Dr. Sax by Jack Kerouac Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.75 You Save: $7.25 (56%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.49 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Dr. Sax
Book Review: Amazing tales from pulp sources
Summary: 5 Stars
Who is Doctor Sax? At first glance, he appears as a shadowy, even frightening figure from pulp comics. He dons a cape and a slouch hat; he changes colors depending on the time of day. Is he a demonic figure, lurking in the darkness intent on catastrophic destruction or is he simply a regular guy in an atypical superhero type costume?
_Doctor Sax_ is basically a series of interconnected tales of the bizarre, as seen primarily through the eyes of its young protagonist, Jean Duluoz. Lowell, Mass. in the 1930s is the backdrop, and the realistic part of the novel includes Jean's interactions with his parents and his boyhood friends. Jean and his buddies engage in all the compulsory games of childhood, including baseball and shooting marbles. The book also contains a large section concerning the flooding of the Merrimac River during a spring thaw. As seen from some of the boys' point of view, the anticipated floods provide sheer excitement, while their adult counterparts react with fear and horror.
The fantasy part of the book, concerning haunted castles, demons, huge coiling snakes and an ultra-colossal sized bird, contains some of the best and most imaginative science fiction/fantasy writing ever. _Doctor Sax_ is not just merely a very superior pulp tale of good vs. evil, it is also a work of genius and wit. Mr. Kerouac, having written in an entirely different genre for him, has clearly outdone himself.
Book Review: Crazy yet Meaningful...
Summary: 5 Stars
Doctor Sax: Faust Part Three (1959) is admittedly a very difficult work to comprehend. It is one of the least conventional parts (even by Kerouac's standards) of the Duluoz Legend. As the second part of the Kerouac's saga, it covers the period of Jack Duluoz's youth in between the death of his older brother Gerard and his maturation which will culminate in Duluoz's torrid relationship with Maggie Cassidy (the subject of part three of Kerouac's master narrative). The problematic nature (to say nothing of the structure and flow) of the narrative, does not obscure several powerful contributions of this work.
The book illuminates (perhaps more so than several other books) the profound influence of Kerouac on Allen Ginsberg's poetry, particularly with respect to Kerouac's ear for lists and poetic verse (take for example phrases such as this one..."and idiot giggles in the full midsleepnight Pawtucketville of wild huge name and softy Baghdad-dense-with-rooftops-lines-&-wires hill--"). It is also quite clear that, of all his novels,Doctor Sax owes much to the crazy "routines" of William S. Burroughs (with whom Kerouac was staying while writing the novel in Mexico City). The novel exemplifies tortured fantasies, and the massive transitions from childhood innocence toward the cruel realities of life beyond Lowell, Massachusetts.
I freely admit that this book is very disjointed and has several competing storylines--from musings on Kerouac's childhood to the fantastical images of Doctor Sax and the vampire Count Condu. However, it is a solid entry in the Duluoz Legend, and is a must read for all fans.
Book Review: Divine
Summary: 5 Stars
This is kerouac's favourite out of all of his works - and rightly so. It delves into his psyche and provides an almost burroughsesque peice of literature. This book is not for people unused to the writing of kerouac, so if you haven't read any before i recommend that you check out On The Road before embracing this. It begins as a regular peice of kerouac, recounting events of his very early youth in Lowell, Mass. but ascends (or decends depending on your opinion) into a realm of psychedelic, almost biblical dream-hallucination based on a mythical character called Dr. Sax who combats the realms of evil (with the help of young JK/JD) which are personified by the snake, but more supremely by the dove. I wont tell the end 'cause that would piss ev'ryone off but shall finish by saying that Dr. Sax comes highly recommended by me as an 'alternative' kerouac.Book Review: Dr. Sax
Summary: 5 Stars
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's (1922-- 1969) "On the Road." The Library of America, among others publishers, has marked the occasion with the publication of a new volume including five Kerouac "Road Novels". I wanted to reread other works by Kerouac besides the "road novels" that are in danger of being overlooked, and I turned to "Dr. Sax". Kerouac wrote "Dr. Sax" in 1952 while living with William Burroughs in Mexico City. It was a difficult time for both writers. Kerouac had already written "On the Road" but could not get it published. Burroughs had just accidentally killed his lover, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of "William Tell". "Dr. Sax" proved even more difficult to publish than "On the Road" and did not appear in print until 1959.
"Dr. Sax" differs from "On the Road" and the other books in the LOA collection in that it is set in Lowell, Massachusetts, the town where Kerouac grew up. Lowell is a small mill town on the banks of the Merrimack River. During Kerouac's boyhood, it was home to a substantial French-Canadian immigrant population, to a community of Greek Americans and to several other diverse ethnic groups. Kerouac's parents were both immigrants from French Canada. They spoke a dialect of French in their home and Kerouac did not learn English until he was about seven years old. A fascinating part of "Dr. Sax" is the French dialogue among Kerouac and his family -- with Kerouac immediately providing an English rendition in addition to the French.
The book is written from the perspective of an adult -- Kerouac in 1952 in Mexico City -- looking back and reflecting upon his childhood and early adolescence from the standpoint of his ongoing difficult life as a writer struggling for publication and combating his own inner demons of drugs and alcohol. It opens with a dream, and Kerouac tells the reader that "memory and dream are intermixed in this mad universe." The book features a strange character the young Kerouac invented named Dr. Sax, a sinister figure in a cape and slouch hat. Dr. Sax is accompanied by other bizzare characters including Count Cordu the Vampire, the Great Snake, the Wizard, and others who live in a large weed-grown abandoned house on a snake-infested hill just outside of Lowell. Kerouac conceived the idea of Dr. Sax from various comic books that were popular when he was a child.
"Dr. Sax" is memorable largely for the picture it draws of Kerouac's childhood and of Lowell. (Kerouac is named Jack Duluoz or "Ti Jean" in the book.) It gives good portraits of Kerouac's mother and father and of the family's many moves among the poorer neighborhoods of the town and of Kerouac's older sister and ill-fated brother Gerard who died when he was ten. Kerouac, Ti Jean is portrayed as a sensitive, imaginative and athletic child. The book offers portraints of Kerouac playing baseball and marbles, going to church, engaging in pranks and fights with his childhood friends and enemies, watching movies and reading books, experiencing the first flush of sexuality and learning to masturbate, and learning of death, in the person of Gerard and several others. The book also shows a great deal of Lowell and its environs, especially of a large flood that destroyed much of the city's downtown in 1936.
The story of young Ti Jean and of Lowell is punctuated by comic-book like tales of Dr. Sax. Dr. Sax also appears as a shadowy figure commenting upon and observing the life of young Kerouac and his family and friends. There is something sinister about Sax throughout most of the book. He is partly drawn from William Burroughs, as he is shown travelling through South and Central America for various "powders". In the lengthy final chapter of the book, Ti Jean accompanies Dr. Sax in a bizzare chapter in which Sax purports to ward off the forces of evil that threaten Lowell. The story gets a sharp wizard-of-Oz-like twist at the end.
With the comic characters and the surprise ending, there is a great deal of mad humor in Dr. Sax, but the tone still is predominantly one of melancholy and reflection. In one particularly good scene, Kerouac's dying uncle prophetically tells him: "my child poor Ti Jean, do you know my dear that you are destined to be a man of big sadness and talent-- it'll never to live or die, you'll suffer like others -- more" The Dr. Sax figure, similarly, seems to show the price Kerouac paid for becoming a writer. The book suggests -- with its subtitle "Faust Part Three" that Kerouac's writing was part of a Faustian bargain with Dr. Sax in which Kerouac paid for his literary imagination with a sad and tormented life.
Dr. Sax was Kerouac's favorite among his own novels, and many readers would among his work regard it as his best or second-best after "On the Road." (Other works have their own partisans as well.) This book will interest readers who want to see a lesser-known side of Kerouac. The book is written in a variety of styles. It is erratic and not easy reading. Those who are interested in Kerouac's portrayals of his life in Lowell might also enjoy "Maggie Cassidy" and Kerouac's first and underappreciated book, "The Town and the City".
Robin Friedman
Book Review: Enjoyable, but difficult
Summary: 3 Stars
This is one of Kerouac's more interesting titles. It is a bit hard to follow at times and one must almost read it aloud in parts to understand the thought. He used nouns as adjectives, ones you wouldn't expect. This can be disorienting, but when read aloud the rhythm comes alive and Kerouac's intended voice can be heard. It deserves more than three stars, but it can seem overwhelming at times so I dock it points for that.