- Visions of Cody
infobox Book |
name = Visions of Cody
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption =
author =Jack Kerouac
cover_artist =
country =United States
language = English
series =
genre =Novel
publisher =New Directions
release_date = 1973
media_type = Print (Hardback &Paperback )
pages = 448 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-14-017907-0
preceded_by =Tristessa (1960)
followed_by =Lonesome Traveler (1960)"Visions of Cody" is a novel by
Jack Kerouac , perhaps his most stylistically free and varied. It was written in1951 -1952 , and though not published in its entirety until1973 , it had by then achieved an underground reputation. Since its first printing, "Visions of Cody" has been published with an introduction by Beat poetAllen Ginsberg titled "The Visions of the Great Rememberer."Like nearly all of Kerouac's works, "Visions of Cody" involves a "mythologizing" of his life, here as "Jack Duluoz", renaming characters and imposing grander themes on actual events while rapturously describing the mundane around him. It is also heavily focused on his perception of and relationship to
Neal Cassady , renamed "Cody Pomeray."The first section of the book is essentially a collection of short stream-of-consciousness essays, which Kerouac called "sketches", many simply describing elements of Dulouz's (Kerouac's) post-World War II
New York City environment, from the texture and smells of a lunch counter to St. Patrick's Cathedral, or minor events like the decision to masturbate in a public restroom—all interlaced with Kerouac's internal dialogue. Along the way through these descriptions, Dulouz meanders towards a decision to go visit Cody inSan Francisco .The third section consists mainly of the transcription of taped conversations between Kerouac and Cassady (and occasionally "Evelyn"—Cassady's last wife, Carolyn) that extended over five nights as they smoked marijuana. This is followed by a brief section entitled "Imitation of the Tape," a writing experiment by Kerouac in which he attempted to work from the spontaneity and speech patterns of the tape.
Some of "Visions of Cody" is a fast-forward recapitulation of the events described in "
On the Road ", which was also about Kerouac and Cassady.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
