Desolation Peak

Collected Writings

De: Jack Kerouac, Charles Shuttleworth - editor

Narrado por: Christian Rummel

In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, California, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment.

Kerouac's experience on Desolation Peak forms the climax of his novel The Dharma Bums and has also been depicted in part 1 of Desolation Angels and a chapter in his nonfiction book Lonesome Traveler. None of these versions offers a full, true picture, however; and for that reason, Desolation Peak is essential listening.

The highlight of Desolation Peak is the journal he kept, starkly revealing the depth of his poverty, the extremity of his mood swings, and the ongoing arguments with himself over the future direction of his life, his writing, and faith. Along with the journal, he worked on a series of projects, including "Ozone Park," "The Martin Family," and "Desolation Adventure." Also included in this collection are "The Diamondcutter of Perfect Knowing," Kerouac's "transliteration" of the Diamond Sutra, his "Desolation Blues" and "Desolation Pops" poems, and assorted prose sketches and dreams.

©2022 Jim Sampas, Literary Executor, the Estate of Jack Kerouac (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

For Kerouac devotees

Kudos to Rummel for bringing the works to life. That said, listeners get an expanded bit of the author’s journey and thinking and writing, all of which is good, but that didn’t make it an enjoyable listen. YMMV

Kerouac at his most honest

Brilliantly haunting at times because we all know how it ends. Honest raw look into a genius suffering from a traumatic brain injury and addiction.

Monologue

The narrators voice didn’t do justice to the smooth story telling narrative. It was jarring as opposed smooth

Don’t buy this book

I have really enjoyed previous Kerouac novels that I purchased from audible. This, however, should not be mistaken to be a story in any way, shape, or form. This is a tedious reading of a notebook, which the narrator chooses for some reason to stop in the middle of a sentence to read the page number of every page of the notebook as he turns the page. The only redeeming value is in the introduction, which provides a good summary of the entire book. The small portions that are pages from actual stories are the only reason that I can give the performance three stars and please do not get me started on how horrible it is to hear someone read the entirety of the Diamond Cutter of Perfect Knowing. If you really want all of these details, and you want to claim you read everything you found from Jack Kerouac, just get the written book. It’s the only way to look at material like this.