Name | The Subterraneans |
---|---|
Author | Jack Kerouac |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Novella |
Publisher | Grove Press |
Release date | 1958 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | Approx. 111 pp |
Isbn | 0-8021-3186-7 |
Oclc | 285385 |
Preceded by | On the Road (1957) |
Followed by | The Dharma Bums (1958) |
The Subterraneans is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with an African American woman named Alene Lee (1931-1991) in San Francisco 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, and Adam Moorad on Allen Ginsberg. 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.
! 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 Beloit |
William Gaddis | Harold Sand |
Allen Ginsberg | Adam Moorad |
Luanne Henderson | Annie |
John Clellon Holmes | Balliol MacJones |
Bill Keck | Fritz Nicholas |
Alene Lee | Mardou Fox |
Lawrence Ferlinghetti | Larry O'Hara |
Gore Vidal | Arial Lavalina |
This Photo by Allen Ginsberg shows William S. Burroughs and Alene Lee, two of the novella's central characters, talking on the roof of Ginsberg's apartment building in New York City. Taken in 1953, this photo likely depicts the two as they appeared during the time described by Kerouac in The Subterraneans.
Mardou:
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 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 Ranald MacDougall's adaptation of Kerouac's novel, scripted by Robert Thom, was less successful. 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 Arthur Freed, and features a score by Andre Previn and brief appearances by jazz singer Carmen McRae singing "Coffee Time," Gerry Mulligan as a street priest, and Art Pepper.
Category:1958 novels Category:1960 films Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Category:Novels by Jack Kerouac Category:Underground culture Category:Novels set in New York City Category:1953 in fiction
cs:Podzemníci da:The Subterraneans (roman) fr:Les Souterrains it:I sotterranei sk:PodzemníciThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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