Book Review – Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac

An Early Kerouac Novella That is Both Distinctly His and Unrefined

May 10, 2009

This beginning novel in the ongoing Duluoz Legend gives a decent glimpse into the brilliance Kerouac would later achieve, but the glimpse arrives unfashionably late.

There’s a style to the prose of Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) where he’s some sort of middle passage, some sort of vessel that is constantly taking and giving. His state of reverie is always emphasizing the prettiness of things, though they may be nothing more than pretty destroyed. This constant observation and absorption doesn’t leave much time to spend in a single place, a trait that serves Kerouac’s work well.

However, Visions of Gerard (Penguin Non-Classics, ISBN: 0140144528) suffers from the same traits that make some of Keroauc’s other work a success.

Capote’s Famous Quote

Most fans of Kerouac, or anyone who has taken even the tiniest look into beat-culture, have heard American author Truman Capote’s (1924-1984) quote about Kerouac’s work: That’s not writing, that’s typing.

Maybe Capote just read Visions of Gerard. To think that his comment about Kerouac merely typing instead of actually writing is directed towards the nomadic quest for beauty in On the Road or the pros and cons of indulgence as found in Big Sur is almost preposterous. Despite the triumph of Kerouac’s style in his other work, Visions of Gerard is flaccid and plodding, going nowhere and moving quickly.

A Strong Finish Comes Too Late

In Visions of Gerard, only need the last twenty (or thirty, to get in a scene or two with a living Gerard) pages are necessary to see what Kerouac was trying to accomplish in kicking off the Duluoz legend: the loss of maybe not a saint, but the idea of sainthood and how it would effect Jack Duluoz/Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac in the years to come.

Aside from a few good lines here and there, the pages that precede the end are nearly worthless. Kerouac spends too much time in one place, spinning his faux-poetic prose into nothing much at all. The word-web of beauty that wasn’t.

Ol’ Jack tends to get boring and annoying in his struggle to type through the thoughts in his head. For the diehards, go ahead and read Visions of Gerard. It goes fast, and the last 20-30 pages are made of the sad wonder that only Kerouac can deliver.

When he starts writing through his thoughts instead of typing through them, he finally gives the reader an opportunity to see Gerard as the fallen angel he may have always been. Unfortunately, by the time Kerouac falls into his groove, the reader is already lost and uninterested, moving away from the same commonplace things that Kerouac rallies against in his other works.

The copyright of the article Book Review – Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac in American Fiction is owned by Ryan Werner. Permission to republish Book Review – Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.