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Piers of the Homeless Night
'See my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart...'
Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
48 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2018
38 people are currently reading
931 people want to read
About the author
Jack Kerouac
361 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 136 reviews
August 28, 2022
[3+] Two essays - one a travelogue of sorts, the other an essay on hobos. Both romanticize living on the edge. I like Kerouac's enthusiasm and appreciation of this country. Although neither felt quite finished, they reminded me of how much I once liked reading him - I might go back and dip into one of his longer books.
October 23, 2025
On the Road Again
A review of the Penguin Modern paperback (February 22, 2018) collecting two non-fiction stories/essays from Lonesome Traveler (1960).
I've added the above excerpt from the longer book in order to repair the common fault with these short Penguin Modern editions in that they lack a proper introduction to provide context. Kerouac's intro section to Lonesome Traveler is actually the most delightful part of the complete book as you also get a rather thorough autobiography in bullet point form.
This Penguin Modern has both its title story and an essay The Vanishing American Hobo. The first tells of Kerouac's misadventures with a fellow sea-hand named Deni Bleu aka Denny Blue. The latter laments that changing times and conditions will mean that the travelling hobo life in America will disappear.
Kerouac is of course best known for his so-called Beat Generation associations. In the intro to the larger collection he disavows that by saying:
Soundtrack
I couldn't help but associate this book with the Willie Nelson song On the Road Again (1980) which you can listen to on YouTube here or on Spotify here.
Trivia and Links
Jack Kerouac's Piers of the Homeless Night is part of a 50-volume Penguin Modern (May 30, 2019) boxset issued by Penguin Books. The promo description reads:
The box set is a limited edition which may gradually become rarer to source. The books are available individually, but are also likely to become rare items.
WARNING Amazon.ca and Amazon.com are showing only a nominal fee ($1.99 Cdn, $2.53 US) for a supposed Kindle edition of the 50-volume boxset. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SCAM, THE KINDLE ITEM IS A LIST OF TITLES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONTAIN THE ACTUAL COMPLETE BOOKS.
You can read the list of titles for free at the Penguin Modern link above.
A review of the Penguin Modern paperback (February 22, 2018) collecting two non-fiction stories/essays from Lonesome Traveler (1960).
Lonesome Traveler is a collection of published and unpublished pieces connected together because they have a common theme: Traveling.
The travels cover the United States from the south to the east coast to the west coast to the far northwest, cover Mexico, Morocco Africa, Paris, London, both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at sea in ships, and various interesting people and cities therein included.
Railroad work, sea work, mysticism, mountain work, lasciviousness, solepsism, self-indulgence, bullfights, drugs, churches, art museums, streets of cities, a mishmosh of life as lived by an independent educated penniless rake going anywhere.
Its scope and purpose is simply poetry, or, natural description. - Introduction to Lonesome Traveler (not included in Piers of the Homeless Night).
I've added the above excerpt from the longer book in order to repair the common fault with these short Penguin Modern editions in that they lack a proper introduction to provide context. Kerouac's intro section to Lonesome Traveler is actually the most delightful part of the complete book as you also get a rather thorough autobiography in bullet point form.
This Penguin Modern has both its title story and an essay The Vanishing American Hobo. The first tells of Kerouac's misadventures with a fellow sea-hand named Deni Bleu aka Denny Blue. The latter laments that changing times and conditions will mean that the travelling hobo life in America will disappear.
Kerouac is of course best known for his so-called Beat Generation associations. In the intro to the larger collection he disavows that by saying:
Always considered writing my duty on earth. Also the preachment of universal kindness, which hysterical critics have failed to notice beneath frenetic activity of my true-story novels about the “beat” generation.—Am actually not “beat” but strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic …
Soundtrack
I couldn't help but associate this book with the Willie Nelson song On the Road Again (1980) which you can listen to on YouTube here or on Spotify here.
Trivia and Links
Jack Kerouac's Piers of the Homeless Night is part of a 50-volume Penguin Modern (May 30, 2019) boxset issued by Penguin Books. The promo description reads:
This box set of the 50 books in the new Penguin Modern series celebrates the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics list and its iconic authors. Including avant-garde essays, radical polemics, newly translated poetry and great fiction, here are brilliant and diverse voices from across the globe. Ground-breaking and original in their day, their words still have the power to move, challenge and inspire.
The box set is a limited edition which may gradually become rarer to source. The books are available individually, but are also likely to become rare items.
WARNING Amazon.ca and Amazon.com are showing only a nominal fee ($1.99 Cdn, $2.53 US) for a supposed Kindle edition of the 50-volume boxset. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SCAM, THE KINDLE ITEM IS A LIST OF TITLES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONTAIN THE ACTUAL COMPLETE BOOKS.
You can read the list of titles for free at the Penguin Modern link above.
December 9, 2020
I've been meaning to buy this for a while and read it but today someone liked an old review of mine, Kerouac's Lonesome Traveller, and looking back over it, I realised that the extracts in this small book are from that very novel. How coincidental. The first half of Lonesome Traveller didn't interest me too much, I remember it taking a while to get into, which is surprising as I'm a big Kerouac fan, and "Piers of the Homeless Night" is one of the first chapters of that book. So, that being said, I'll merit this a 3-star rating, where Lonesome Traveller stands at a 4. My review for that is here.
September 5, 2018
I do really enjoy Beat writer Jack Kerouac's work, and was looking forward to reading these 'soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America.' Piers of the Homeless Night, which is the thirty-third publication on the Penguin Moderns list, is composed of two journal entries - 'Piers of the Homeless Night' and 'The Vanishing American Hobo' - which were first published in Lonesome Traveler (1960).
I tend to find that Kerouac has a lot to say about American society, and that is certainly the case here. The stream-of-consciousness style, with its longer than usual run-on sentences did take me a little while to get into, but it works on the whole. I admire Kerouac's writing, largely in that I would find it impossible to emulate. His prose is fascinating, too. There is structure here, but elements of both journal entries are a little garbled and confusing. If this was the first work of Kerouac's which I had read, I would be largely indifferent to picking up anything else by him. As it is, I enjoyed On the Road and Maggie Cassidy far more than I did Piers of the Homeless Night.
I tend to find that Kerouac has a lot to say about American society, and that is certainly the case here. The stream-of-consciousness style, with its longer than usual run-on sentences did take me a little while to get into, but it works on the whole. I admire Kerouac's writing, largely in that I would find it impossible to emulate. His prose is fascinating, too. There is structure here, but elements of both journal entries are a little garbled and confusing. If this was the first work of Kerouac's which I had read, I would be largely indifferent to picking up anything else by him. As it is, I enjoyed On the Road and Maggie Cassidy far more than I did Piers of the Homeless Night.
April 26, 2018
As per Goodreads' suggested system 2 stars is "it was ok" and 3 stars is "I liked it". Well, this book was definitely in the "okay" category, but I added an extra star for the historical importance.
"Piers of the Homeless Night" offers two short stories by Jack Kerouac, united by the theme of free roaming, living in the streets and exploring. They are reasonably charming, and the first one definitely leaves you with this neon-lit fog of being young, drunk and on the road. The second story is dedicated to the homeless, and it does offer interesting thoughts on how the humanity's perspective on the homeless changed through the years. On the other hand, it is painfully obvious that this aint a scientific research and that difference in attitude might not exist anywhere outside Jack Kerouac's perpetually drunk mind.
While I appreciate the historical and literary importance of what the beatniks did with the language, Kerouac's style of writing that imitates the free float of thought is difficult to follow and simply tiresome to read.
"Piers of the Homeless Night" offers two short stories by Jack Kerouac, united by the theme of free roaming, living in the streets and exploring. They are reasonably charming, and the first one definitely leaves you with this neon-lit fog of being young, drunk and on the road. The second story is dedicated to the homeless, and it does offer interesting thoughts on how the humanity's perspective on the homeless changed through the years. On the other hand, it is painfully obvious that this aint a scientific research and that difference in attitude might not exist anywhere outside Jack Kerouac's perpetually drunk mind.
While I appreciate the historical and literary importance of what the beatniks did with the language, Kerouac's style of writing that imitates the free float of thought is difficult to follow and simply tiresome to read.
June 12, 2020
Mindblowingly and weirdly stylish. Literally (not literally, but, you know) drank every word, no matter what dude was talking about.
پینوشت. خدا بگم چیکار نکنه آقای فرید قدمی رو که اونجور رید به اولین تجربهی کرواکخونیم. شاید هم دارما بامز کتاب خوبی نبوده البته. یا شروعِ خوبی نبوده. ولی همهش تقصیر آقای فرید قدمی ه. من نمیدونم دیگه.
'Where?' I say looking out of the window and all over the horizon at those marshes of night for signs of a cop on a motorcycle or a cruiser – all you see is marshes and great black distances of night and far off, on hills, the little communities with Christmas lights in their windows blearing red, blearing green, blearing blue, suddenly sending pangs thru me and I think, 'Ah America, so big, so sad, so black, you're like the leafs of a dry summer that go crinkly ere August found its end, you're hopeless, everyone you look on you, there's nothing but the dry drear hopelessness, the knowledge of impending death, the suffering of present life, lights of Christmas wont save you or anybody, any more you could put Christmas lights on a dead bush in August, at night, and make it look like something, what is this Christmas you profess, in this void?... in this nebulous cloud?' – Piers of the Homeless Night, pg. 26
... 'I dont want to show my hand but in sleep I'm helpless to straighten it, yet take this opportunity to see my plea, I'm alone, I'm sick, I'm dying – see my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile – I'm too tired now of everything else, I've had enough, I give up, I quit, I want to go home, take me home O brother in the night – take me home, lock me in safe, take me to where all is peace and amity, to the family of life, my mother, my father, my sister, my wife and you my brother and you my friend – but no hope, no hope, no hope, I wake up and I'd give a million dollars to be in my own bed – O Lord save me –' In evil roads behind gas tanks where murderous dogs snarl from behind wire fences cruisers suddenly leap out like getaway cars but from a crime more secret, more baneful than words can tell.
The woods are full of wardens. – The Vanishing American Hobo, pg. 47-48
پینوشت. خدا بگم چیکار نکنه آقای فرید قدمی رو که اونجور رید به اولین تجربهی کرواکخونیم. شاید هم دارما بامز کتاب خوبی نبوده البته. یا شروعِ خوبی نبوده. ولی همهش تقصیر آقای فرید قدمی ه. من نمیدونم دیگه.
July 23, 2021
2.5⭐️ Don’t think Kerouac is for me....
April 1, 2024
3.5 stars. This short work by Jack Kerouac consists of two essays, the first a semi-autobiographical fact mixed with fiction story of the sort we associate with Kerouac (On the Road, Dharma Bums, Big Sur, etc.) and the other an essay on cultural change and specifically the disappearance of the hobo from American society.
The first was okay, but the second really fascinated me — a semi-autobiographical reflection on why hobos disappeared from American society, as the hobo became associated with (through mainstream media) danger and criminality. The hobos that Kerouac romanticizes include the likes of Buddha and Jesus, but also Walt Whitman and himself. They were different from “bums,” a people seeking freedom and adventure.
Reading the second essay I thought often of the John Prine piece, “The Hobo Song”:
There was a time
When lonely men would wander
Through this land
Rolling aimlessly along
So many times
I've heard of their sad story
Written in the words
Of dead men's songs
Down through the years
Many men have yearned
For freedom
Some found it
Only on the open road
So many tears of blood
Have fell around us
'Cause you can't always do what you are told.
Please tell me where
Have all the hobos gone to
I see no fire burning down
By the rusty railroad track
Could it be that time
Has gone and left them
Tied up in life's eternal traveling sack …
It’s also the concern of writers like John Steinbeck and Kenneth Rexroth, those who find themselves contemplating something lost as capitalism displaced people from their land and criminalized those who refused to be a part of the system. The work is radical, reflective and beautifully written — I would expect no less from him.
The first was okay, but the second really fascinated me — a semi-autobiographical reflection on why hobos disappeared from American society, as the hobo became associated with (through mainstream media) danger and criminality. The hobos that Kerouac romanticizes include the likes of Buddha and Jesus, but also Walt Whitman and himself. They were different from “bums,” a people seeking freedom and adventure.
Reading the second essay I thought often of the John Prine piece, “The Hobo Song”:
There was a time
When lonely men would wander
Through this land
Rolling aimlessly along
So many times
I've heard of their sad story
Written in the words
Of dead men's songs
Down through the years
Many men have yearned
For freedom
Some found it
Only on the open road
So many tears of blood
Have fell around us
'Cause you can't always do what you are told.
Please tell me where
Have all the hobos gone to
I see no fire burning down
By the rusty railroad track
Could it be that time
Has gone and left them
Tied up in life's eternal traveling sack …
It’s also the concern of writers like John Steinbeck and Kenneth Rexroth, those who find themselves contemplating something lost as capitalism displaced people from their land and criminalized those who refused to be a part of the system. The work is radical, reflective and beautifully written — I would expect no less from him.
June 12, 2020
No need for separate book. Could be a part of any other famous book of him
February 4, 2021
I never considered that I was a punctuation addict, but Kerouac has at least taught me that about myself.
June 20, 2018
First story so much like a travelogue-- spontaneous, adventurous, quite enthralling. The second story was more like a journal-essay sort, about hobos and homeless stuff. Kerouac on the image of hobo and being a hobo himself-- fascinating on the detailing. I find this intriguing cause I know a certain general facts about homeless/hobos/bums before but reading Kerouac making me getting the root idea of them. Not bad, overall this little book was okay.
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May 25, 2025with each kerouac read, i get even more annoyed by him.
November 17, 2019
I haven't read Kerouac's prose since I was a teenager, but these two short pieces—a moving character sketch and an essay on "The Vanishing American Hobo"—are, if memory serves, as good as anything he's written. One star deducted because the book is subsumed in its entirety within Lonesome Traveler.
July 1, 2023
Kerouac ma dar przekonywania do bycia bezdomnym (nie zrozumiałem pierwszej przypowieści)
December 29, 2018
Unable to finish this small piece by Kerouac. It just did not suit me, as I was flipping its pages and trying to grasp what he tried to say.
I do not want to leave Kerouac forever, just because of this small piece, but his style of writing, at least in this one, requires one's drastic attention in order to comprehend the message.
I do not want to leave Kerouac forever, just because of this small piece, but his style of writing, at least in this one, requires one's drastic attention in order to comprehend the message.
January 4, 2022
This was my first Jack Kerouac experience, and I don't even know where to begin. Maybe I'm not "smart" enough to understand Kerouac?
The writing is the epitome of stream-of-consciousness, but it bordered on incomprehension most of the time.
For those wanting to try Kerouac, I do highly recommend this Penguin Modern copy, as it is physically small and fewer than 50 pages.
The writing is the epitome of stream-of-consciousness, but it bordered on incomprehension most of the time.
For those wanting to try Kerouac, I do highly recommend this Penguin Modern copy, as it is physically small and fewer than 50 pages.
May 12, 2020
2.5*
i liked it enough but please god do not make this your first kerouac whatever you do
i liked it enough but please god do not make this your first kerouac whatever you do
April 1, 2024
I've read 33 of these Penguin Moderns now. This is one of the worst, but certainly not the worst.
Many GoodReads reviewers have given this 3*s when they were afraid to give it the 1* they really feel, and I feel bad that they feel pressured into not giving the negative review it deserves.
Piers of the Homeless Night is a massively disjointed and uneventful story (so would it matter if it was real?) about being homeless, it felt like the worst of what made me DNF On The Road. I think Kerouac thinks he's writing a fluid stream of consciousness style, but in fact he's just not editing or thinking about what he's saying at all about, in total neglect of the reader. He is doing this while writing on living 'freely' and so it means he's writing nothing worth observing or reading. His motive is beyond me if he intends to write about living in the moment as even conceptually he's damning that mode of life by trying to document it, especially while living freely in the most boring way possible, being homeless somewhere in America.
The Vanishing American Hobo however is the best thing I've read by Kerouac, it feels like his manifesto. Despite the arrogance of mentioning he intentionally observes hobos/bums to see what is happening in America, he does raise the question as to why it is of interest to the State whether people choose to sleep outside at night. It's an insight into how our view on homelessness has been shaped by the government for reasons that are not evidenced. This is why I give this 2* aa I would nichely recommend the second essay to anyone exploring views on poverty or bohemian lifestyles in the West. I only wish that Kerouac could make a better statement on it, without the arrogance of expecting his writing to save him from poverty.
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell is a far better read of a similar topic. I'm not sure why Kerouac, Ginzberg and Burroughs were included among the 50 greatest writers of the 20th century...
Many GoodReads reviewers have given this 3*s when they were afraid to give it the 1* they really feel, and I feel bad that they feel pressured into not giving the negative review it deserves.
Piers of the Homeless Night is a massively disjointed and uneventful story (so would it matter if it was real?) about being homeless, it felt like the worst of what made me DNF On The Road. I think Kerouac thinks he's writing a fluid stream of consciousness style, but in fact he's just not editing or thinking about what he's saying at all about, in total neglect of the reader. He is doing this while writing on living 'freely' and so it means he's writing nothing worth observing or reading. His motive is beyond me if he intends to write about living in the moment as even conceptually he's damning that mode of life by trying to document it, especially while living freely in the most boring way possible, being homeless somewhere in America.
The Vanishing American Hobo however is the best thing I've read by Kerouac, it feels like his manifesto. Despite the arrogance of mentioning he intentionally observes hobos/bums to see what is happening in America, he does raise the question as to why it is of interest to the State whether people choose to sleep outside at night. It's an insight into how our view on homelessness has been shaped by the government for reasons that are not evidenced. This is why I give this 2* aa I would nichely recommend the second essay to anyone exploring views on poverty or bohemian lifestyles in the West. I only wish that Kerouac could make a better statement on it, without the arrogance of expecting his writing to save him from poverty.
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell is a far better read of a similar topic. I'm not sure why Kerouac, Ginzberg and Burroughs were included among the 50 greatest writers of the 20th century...
December 4, 2023
Prima facie take a bit of issue with these two diary extracts. The blurb describes them as “soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America” and they are certainly those. No issue with the writing itself, it’s compelling and vivid. My issue is that these are supposed to be factual descriptions and assertion of opinion and I find them to be shallow and written from a higher place than those Kerouac is observing. In particular the Hobo piece; Kerouac makes the lifestyle out to be one of freedom and almost one of choice - he is living the life because it fulfils him to an extent, and resents the limitations 50s American society is placing on the ability to live that lifestyle - but of course it is not a choice for 99.9% and so his views I think are irrelevant and unrepresentative. Similarly the first piece you can take as somewhat the ramblings of an out of touch writer wanting to play at being working class; he wants to hop on a freight ship to escape the mundanity but as soon as the first barrier is put in place he turns around and pursues something or other else. Perhaps Kerouac is aware in both of these cases of the hypocrisy and shallowness but if he is he fails to convey that.
December 30, 2019
Το λογοτεχνικό εγχείρημα της πρώτης ιστορίας επιβραδύνει αναπόφευκτα της κατανόησή της. Αδιάκοπες προτάσεις που εσωκλείουν άλλες προτάσεις και παρεμβαλλόμενοι διάλογοι υπό την μορφή συνεχούς κειμένου συνθέτουν μια πρωτόγνωρη αφήγηση, δύσκολη και απαιτητική, παρόλα αυτά άξια επαίνου. Η δεύτερη ιστορία λιγότερο σύνθετη και πιο διαφανής ως προς τον σκοπό της. Πριν προλάβεις να πεις κύμινο, συναντάς τον ιδεαλισμό της ελευθεριότητας και της αυθυπαρξίας, τη νοσταλγία του χαμένου παρελθόντος και την απαραίτητη νύξη στον αδυσώπητο κομφορμισμό με τα όργανα επιτήρησής του και την Αμερική ως παντιέρα του.
Συνολικά, θαύμασα τον ταλέντο με το οποίο οι λέξεις πλάστηκαν σε εικόνες και τον τρόπο που η φιλοσοφία της ζωής του με έκανε να ξανασκεφτώ την σύγχρονη καθημερινότητα.
Συνολικά, θαύμασα τον ταλέντο με το οποίο οι λέξεις πλάστηκαν σε εικόνες και τον τρόπο που η φιλοσοφία της ζωής του με έκανε να ξανασκεφτώ την σύγχρονη καθημερινότητα.
June 13, 2023
Piers of the Homeless Night contains two travel pieces by Kerouac Jack: Piers of the Homeless Night and The Vanishing American Hobo.
First of all, I absolutely despise Kerouac Jack's writing style. It makes for very uncomfortable reading, and it massively drags this book down. In addition, the first essay was not for me at all. It was weird, the writing made it annoying to get through and I just really did not like it at all. The second essay was fine, but with a bit of a weird premise.
Overall I'm going to give this collection 1 star, and it might actually be my least favourite of these fifty blue books, just because of the writing style.
First of all, I absolutely despise Kerouac Jack's writing style. It makes for very uncomfortable reading, and it massively drags this book down. In addition, the first essay was not for me at all. It was weird, the writing made it annoying to get through and I just really did not like it at all. The second essay was fine, but with a bit of a weird premise.
Overall I'm going to give this collection 1 star, and it might actually be my least favourite of these fifty blue books, just because of the writing style.
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June 6, 2025I have never read any of Jack Kerouac's work before, and other Beatnik writings have given me cold feet to try it. I was surprised that I liked these essays! The sentences are long winded but poetically so, and his unique descriptions piqued my imagination into the freedom of roaming around as a white dude with zero commitments in midcentury America.
October 26, 2022
- see my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the emerald mountains beyond the city, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile -
November 11, 2024
Siempre me gusta leer a Kerouac, aunque leer en inglés con esa puntuación es doloroso. Dos ensayos (?) que tratan sobre rebuscarse, viajar y ser un vagabundo en Estados Unidos. Es un libro corto (45p.) y lo disfruté. Nada del otro mundo.
September 25, 2025
‘Deni is meanwhile very busy tellin me what a mess I’ve made of my life but I’ve heard that from everybody coast to coast and I dont care generally and I dont care tonight and this is my way of doing and saying things.’
July 10, 2021
3.5/5
Twee zalig stukjes tekst
Twee zalig stukjes tekst
April 10, 2023
I believe I have mentioned before that I cannot cope with Kerouac’s self-indulgence and tedium.
Turns out his short stories do nothing to remedy that.
Turns out his short stories do nothing to remedy that.
May 5, 2023
feels like something scribbled down on a train but in the bad way
(i’ll look into his other works, though, since the overall atmosphere is interesting)
(i’ll look into his other works, though, since the overall atmosphere is interesting)
August 20, 2025
This may be an unpopular opinion but I thought this was great. The perfect funny accompaniment to a day's commute
September 21, 2024
3.5 | First story was incomprehensible but I really loved the second
Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews