Orpheus Emerged
The celebrated Mister K wrote this slim and unimpressive volume in 1945 at the tender age of 23 happily, he got better. Inspired by Kerouac's own adventures at Columbia University with future Beats Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, etc., the plot follows a handful of students and would-be poets who conduct their lives according to literary ideals and throw boring parties where they sprout pedantic theories on art and music while getting pie-eyed on cheap wine. In contrast to Kerouac's usual fare, the writing is atypically stiff and the characters are pretentious and dull. This title initially was released electronically, and the book comes bundled with a CD-ROM containing the full text as well as a foreword, an introduction by Robert Creeley, a biography, a snippet from Kerouac's Lonesome Traveler, and separate bibliographies on Kerouac and the Beats, all of which is contained in the book as well. Unique to the disc, however, is a series of photos. A new work by a major author is always welcomed by fans, but Orpheus Emerged is a minor addition to the Keroauc canon. Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.