[Apathy's_Child]

I think it's death, but I'm not sure either.

To be honest, I've learned in recent years that (as is the case with many authors) his life is so much more interesting than his work, and the work BECOMES more interesting as a result. (I didn't really like On the Road that much, and some of his poetry is frankly ridiculous, but I wonder sometimes if I would now knowing more about the guy.) A good biography makes you realise that the dude was so obscenely fucked up and riddled with self-loathing neuroses, his choices were basically narrowed down to becoming a serial killer or spawning the most influential American subculture of the century. I think that's why Big Sur was the only novel of his I ever really thought was anything special - although I didn't realise it at the time, it was the most brutally honest piece of work I've ever read by him. Most of his work is so suffused with a desperate determination to wring some beauty out of the world, it just comes across a little hollow. (Though probably more understandable in the original OtR where the stricken drug references have finally been published.)

However Doctor Sax was satisfying, and I liked it. Next up is Cities of the Red Night by William Burroughs.