A review by iymain
The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac

4.0

It took some time to get into this book. Well, maybe it just took me some time to figure out what it was about... It reads like a collection of snapshots for the longest time. The descriptions are great! Kerouac really catches the essence of a physical location and conveys the mood that it embodies. I love his description of dolphins "with their Mona Lisa smiles." This book is full of poetic passages and, finally, at the end, I discovered that it has a real message about modernity and a lost generation. It really resonates to read it now (2010) at a time of cultural upheaval, war and general disillusionment.

Of course, the book is heavily influenced by a basic machismo which is annoying. The female characters are definitely secondary, but then, in his world that's how he saw it and we are borrowing his perspective...

I was shocked to find that I liked this book as much as I did. I'd recommend it to others looking for a thought provoking novel. This was not quick and easy reading for me, though.