The Subterraneans
| File:Subterraneans.gif The Subterraneans. Grove Press, 1989 edition. | |
| Author | Jack Kerouac |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
Publication date | 1958 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | Approx. 111 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-8021-3186-7 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | On the Road (1957) |
| Followed by | The Dharma Bums (1958) |
The Subterraneans is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with an African American woman named Alene Lee in New York in 1953. In the novel she is renamed "Mardou Fox," and described as a carefree spirit who frequents the jazz clubs and bars of the budding Beat scene of San Francisco. Other well-known personalities and friends from the author's life also appear thinly disguised in the novel. The character Frank Carmody is based on William Burroughs, Adam Moorad on Allen Ginsberg, and Larry O'Hara on Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the famous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco's North Beach. Even Gore Vidal appears as successful novelist Arial Lavalina. Kerouac's alter ego is named Leo Percepied, and his long-time friend Neal Cassady is mentioned only in passing as Leroy.
Character Key [1]
"Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work." [2]
| Real-life person | Character name |
|---|---|
| Jack Kerouac | Leo Percepied |
| Iris Brodie | Roxanne |
| William S. Burroughs | Frank Carmody |
| Joan Vollmer | Jane |
| Lucien Carr | Sam Vedder |
| Neal Cassady | Leroy |
| Gregory Corso | Yuri Gligoric |
| Allen Eager | Roger Beliot |
| William Gaddis | Harold Sand |
| Allen Ginsberg | Adam Moorad |
| Luanne Henderson | Annie |
| John Clellon Holmes | Balliol MacJones |
| Bill Keck | Fritz Nicholas |
| Alene Lee | Mardou Fox |
| Jerry Newman | Larry O'Hara |
| Gore Vidal | Arial Lavalina |
Criticism and literary significance
The novel has been criticized for its portrayal of American minority groups, especially African Americans, in a superficial light, often portraying them in a humble and primitive manner without showing insight into their culture or social position at the time. The position of jazz and jazz culture is central to the novel, tying together the themes of Kerouac's writing here as elsewhere, and expressed in the "spontaneous prose" style in which composed most of his works. The following quotation from Chapter 1 illustrates the spontaneous prose style of The Subterraneans:
FRANK CARMODY
- Making a new start, starting from fresh in the rain, 'Why should anyone want to hurt my little heart, my feet, my little hands, my skin that I'm wrapt in because God wants me warm and Inside, my toes--why did God make all this so decayable and dieable and harmable and wants to make me realize and scream--why the wild ground and bodies bare and breaks--I quaked when the giver creamed, when my father screamed, my mother dreamed---I started small and ballooned up and now I'm big and a naked child again and only to cry and fear. - Ah - Protect yourself, angel of no harm, you who've never and could never harm and crack another innocent in its shell and thin veiled pain - wrap a robe around you, honeylamb - protect yourself from harm and wait, till Daddy comes again, and Mama throws you warm inside her valley of the moon, loom at the loom of patient time, be happy in the mornings.'
The best example of the spontaneous style in Kerouac's work is, perhaps, found in his novel Visions of Cody, a 400-page plus free-form treatise on Neal Cassady.
Film version
A 1960 film adaptation changed the African American character Mardou Fox, Kerouac's love interest, to a young French girl (played by Leslie Caron) to better fit both social and Hollywood palates. While it has been derided and vehemently criticized by Allen Ginsberg among others for its two-dimensional characters, it illustrates the way the film industry attempted to exploit the emerging popularity of this culture as it grew in the San Francisco and Greenwich Village, New York. A Greenwich Village beatnik bar setting had been used to good effect in Richard Quine's 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle, but in Ranald McDougall's adaptation of Kerouac's novel, scripted by Robert Thom, the characters never come to life. Comedian Arte Johnson, for example, plays the Gore Vidal character, here named Arial Lavalerra.
The Subterraneans was one of the final MGM films produced by the legendary Arthur Freed, and features a score by Andre Previn and brief appearances by jazz greats Carmen McRae singing "Coffee Time", Gerry Mulligan as a street priest, and Art Pepper. The period music is arguably the film's only saving grace.
References
- 1958. The Subterraneans, ISBN 0-8021-3186-7