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A review by cruelspirit
Dr. Sax by Jack Kerouac
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Back in the summer of 2019 I decided to get into Kerouac. I bought copies of On The Road, Dharma Bums, and Dr. Sax. I read On The Road and Dharma Bums in pretty quick succession but kept putting off Dr. Sax, until now.
When reading On The Road and Dharma Bums I felt like an interesting literary prose, associated with the beats, was missing. I'm happy to say that this is not the case with Dr. Sax. The rhythmic cadence and free flow of the prose are what I have been looking for from Kerouac. It is like the literary equivalent to a Jazz song, moving as it pleases and ending when it wants to. Even though this book was written in 1952, the fact that it was published in 1959 feels very fitting; considering how iconic that year is for Jazz music.
Unfortunately the prose wasn't enough for me to really love this book. The narrative is definitely its weakest point. The free flowing and sporadic ethos of Dr. Sax definitely doesn't help when telling a story, at least not here. It's hard to get into the story and the quality of the narrative rises and falls quite often throughout.
It doesn't help that I haven't been to New England and have no real associations with a lot of what Kerouac is talking about outside of this book. Like other Kerouac books, Dr. Sax suffers from being in between highly descriptive and incredibly vague.
Out of all of the Kerouac books I've read I found this one to be the least enticing in terms of a narrative and least memorable. I'm going to give Big Sur a chance at some point but maybe Kerouac just isn't for me.
When reading On The Road and Dharma Bums I felt like an interesting literary prose, associated with the beats, was missing. I'm happy to say that this is not the case with Dr. Sax. The rhythmic cadence and free flow of the prose are what I have been looking for from Kerouac. It is like the literary equivalent to a Jazz song, moving as it pleases and ending when it wants to. Even though this book was written in 1952, the fact that it was published in 1959 feels very fitting; considering how iconic that year is for Jazz music.
Unfortunately the prose wasn't enough for me to really love this book. The narrative is definitely its weakest point. The free flowing and sporadic ethos of Dr. Sax definitely doesn't help when telling a story, at least not here. It's hard to get into the story and the quality of the narrative rises and falls quite often throughout.
It doesn't help that I haven't been to New England and have no real associations with a lot of what Kerouac is talking about outside of this book. Like other Kerouac books, Dr. Sax suffers from being in between highly descriptive and incredibly vague.
Out of all of the Kerouac books I've read I found this one to be the least enticing in terms of a narrative and least memorable. I'm going to give Big Sur a chance at some point but maybe Kerouac just isn't for me.