CASSADY LASSADY JUST AS I THOUGHT, 13 Apr 2000
NEAL FROM NEAL WHAT A NOVEL IDEA AFTER HAVING TO READ ABOUT HIM THROUGH OTHER PEOPLE.REASONABLE AND FUNNY BOOK.IT IS HOWEVER HARD TO GET HOLD OF .I GOT MINE FROM THE CITY LIGHTS BOOK STORE IN SAN FRAN.
Entertaining and fun., 21 Jul 1999
This is the true life story of the main inspiration behind the beat movement and the early Acid movement. This autobiography examines the first 13 years or so of Cassady's life. The only problem with it is that it is too short. However, it redeems itself with the addition of letters and exerpts in the back. These are more entertaining than the book in some ways. Check out the letter to Ken Kesey. When you are done with this book check out the movie, "The Last Time I Committed Suicide." It is based on one of the exerpts from the book. Overall, this is a fun book that gives insight into Cassady's early life.
A great introduction of the beat movement, 08 Jul 1998
The autobiographical part of the book was quite interesting but I found it hard to read considering that almost the entire text was run-on sentences that would take up half the page.By the the time you got done with the sentence you had to read it over to get the idea. Now I find myself writing much longer sentences.
just as you would imagine neal, 25 Jan 1998
this book is not an easy one to find, but my search was well worth it. These are some of the finest stories i have read in quite a while. They come across as if Neal was right there telling them to you. Best view of what is would have been like to have been Neal.
Elementary my dear Moriarty.........., 04 Feb 2005
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Now's your chance.......
Read between the lines of what Jack Kerouac was saying in On the Road, or at least get closer to his hero Dean Moriarty.
This book officially published this winter in the USA and available on import in the UK is a CAUSE CELEBRE of the Beat World. Possibly the best Beat read you'll have had since On the Road.
Neal Cassady's Letters - produced by Carolyn Cassady and others, brilliantly edited (and that doesn't mean cut) by Beat authority Dave Moore.
Having read On the Road we think we know it all? We don't know half of it. Neal's Letters flesh out the legend. For instance they show the married side of Neal with intimate letters between himself and Carolyn, something On the Road barely touches on.
Dave Moore's meticulous annotation and footnotes link them, explain them, and make a narrative of them. They prove Neal an engaging writer who's free-form letter(s) inspired Kerouac in his genius to make a prose-poem of the tale.
It's not difficult to see why Kerouac and his muse have been down-graded over the years, and even vilified.There's enough work here for a thousand sociologists. At a time when, here in Britain, Jamaican men are being persuaded to change their 'out husband' lifestyle and settle down with their wives and the children they father, Neal Cassady epitomised the very life style they're eschewing becoming the 'white negro' of Kerouac's classic, not only in terms of jazz music and pot, but also adopting the black male role of sex-object and stud.
As Joe Strummer said: "When we first read On the Road we weren't digging Kerouac's prose - wewanted to be like Dean Moriarty". He ended his life as only a man like that can - broken and crying on a railway line in Mexico.
Saint or sinner? Looser or winner? As the man who straddled Kerouac's prose makes his literary debut - you make up your mind!
