Orpheus Emerged

this was... not a good book

Written in Kerouac's earlier years it's understandable why the writing is so obviously pretentious. The whole story revolves around these melodramatic college kids going on about god and the artist. It seemed so much as if the author was just trying to shove in all the allusions he could to make the work sound fancy, and draw on a bunch of pretentious sounding quotes from other books to make his own seem on that level. But there was no meaning. It was hard to keep track of the characters because quite a few of them were very similar and the plot was kinda choppy.

However there was a charm to the vibe of college, poetry, whiskey, morphine, and talking about concepts so much grander and more complex that they show more can comprehend. Also it is very interesting to see Kerouac's writing develop to his more well known works. The beat generation is one of my favourite literary eras and I love so many of the authors, and I love being able to see the development of their abilities. Despite the poor writing of this book, it was funny to see how I was able to see myself in these attempts to seem more educated and pretentious than Kerouac could actually write at that point.

Overall:
If you want to see the development of Kerouac's writing or have a soft spot for him and the rest of the beats, this is an interesting read. Otherwise, don't really bother. show less

A very early work showing the beginnings of Kerouac's legacy. However, I found the book to be a bit confusing. Something was going on between Michael and Paul, but I'm not sure I ever understood what. Lots of drinking, lamenting, and fooling around, but not much in the way of plot. Still, it was interesting to see these early themes in Kerouac's writing, and I am glad I read it.

Once you read this book you can understand Kerouac wasn't very experienced. It feels like a first novel. It needed more maturity. But it was a really cool story. I enjoyed it.