Rating: 
Summary: a glorious headache
Review: Hello...my name is Josh and I'm a Beat literature addict ("HELLO JOSH"). Prior to last week, the only Kerouac novels I owned were On the Road and The Dharma Bums. I bought The Subterraneans because, after leafing through it in a local bookstore, it looked like, at the very least, an interesting and wild piece of work.
That it was, both former and latter. Kerouac wrote this book in three days and three nights on a sudden burst of inspiration, much like On the Road. The difference here is complete stream-of-consciousness...and the book reads that way. Boasting almost no indentation or seperation of speakers, what you find is masses and masses of words slapped down on the pages in an inspired fury. This asset is the book's greatest strength and weakest attribute. Commendable, yes; however, you cannot read more than thirty or so pages at a time, or you will faint with a headache.
Pick this book up; its an interesting chapter in the life of Kerouac, and an unspoken note to perfectionist writers to loosen up.
Rating: 
Summary: Stunning
Review: I bought this book at the airport as I was about to leave for a three week business trip that hopscotched across the West. I had read some of Kerouac many years earlier, as well as the Ann Charters bio, but that had not fully prepared me for the runaway frenzy of emotions that spill from each page. This book possessed me, and at times I had to put it down in order to swim back to "reality". Not for the timid of heart or mind...but a must read for those who seek truth and understanding and don't mind hanging out at the edge gazing into the abyss.
Rating: 
Summary: A story well told despite the rambling
Review: I don't know what you'd call the prose style of this book. It seems to be a "stream of consciousness" style where Kerouac tells a story and includes all of his related thoughts as he is telling the story, whether those related thoughts are intelligible to the reader or not. I'm not a fan of styles of novel writing other than the standard format of normal sentences and paragraphs(such as that found in ON THE ROAD). Jack rambles on and on at times for two pages in this book without the benefit of a paragraph or a period breaking his flow. But regardless of its difficult style which makes somewhat less effective than it could be, the story is presented with skill and coherence. Jack is able to evoke coherent human feeling through his writing, in the midst of the rambling . This story written in and set in early 1950's San Francisco. It is based apparently on a true story, the love of Kerouac, who in the story is called Leo Percepied with a half-Cherokee half-black mentally unstable bohemian lady whom is called Mardou Fox. Mardou is portrayed as a tragic figure, a very beautiful lady, a sex object of the junkies and raffish intellectuals that Kerouac knows, abused and neglected in her childhood, full of the spirit and sadness of the Native American and the African American. I suppose the best writing is towards the end of the book. Here we actually see paragraphs to break the rambling and periods! Here the story becomes more coherent and the reader sees Leo reaching the climax of his struggle as his jealousy and unreliability and alcoholism takes its toll on his relationship with Mardou. He never 100 percent certain about whether he wants to be with Mardou. Mardou herself is a sometimes real, sometimes hard to grasp, a distant figure. The best part of the book is Leo (Kerouac). In his flaws and his actions the reader is able to grasp his humanness. I felt some empathy for him. I liked the part where he is at the railyard ,weeping, and reflecting on his mother and upbraiding himself for being unreliable.
Rating:
Summary: Sensous Kerouac
Review: I think that this book represents some of his
best sensually laced writing. The whole book
ozes with a sexual tension between his two main
characters. Having lived for a long time
in North Beach, I loved his use and description
of this bohemian enclave.
Rating:
Summary: be prepared
Review: i've heard this book compared to the Dharma Bums by a number of people, but i don't like that comparisson. The entire mood and circumstances of this novel are quite different. Certainly The Subterraneans is an interesting and necessary read for Kerouac fans, but certainly not a book i would recommend to readers just getting into Kerouac. The book is perhaps a bit too realistic, too depressing and self depreciating, without the hopeful philosophic spirit of his most popular works. It contains a lot of passages that just make you cringe, and some awkward archaic language when talking about Mardou. But there is still a bit of transcendental magic hidden in this book. Kerouac's strength really lies in his ability to open up those small moments of every day, the existential dread and desire is always there, we are always trying to make ourselves in every moment. Here we find it all taking its toll hard on him.
It is definitely a quick read, however, and of course Kerouac's less than great books are still better than so many other books out there. I'd recommend taking it out of a library or getting it used, though.
It is a snapshot of three days in the life of Leo Percepied (Kerouac) and perhaps its greatest value lies in its demystification of beat culture. Kerouac isn't finding buddha here, he's finding his inadequacies. "this is the story of an unself-confident man"(page 1).
Rating:
Summary: Interracial Love Story and the Beats
Review: Jack Kerouac is claimed to have written this novel in one night on Benzedrine. Matter of fact, it definately shows: jagged usage of /"punctuation," free-floating ideas and dialogues, oddly placed dithyrambs, etc. On the contrary, what underlies is a love story between the writer himself and a black inamorata. In this novel Kerouac adumbrates the topic of interracial relationships in a surprisingly uncontroversial style, especially considering the wild writings of his contemporaries, such as Burroughs and Henry Miller. The Novel is centered around a bohemian society called the Subterraneans, which includes many notables of the Beat Generation: John C. Holmes, Ginsberg, and Corso who has a leading role. Hollywood had produced a movie based on the novel; however, considering the standards of its time, a lot significant elements were left out of the film. Pity!
Rating:
Summary: The Romance Novel of the Beat Generation
Review: Jack Kerouac's 1953 book "Subterraneans" explores love, Hedonism, addiction and mystique (the aura of the Beat generation) all in a little more than 100 pages. Yet he manages to diminish the mystique slightly by writing "Subterraneans," a book about everyday romance gone awry. It shows his alter ego, Leo Percepied, who falls in love with a woman named Mardou Fox, both denizens in the underground world of the Beats during the era of McCarthyism, Buddy Holly and I Love Lucy. Leo's infatuation w/ Fox began largly because "she was a Negro," but soon afterwards, the two began a romance. "Subterraneans" shows the trials, the highs and the pitfalls of romance, with everything from drugs, experimentation and temptation. Kerouac's writing is scattered, full of broken sentence fragments, witty insight, and literary references, like his colleague William S. Burroughs, but "Subterraneans" remians one of Kerouac'smost poignant books.
Rating:
Summary: aptly titled, jack's best
Review: Jack's fated masterpiece. His method in fifth gear with ideal subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: The Reviewers Out-Kerouac Kerouac
Review: Kerouac generates a lot of emotion because of the beatnik settings he uses, feelings which come from the same causes that created the beatniks, the desire to escape the pressures and conflicts of American society. However, Kerouac is not a beatnik, "On the Road" has nothing to do with being on the road (as were the hippies) and "The Subterraneans" has nothing to do with leading a secret honest life underground. These works are scathing satire. In each case the professed ideology of the main characters varies markedly from their behavior. Even in the process of trying to escape underground, the subterraneans can't get away from themselves. Reading these reviews is like reading Kerouac characters in context.
Rating:
Summary: Another page-turner!
Review: Kerouac, the master of the courtroom thriller, astounds again in this dark tale of lawyers. morality, and an ubiquitous prosthetic leg. Not to be missed! This book should be required reading for anyone going to law school and/or with a pulse.
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