The Town and the City (Penguin Modern Classics)

A real life-changer for me. Full of fantastic quotes. The first section takes a bit of getting through but then it's incredible!

Jack kerouac would have made a great film director if he ever had the inclination. The first half dozen pages of the book read like a tracking shot at the beginning of a movie - sweeping across the small town panorama like the lens of a camera, slowly moving into a close up view of the Martin family and the minutiae of their relationships and lives and stuggles in 1940's America. The prose as we have come to expect from Kerouac is at times breathless with the urgency of youth and at others more introspective and philosophical. The characters are finely crafted and realistic given the writers excellent ear for dialogue and no nonense descriptive style, driving the story at a satisfying pace. The book is at once amusing, profound, soulful, and elegiac - the death of Kerouac's own father inspired the scene where family patriarch George Martin dies and is particular raw and heart rending. He set out with the specific intention of creating a great American novel in the style of writer Thomas Woolf who he admired greatly - and sometimes labours under the weight of such expectations. Nevertheless - Kerouac has crafted an engaging and poignant story that deserves its status as a modern classic.

This is Kerouac as you’ve never seen him before. The Town and the City is his debut novel, and he wrote it long before he developed his trademark stream-of-consciousness style – here we see a different man entirely, a more thoughtful and introverted spirit who nevertheless shows plenty of signs of the potential that he eventually lived up to.In The Town and the City, Kerouac attempted to create his ‘Great American novel‘. Arguably, he was successful, but I’m not bothered about titles like that – to me, it’s just a fantastic piece of work in its own right, a little long perhaps but well worth persevering through.To begin with, I’ll admit that it is plagued a little bit by that nemesis of every sweeping novel before it – there are so many characters that it’s difficult to tell them apart, to begin with. It doesn’t help that they’re all from the same family either, but you do get to know them over time; I’d argue that if anything, that ends up as a good thing overall, because it means that you can re-read it and gain a better appreciation and understanding the second time round.It’s also one of those books in which nothing seems to happen over a long period of time, but that’s the mastery that the writer is showing here – time doesn’t seem to drag, and the characters do develop even while nothing much is changing around them. Anyone can create character growth out of deaths and diseases, but it takes one hell of a writer to create it from conversations and exposition.In fact, I’d argue that this is one of Kerouac’s better works – perhaps not his best (after all, I’m not crazy), but it’s still pretty damn good read, and an impressive debut novel from a man who would later become a legend. The characters are pretty likeable too, once you get used to them, even if they don’t seem quite as interesting as thinly-veiled caricatures of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.I still think you’re better off starting with On the Road, or perhaps with Vanity of Dulouz, which I personally think is probably his finest piece of work. The Town and the City can wait until you’re ready to delve a little deeper, but don’t forget it altogether – it’s a hidden gem, but it’s a hidden gem that’s better read with a little bit of context.And so I leave you with a quote: “He had never felt anything like that before – yet somehow he knew that from now on he would always feel like that, always, and something caught at his throat as he realized what a strange sad adventure life might get to be, strange and sad and still much more beautiful and amazing than he could ever have imagined because it was so really, strangely sad.”

If I’d read this cold, without knowing who the author was, I don’t think I’d ever have come up with Jack Kerouac. Knowing him as I do primarily from On the Road and the Beats in general, I was astonished to discover this wonderful traditional novel, a real masterpiece of American writing, a contender for The Great American Novel, and a real joy which kept me enthralled from beginning to end. It’s the timeless story of a small-town Massachusetts family, the Martin family, from the early years of the 1900s to the troubled post-World War II era. It’s a large family, with 5 sons, all of whom in some way represent Kerouac himself, for this is very much an autobiographical coming-of-age novel. However, you don’t need to know anything about Kerouac to relish this long, rambling family saga, as the writing is so good and compelling that I don’t see how any reader could fail to be carried away by it. The characterisation is excellent, observant and perceptive, the dialogue convincing, the descriptions as vivid as though you’re watching a film, and the atmosphere spot-on. You feel as though you are there – at the ball game, at Thanksgiving, at Christmas – all the rituals of American family life. And then we see the war, and the seamy underbelly of New York, where life is raw and sometimes desperate. Life is certainly no idealised sweet dream, although there are moments of deep joy, and a persistent thread of sadness and nostalgia runs through the novel. I closed it with a new respect for Kerouac as a writer and a deeper understanding of him as a man. Excellent.

Just been re-reading this, and it's so good to remember how wonderful it is. If you're an aspiring writer and you want to see 'how it's done' when it comes to characterisation, atmosphere and pathos, this is the book you ought to read. It almost made me weep in parts, it's so brilliant. Perfect. Oh, and it breaks all the boring old creative writing course and 'how to write' blog article rules, too. Hurrah ;)

Es un libro excelente, la cubierta podría haber sido dura a este precio pero bueno sigue siendo un buen precio por este excelente libro lo recomiendo.

I tried other books from the same author and really think he is just not such a great writer. This particular book is ok and even entertaining because it is very fast-paced and eventful. However, the quality of his style is mediocre at best. It is suitable for passing time at the airport. Don't expect a major storyline that totally consumes you. You can still not go wrong with it. It is an easy read.

Kerouac's first might very well be one of his best. The town and the city beautiful family tale very worth reading

One of Kerouac's earlier novels, written in more of a traditional style in comparison to his later works. This is a quaint reflection of his upbringing in a New England Mill town. This semi-autobiographical work is filled with beautiful and profound passages about coming of age in the middle of the 20th century, a great read that anyone could relate to.

An ambitious first novel. Mark van Doren loved it, which is high praise indeed. But I found it to be too much of a Thomas Wolfe copycat to give it five stars. There will be those who love it, those who like it, and those that find it long and a bit boring. I am somewhere in the middle. Interestingly, Kerouac changed his style and length of his novels for his later works.