Description
Written in 1967 from the vantage point of the psychedelic sixties, Vanity of Duluoz is a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young man
Originally subtitled "An Adventurous Education, 1935-1946," Vanity of Duluoz presents the formative years in the life of Jack Duluoz—Kerouac's alter ego—beginning with his high school experiences as a sporting jock in small-town New England and his time at Columbia University on a football scholarship. Just as Jack's glamorous new adult life begins, so does World War II, and he joins the US Navy to travel the world. The more he experiences, the more he realizes the limits of his former plans, and decides to and return to New York, where he collides with the start of the Beat movement, and a riot of drugs, sex and writing. Vanity of Duluoz was Kerouac's final work published before his death in 1969.
About the Author
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongsideWilliam S. BurroughsandAllen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, includingBob Dylan,The Beatles,Jerry GarciaandThe Doors.In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.
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