Hmmmmm........tough call.I think this is one of those books that divides the bona fide Kerouac fan from the Kerouac freak. Come to think of it, I probably used to belong to the latter category but now most probably belong to the former category. Like with so many of Kerouac's poetry collections, there are highs and lows. Even in his largely unheralded classic Mexico City Blues, some pages are disappointing. Is this the best the King of the Beats has to offer, I wondered at times. But here I must stop and remind myself that to analyse Kerouac's poetry on the micro level is misleading and somewhat missing the point. Kerouac himself provides the very keys to exploring that beautiful labyrinth of his mind - to understanding his work - he is a jazz poet, par excellence, blowing his blues like a tenorman on a Sunday afternoon jam session. And listen to any solo by the jazz greats - Coltrane, Parker or Davis - and you will soon realise that not every note, not even every phrase is melodious and good. But they are SEARCHING (yes that is the key word) for that sound and towards the end of the book Kerouac says (in a short aside) that he has found his sound. He is writing spontaneously and just like a jazz solo, the sum is definitely greater than the individual parts. In some spots, Kerouac breaks into Joycean babble doubletalk but somehow that "scatalogical pile-up of words" (as Kerouac describes his own spontaneous bop prosody) is endlessly fascinating. Some of it makes no sense whatsoever no matter how many times you go back over it but some choruses seem to make some sort of sense on a telepathical level. And we must remember what the whole essence of beatness is - a sort of anti-intellectual-establishment crusade or protest. College professors of literature and writing often have very rigid boundaries for deciding what can be considered as strict 'literature'. Well, as Corso and Kerouac knew well, the man of the street (Jack Micheline is a prime example) knows society on a level that the college professor in his cozy college office cannot. Enter the beats. And that's what it is all about. In my opinion, San Francisco Blues contains Kerouac's best work in this collection but parts of Orizaba and Cerrada blues are also fascinating. Some of the poems in this collection are top notch five-star but there are some three and two-star choruses too and I know Kerouac is capable of doing better but to reiterate, the sum is greater than the parts. Still definitely worth a read but if you are new to Kerouac's poetry, start with the pristine, the sublime Mexico City Blues. Three stars for Book of Blues.
Jack Kerouac reminds me of my father-in-law a little, though my father-in-law’s hands are ever working with drywall, fiberglass, salvaged wood scraps, and various buckets of construction slops rather than with words. They both, however, swill(ed) bourbon like mother’s milk. But the true substance of this comparison is their sensuous sloppiness coupled with an emotional apprehension of the world that can slip into the maudlin exposing a raw sensitivity that often masks itself in devil-may-care boorishness, and their headlong plunging into the world of things stoked by a mentality that never settles into anything resembling calm satisfaction. I realized this similarity in a flash once while talking to my wife on the phone as she was watching her father repair a boat ramp in a slipshod manner. As she described it he was out in the heat wearing nothing but boxer shorts which had a butt-side opening as gaping as his front-side fly. This image reminded me of Kerouac and his poetry. His poetry is a mess, but it’s a sensuous mess formed by a hands-on immersion, with a butt-side fly openness to the world. And inside this butt-side fly is a raw heart, and inside this raw heart is an adolescent boy who just wants to play and build and suckle bourbon from an all-enveloping mammary.
What do You think about Book Of Blues (1995)?
I am not a big fan of Kerouac, but I was very pleased with this book. His method of composing words around music and jazz I found translated very well in his poetry. The fact that it didnt seem that he was trying to be a poet gave his verse that much more of a resonance that I feel is missing in much of his prose. All that being said, it would be hard to get a feel for this book without already being familiar with at least some of his prose for it is very intimate and needs a little background. Was a pleasure to read.
—Phil
I wanted to give this book five stars, but ultimately I docked a star for problematic content, including sexism, and racist and homophobic slurs.One can either “get” these poems, or not. Most of these poems are glances into Kerouac’s head, and are quite beautiful descriptions, both in their prose and their blunt form.Other poems are just tacky; talking about “interesting rapes” and “keep that daughter/ away from my knees/ after she’s thirteen.” Violence against women is thus turned into a casual stanza.I appreciated the many references to Emily Dickinson. I especially loved how the poems themselves sounded like the blues; I could almost hear the harmonica and saxophone playing behind these words.
—Amanda N. Butler
There are a lot of folks who may just not 'get' this, and that's OK. Looking back through the eyes of the 21st century, it's sometimes difficult for people to grasp, but the key here is the rhythm, the blues, the cant that's used, the gaps, and above all the clearly defined limitations of how he composed these poems: "In my system, the form of blues choruses is limited by the small page of the breastpocket notebook in which they are written, like the form of a set number of bars in a jazz blues chorus, and so sometimes the word-meaning can carry from one chorus into another, or not, just like the phrase-meaning can carry harmonically from one chorus to the other, or not, in jazz, so that, in these blues as in jazz, the form is determined by time, and by the musician's spontaneous phrasing & harmonizing with the beat of time as it waves & waves on by in measure choruses."I'll echo what others have said. Put on some bop music - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, early Coltrane...and then hear it in Jack's voice. Hit up YouTube and listen to his delivery of his prose, and realize it's all the same...beat.
—John
