Reading Kerouac is a challenge, in that you feel both at home and thoroughly annoyed. After a break from his writing, jumping into Big Sur felt like a hug from a friend: Kerouac’s style is so unique, you can’t help miss his prose voice, and returning to it feels so familiar, it’s akin to peace.

And Big Sur did start great, with more of his ruminations on nature. But then the issue began: his and his friends’ extremely dislikable characters seeped in, making it impossible not to be annoyed to the point that strong annoyance was reflected back onto the book. I couldn’t stand the constant foul mood, and it didn’t help that Kerouac made it seem like something terrible would happen at the end, and absolutely nothing did. It also didn’t help that the poem at the end was, like his entire Mexico City Blues, honestly terrible.

His voice was lucid throughout the entire book, but that also meant missing out on the feverish and rhythmic tone found in his other books. I was truly disappointed, but hey, maybe this all reflects excellently just how tired Kerouac was at that point.