Vanity of Duluoz: Modern Classic: The Adventurous Education of a Young Man

Vanity of Duluoz: Modern Classic: The Adventurous Education of a Young Man

by JackKerouac (Author)

Synopsis

American football, war and the Beat way of life -- a Kerouac classic. 'Vanity of Duluoz' is 'a book about football and war'; for Jack Duluoz, Kerouac's alter ego, growing up in America in the 1930s, these are the forces that shape his life. Possessed of an extraordinary talent for football, Duluoz leaves his sleepy hometown on a sporting scholarship to Columbia University, New York. But just as the brilliant years of his 'adventurous education' begin, World War II intervenes. For many, this would have been a catastrophe, but for Duluoz, his wartime experiences prove an inspiration. Joining the US Navy, wandering the world, Duluoz's desire to live life to the full grows ever stronger. On his return to the USA, Duluoz is drawn into the nascent New York Beat movement. Now the real wild times begin, with writing, drugs and sex exploding into a sheer celebration of non-stop, riotous living!

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Flamingo
Published: 19 Nov 2001

ISBN 10: 058609041X
ISBN 13: 9780586090411

Media Reviews
' Vanity of Duluoz is a loud-mouthed novel. Kerouac brags his way through his early football triumphs and boyhood friendships, bounces us through his experiences as schoolboy, student, sailor, social rebel. It's a frontal assault on life, a total abandonment to feeling that can take sentimentality in its loping stride and even score with it. What makes the book remarkable is not its rigour but the generosity of its protest. It is Kerouac's lack of resignation that gives the book its strength and dignity.' Guardian ' Vanity of Duluoz has a fierce, posturing energy.' New Statesman
Author Bio
Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the youngest of three children in a French-Canadian family. Having left college, he joined the merchant marines and began the restless wanderings that were to continue for the greater part of his life. His first novel, The Town and the City, was published in 1950. On the Road, although written in 1951 (in a few hectic days on a scroll of newsprint), was not published until 1957 -- it made him one of the most controversial and best-known writers of his time. Publication of his many other books, among them The Subterraneans, Doctor Sax and Desolation Angels, followed. Jack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of forty-seven.