Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.10 (542 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0141001879 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 208 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-11-04 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Another Milestone for Joyce Johnson Kristine I. O'Daly In Doors Wide Open, Joyce Johnson has accomplished the seemingly impossible--expanded both historically and emotionally on her award-winning memoir, Minor Characters, illuminating with even more candor and care her relationship with Jack Kerouac. We readers are the beneficiaries of both her legal freedom and personal willingness to continue her story. With so much dubious scholarship and questionable intention to be found in books on Kerouac and the beats, from an assortment of writers claiming to be "insiders," Johnson provides a voice both vulnerable and true as she returns to a time and place s. A nice addition to both of their collections For anyone interested in the lives behind the novels and poems of the Beats, Joyce Johnson offers a priceless glimpse at the realities of a world most of us can only imagine. Delineating a love affair that was short but tremendously influential on both of them, Johnson reveals something of her own personal growth during a time when being a young woman on her own was an act of rebellion in itself, as well as the impact of sudden fame and fortune on Jack Kerouac's already fragile psyche. Although the insensitivity to Johnson that shows through in Kerouac's letters to her will come as no surprise to . "The Beats Go On" according to Ted Ficklen. Almost The Beats Go On Almost 30 years after his premature death, we are just beginning to see Jack Kerouac objectively as an artist. Joyce Johnson's collection of letters shows a side of Kerouac more like Big Sur than On The Road--he's not so much the travelling hipster as the thoughtful artist. Kerouac never quite got to the point in his artistic development where he pleased himself with his own writing. He was always ambitious and always frustrated with words. He was hammering out a new style of prose, but much of his audience seemed unaware of his influences. There were too many readers out there who just wanted to . 0 years after his premature death, we are just beginning to see Jack Kerouac objectively as an artist. Joyce Johnson's collection of letters shows a side of Kerouac more like Big Sur than On The Road--he's not so much the travelling hipster as the thoughtful artist. Kerouac never quite got to the point in his artistic development where he pleased himself with his own writing. He was always ambitious and always frustrated with words. He was hammering out a new style of prose, but much of his audience seemed unaware of his influences. There were too many readers out there who just wanted to
Reflecting on those tumultuous years, Johnson seamlessly interweaves letters and commentary, bringing to life her love affair with one of American letters' most fascinating and enigmatic figures.. On a blind date in Greenwich Village set up by Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson (then Joyce Glassman) met Jack Kerouac in January 1957, nine months before he became famous overnight with the publication of On the Road. It also shares the vivid and unusual perspective of what it meant to be young, Beat, and a woman in the Cold War fifties. This unique book, containing the many letters the two of them wrote to each other, reveals a surprisingly tender side of Kerouac. She was an adventurous, independent-minded twenty-one-year-old; Kerouac was already running on empty at thirty-five
The loving but independent air she assumed in her letters, Johnson notes, came from painful rewriting to eliminate all hints of hurt or need; as he wandered in and out of her life, Kerouac kept reminding her he didn't want to be tied down, even as he urged her to come visit whatever city he'd alighted in. Spiced with marvelously evocative period slang like dig and swing, and references to friends such as Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, this poignant epistolary record of a 22-month love affair also brings to life an exciting moment in American cultural history, when the Beat writers gave "powerful, irresistible voices to subversive longings." --Wendy Smith. Now kno