γεγονός που το κάνει Πολύ γοητευτικό αλλά και ταυτόχρονα κάπως πιο …. δύσκολο. Τον ακούμε κάποιες φορές μάλιστα να μας λέει : «…ως και σ’ εμένα έμοιαζε ασυνάρτητος» (!!), κλείνοντάς μας το μάτι για να μας καθησυχάσει ότι δεν φταίμε εμείς αν έχουμε μπερδευτεί μες στους λαβύρινθους που μας παρέσυρε.
Αν το να βρούμε τον «ποιητή Κέρουακ» μέσα στο βιβλίο δεν μας εκπλήσσει και τόσο, μια έκπληξη την ένιωσα όμως βρίσκοντας συνέχεια παρόντα και τον ζωγράφο Κέρουακ. Οι περιγραφές των τοπίων και των εικόνων ήταν συνεχώς βουτηγμένες σε χρώματα. Με κυρίαρχα χρώματα το Κόκκινο και το Καφέ και (Spoiler Alert!!!) το ΜΠΛΕ (Η καθετότητα του κόκκινου πάνω στο μπλε όπως έλεγε παλια κι ένας φίλος μου!)
Ο Κέρουακ καταδύθηκε μέσα από την κουνελότρυπα της Αλίκης στη χώρα της παιδικής του ηλικίας και μεταξύ άλλων συνάντησε το Μαιτρ και τη Μαργαρίτα άλλα ίσως ακόμη και τον Φρόιντ (κάπου μάλιστα ο Dr Sax λέει: “ …αλλά νοιάζομαι εγώ για των μικρών παιδιών τον ύπνο…” θυμίζοντας μου τη ανακάλυψη του Φρόιντ ότι ακόμη κι ένας εφιάλτης σκοπό του έχει να διατηρήσει απρόσκοπτο τον ύπνο μας!).
Μας ανοίγει την πόρτα και μας επιτρέπει να παρακολουθήσουμε (όσο μπορούμε) τον μαγικό τρόπο με τον οποίο καθώς ανασκαλεύει τις παιδικές του αναμνήσεις, τις βλέπει (κι εμείς μαζί του) να μετατρέπονται σε εφιάλτες κι αυτούς στη συνέχεια να τους πλέκει σε μια υπέροχη ιστορία για να μας μιλήσει για το Θάνατο, την Αγάπη (έρωτα) που έχει για τη μάνα του, άλλα κυρίως για προαιώνιο ζήτημα της μάχης του Καλού με το Κακό. Μιας μάχης την οποία κυρίως μας παρουσιάζει στηριζόμενος στον Αζτέκικο μύθο όπου ο Αετός σκοτώνει το Φίδι. Μόνο που ο Κέρουακ, ίσως ήδη υπό την επιρροή της βουδιστικής φιλοσοφίας, μοιάζει πολλές φορές ηθελημένα να “θολώνει” τις διαχωριστικές γραμμές καλού/κακού, υπαινισσόμενος ότι η Σωτηρία από το Κακό είναι Ένα με το ίδιο το Κακό.
Πολύ έντονη είναι και η παρουσία και η επίδραση του Μπάροουζ στο βιβλίο (παρέα με τον οποίο έμενε ο Κερουακ στο Μεξικό όταν το έγραφε).
Ένας από τους χαρακτήρες ονομάζεται Ολτ Μπούλ Μπαλούν. To Μπαλούν (Μπαλόνι) μάλλον είναι αναφορά στα “μπαλόνια” των κόμικ που περιέχουν τα λόγια. Η ιστορία άλλωστε του Dr Sax είναι εμπνευσμένη από το κόμικ «Σκιά», που διάβαζε ο Κέρουακ μικρός. Μπορεί όμως να αναφέρεται και στη βουδιστική έννοια του Κενού (void, emptiness). Όπως θα γράψει σε ένα από τα «Mexico City Blues» λίγο αργότερα:
…….Τόπος κανείς για τους λεπτούς παλαβούς που ουρλιάζουν
Μέσα στο νου την κεντρική κωμωδία
Τίποτα
……..της κεντρικής κωμωδίας
Του μυαλού ΜΠΑΛΟΝΙΑ.
….Αποχαιρέτησε τούτους τους αμμόλοφους που χάνεις…
….είναι ο Βλιβλίος το Τέρας (Blook στο πρωτότυπο)….
….. ο ήλιος ο ηλιάτορας (!@#$%?????)....
….. πάντα να απεχθάνεσαι το να χάνεται το πρωί….
….. Η Αιωνιότητα και η Βροχή είναι Γυμνές….
….ο πελώριος φουσκωμένος σαν αερόστατο καρπουζόκοσμος…
….θυμάμαι…το γυαλί μιας παγκόσμιας θλιμμένης κόκκινης πραγματικότητας που είναι η κατάρα της θνητότητας…το χιόνι να λιώνει.
.................................................
Το Dr. Sax είναι ένα από τα πιο ‘’περίεργα’’ βιβλία του Kerouac που έχω διαβάσει και επίσης το μόνο στο οποίο υπάρχει έντονο το μυθοπλαστικό στοιχείο. Χαρακτηρίζεται από την Αυθόρμητη Πρόζα (σαν σόλο Jazz σαξόφωνου) κατά την οποία πασχίζεις να βρεις πού ξεκινάει η πρόταση που μόλις διάβασες για να την ξαναπιάσεις από την αρχή μπας και βάλεις σε σειρά το ‘’τι θέλει να πει ο ποιητής’’!!
Μιας και είπα ποιητής, να επισημάνω ότι ο «ποιητής Κerouac» είναι πολύ έντονα παρών στο κείμενο, γεγονός που το κάνει Πολύ γοητευτικό αλλά και ταυτόχρονα κάπως πιο …. δύσκολο. Τον ακούμε κάποιες φορές μάλιστα να μας λέει : «…ως και σ’ εμένα έμοιαζε ασυνάρτητος» (!!), κλείνοντάς μας το μάτι για να μας καθησυχάσει ότι δεν φταίμε εμείς αν έχουμε μπερδευτεί μες στους λαβύρινθους που μας παρέσυρε.
Αν το να βρούμε τον «ποιητή Κέρουακ» μέσα στο βιβλίο δεν μας εκπλήσσει και τόσο, μια έκπληξη την ένιωσα όμως βρίσκοντας συνέχεια παρόντα και τον ζωγράφο Κέρουακ. Οι περιγραφές των τοπίων και των εικόνων ήταν συνεχώς βουτηγμένες σε χρώματα. Με κυρίαρχα χρώματα το Κόκκινο και το Καφέ και (Spoiler Alert!!!) το ΜΠΛΕ (Η καθετότητα του κόκκινου πάνω στο μπλε όπως έλεγε παλια κι ένας φίλος μου!)
Ο Κέρουακ καταδύθηκε μέσα από την κουνελότρυπα της Αλίκης στη χώρα της παιδικής του ηλικίας και μεταξύ άλλων συνάντησε το Μαιτρ και τη Μαργαρίτα άλλα ίσως ακόμη και τον Φρόιντ (κάπου μάλιστα ο Dr Sax λέει: “ …αλλά νοιάζομαι εγώ για των μικρών παιδιών τον ύπνο…” θυμίζοντας μου τη ανακάλυψη του Φρόιντ ότι ακόμη κι ένας εφιάλτης σκοπό του έχει να διατηρήσει απρόσκοπτο τον ύπνο μας!).
Μας ανοίγει την πόρτα και μας επιτρέπει να παρακολουθήσουμε (όσο μπορούμε) τον μαγικό τρόπο με τον οποίο καθώς ανασκαλεύει τις παιδικές του αναμνήσεις, τις βλέπει (κι εμείς μαζί του) να μετατρέπονται σε εφιάλτες κι αυτούς στη συνέχεια να τους πλέκει σε μια υπέροχη ιστορία για να μας μιλήσει για το Θάνατο, την Αγάπη (έρωτα) που έχει για τη μάνα του, άλλα κυρίως για προαιώνιο ζήτημα της μάχης του Καλού με το Κακό. Μιας μάχης την οποία κυρίως μας παρουσιάζει στηριζόμενος στον Αζτέκικο μύθο όπου ο Αετός σκοτώνει το Φίδι. Μόνο που ο Κέρουακ, ίσως ήδη υπό την επιρροή της βουδιστικής φιλοσοφίας, μοιάζει πολλές φορές ηθελημένα να “θολώνει” τις διαχωριστικές γραμμές καλού/κακού, υπαινισσόμενος ότι η Σωτηρία από το Κακό είναι Ένα με το ίδιο το Κακό.
Πολύ έντονη είναι και η παρουσία και η επίδραση του Μπάροουζ στο βιβλίο (παρέα με τον οποίο έμενε ο Κερουακ στο Μεξικό όταν το έγραφε).
Ένας από τους χαρακτήρες ονομάζεται Ολτ Μπούλ Μπαλούν. To Μπαλούν (Μπαλόνι) μάλλον είναι αναφορά στα “μπαλόνια” των κόμικ που περιέχουν τα λόγια. Η ιστορία άλλωστε του Dr Sax είναι εμπνευσμένη από το κόμικ «Σκιά», που διάβαζε ο Κέρουακ μικρός. Μπορεί όμως να αναφέρεται και στη βουδιστική έννοια του Κενού (void, emptiness). Όπως θα γράψει σε ένα από τα «Mexico City Blues» λίγο αργότερα:
…….Τόπος κανείς για τους λεπτούς παλαβούς που ουρλιάζουν
Μέσα στο νου την κεντρική κωμωδία
Τίποτα
……..της κεντρικής κωμωδίας
Του μυαλού ΜΠΑΛΟΝΙΑ.
December 16, 2013
I pulled a 1959 copy of Doctor Sax off my shelf for my two-day hot springs retreat - I don't remember how I ended up with it, but the spine looked like it had never been cracked, despite some water and sun damage on the ends of the pages. I tore through it in less than two days -- Kerouac's prose rushes on in a torrent, I can surf it in my brain as quickly as my eyes take it in. Reading aloud to the cat named Elvis, I enjoyed the rhythm and the cadence of Kerouac's words even more.
The stories of his childhood - a brown bathrobe, a flood, scaring oneself silly with shadowy characters inspired by radio dramas, acting out a rich fantasy life (stealing swim trunks and scaring a friend as "The Black Thief") along with the flavor of French-Canadian French. The story focuses little on technology or current events - aside from the flood - and makes only one mention of racial segregation.
Despite the lack of current events -- the protagonists rich fantasy life reflects some kind of battles, heroes and villains, reflected in the current events of the time without really referring to those events -- more generalized than specific foes.
A fast fun read - definitely a different take on the same sort of privileged white male preadolescence in "Dandelion Wine" or other similar stories.
The stories of his childhood - a brown bathrobe, a flood, scaring oneself silly with shadowy characters inspired by radio dramas, acting out a rich fantasy life (stealing swim trunks and scaring a friend as "The Black Thief") along with the flavor of French-Canadian French. The story focuses little on technology or current events - aside from the flood - and makes only one mention of racial segregation.
Despite the lack of current events -- the protagonists rich fantasy life reflects some kind of battles, heroes and villains, reflected in the current events of the time without really referring to those events -- more generalized than specific foes.
A fast fun read - definitely a different take on the same sort of privileged white male preadolescence in "Dandelion Wine" or other similar stories.
June 10, 2014
Doctor Sax is yet another one of Kerouac’s experiments with free-verse autobiographical writing, and it tells the story of his childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. Yet while it might be about his younger years, it was actually written in 1952, when the author was thirty years old and living with William S. Burroughs in Mexico City.
You can tell he was living with Burroughs – the other great stalwart of the beat generation had clearly rubbed off on him, and much of his style can be seen in Kerouac’s words. Unfortunately, because of this, it feels like you’re reading a cheap combination of the two, a voice that belongs to neither Kerouac or Burroughs; there’s also less cohesion here than there is in other Kerouac works, although he can be forgiven for that because his work doesn’t really make much sense at the best of times.
Still, it’s interesting enough just to read about the enigmatic Doctor Sax, a character which haunted Kerouac as a child and which followed him in to adulthood. The author himself described him as “my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover” – you’ll understand that description if you read through the book and make it to the end.
You can tell he was living with Burroughs – the other great stalwart of the beat generation had clearly rubbed off on him, and much of his style can be seen in Kerouac’s words. Unfortunately, because of this, it feels like you’re reading a cheap combination of the two, a voice that belongs to neither Kerouac or Burroughs; there’s also less cohesion here than there is in other Kerouac works, although he can be forgiven for that because his work doesn’t really make much sense at the best of times.
Still, it’s interesting enough just to read about the enigmatic Doctor Sax, a character which haunted Kerouac as a child and which followed him in to adulthood. The author himself described him as “my ghost, personal angel, private shadow, secret lover” – you’ll understand that description if you read through the book and make it to the end.
March 24, 2013
Doctor Sax is a weirdly wonderful book, one of the most unusual, and best, of all of Kerouac's works. On one level, it's an account of boyhood daydreams, and a particular historical event (a great flood in his hometown). In this way, it's a natural continuation of the haunted childhood depicted in Visions of Gerard. On another, it mixes in himself as the present-day narrator, along with dreams from his contemporary life. And on a third, it's a mythic struggle between the mysterious Dr. Sax and a Great Serpent that clearly exists in the realm of fantasy and fable.
You can read the rest of my review at http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2013/0...
You can read the rest of my review at http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2013/0...
October 2, 2020
His writing is like Duchamp's urinal, it needs and it deserves to exist, but at the same time it doesn't mean it's pretty.
September 11, 2021
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? We all know The Shadow does, but Kerouac's alter ego and pulp hero/Shadow tribute "Doctor Sax" does as well. A wonderful book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews