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WHY KEROUAC MATTERS

Name: WHY KEROUAC MATTERS
Author: John Leland
ISBN: 978-0-670-06325-3

THE LESSONS OF ON THE ROAD (THEY’RE NOT WHAT YOU THINK)

by John Leland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2007

A harmless enough entertainment, but vaporous and rather frivolous—an attempt, one suspects, to ride the crest of an...

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A pop-culture trifle that tries too hard to make its already accessible subject au courant among the 20-somethings.

New York Times style reporter Leland (Hip: The History, 2004) clearly has good intentions in this celebration of the inventor of middle-class white cool (or was that Sinatra?) and good instincts in pointing out the ironies hidden in Jack Kerouac’s invention. But it does not do to strive for hipness when discussing such weighty matters, and Leland’s prose often falls into a kind of chattiness that would have driven its subject to mad repudiations: “The big kahuna for any god-aspiring novelist is the question of death”; “On the Road is often blamed for America’s ongoing goatee problem, but the book is in fact clean-shaven. Kerouac disdained chin spinach, especially on white dudes.” Leland’s subject has been dead for nearly 40 years, the book that made him famous half a century old now, and the ironies mount: Kerouac was conservative, racist, closeted and a champion of Falwellian family values who “managed a lasting female relationship only with his mother, who supported his writing even as she disapproved of the lives he wrote about.” He was a wild celebrant of drugs and booze, hung out with Ginsberg and Burroughs, yet voted for Goldwater. So what are the life lessons to be drawn from the man and his book? Leland offers “Sal’s 7 Habits of Highly Beat People,” the Sal in question being of course Kerouac’s alterego: “Stay on schedule (Tip: don’t let jobs get in the way),” “Sell in, not out,” and so on; but too little of his book supports his thesis that On the Road is about how to live.

A harmless enough entertainment, but vaporous and rather frivolous—an attempt, one suspects, to ride the crest of an anniversary wave that has yet to take shape.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-670-06325-3

Page Count: 205

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE YOU MAKE
by John Leland

- BOOK REVIEW
HIP
by John Leland

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.