Big Sur is one of those books that I judged by the cover, mainly because I like this particular version’s fat and rounded wide font in tandem with the calming blue and abstract artwork.
However, that was a very surface-level interest, because my interest in it grew more upon learning that it is really memories of Kerouac’s time at a friend’s cabin in cabin Bixby Canyon, Big Sur, California. The whole thing is just poised as fictional and attributed under an alter-ego called Jack Duluoz.
Overall, it appears to be a work of emotional release. It details the decline in the author’s physical and mental health following his success in the late 1950s. Therefore, at least without having read it yet, I heed this as a tale that making it big and drinking from the well of success is not everything — because Kerouac resorted to alcoholism as a result of his fame, and faced much loneliness throughout his post-fame life.
I was also quite amused that the author wrote it in a mere ten days, an extremely short turnaround between typing the first and final word of a completed novel. Sometimes, though, the rough and ready approach results in something more impressionable and creatively loose than months of refinement.
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