About this title: More than sixty years ago, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac sat down inNew York City to write a novel about the summer of 1944, when one of their friends killed another in a moment of brutal and tragic bloodshed. The two authors were then at the dawn of their careers, having yet to write anything of note. Alternating chapters and narrators, Burroughs and Kerouac pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and obsession, art and violence. The manuscript, called "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" after a line from a news story about a ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780802144348ISBN:0802144349
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grove Press
Date Published: 2008-11-01
ISBN-13:9780802118769ISBN:0802118763
Description: New in New jacket. New hardback book. We ship 6 days a week, generally within 24 hours; single CDs and DVDs upgraded to 1st class! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grove Pr
Date Published: 2008-11-01
ISBN-13:9780802118769ISBN:0802118763
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780802118769. read more
Edition: First edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grove Press, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780802118769ISBN:0802118763
Description: NEW. 214 pp. Octavo. Black covers over black cloth boards. White dust jacket with black spine. On August 14, 1944, Lucien Carr, a friend of William S. Burroughs from St. Louis, stabbed a man named David Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife and threw his body in the Hudson River. For eight years, Kammerer had fawned over the younger Carr, but that night something happened: either Carr had had enough or he was forced to defend himself. The next day, his clothes stained with blood, Carr went to his ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grove Press
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780802118769ISBN:0802118763
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781846141645ISBN:1846141648
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 224 pages. In 1944, jack kerouac and william s burroughs were charged as accessories to murder. one of their friends, carr, had stabbed another, david kammerrer, whose sexual advances he'd grown tired of rejecting. carr, had come to them and confessed; kerouac helped him get rid of the weapon-neither told the police. for this failing they were arrested. (Hardback) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781846141645ISBN:1846141648
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Pgw
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780802144348ISBN:0802144349
Description: New. Published for the first time more than 60 years after it was written, "And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" is a remarkable piece of American literary history that brings to life a shocking murder at the dawn of the Beat Generation. read more
"This book would have gotten 5 stars if Kerouac had written the whole thing. Not to say Burroughs is a bad writer, but I wouldn't consider his parts to be 5-star worthy. Also, that random segment where he shoots up morphine is really dumb. Doesn't pertain to the story at all, not interesting, and overall, just, annoying. Kerouac's part is great though, what with his wavering uncertainty in his own heterosexuality, and his writing style in general. Overall pretty good, although I feel (as always) that Burroughs concentrates too much on drugs and doesn't add as much to the story as Kerouac."
A friend surprised me with this books, which I did not know even existed. As a biased Kerouac fan, I was already expectant of a novel that would rank classically with other Beat greats such as On the Road and "Howl"; ATHWBITT is an "archived" novel co-written by Kerouac and William S. Burroughs before either were noteworthy for their more famous novels about an incident that almost implicated both in a murder.
The most startling thing for me reading this and the other Beat works is that while I maintain a certain distain and dare I say disgust for their lifestyle, I have an insatiable and morbid fascination and dare I say lust for the literature. It's difficult for me to comprehend how they could have lived the way they did, so self destructive, so impulsive; but it's more difficult for me to understand why I'm drawn to it. Perhaps it's cathartic. Perhaps I'm envious, somewhere in the recesses of a truer less conservative, less in bed strictly by 10:30 self.
At any rate, it's classic Beat all the way and it was a long time coming. Kerouac's long lost (perhaps first) novel."
""'And The Hippos'", "Have you read 'The Hippos'?"Reading is personal, like music, like socks, like learning..and so sometimes it's hard to do...but it's known when it comes into the wake, one should probably read And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks and make it a personal endeavor. I heard too much friendly "Hippo" talk and prattle about authors William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac to not read it. It's a subtly, delicately gossiped about book-- a big (not fat), "big-deal" book.
Starting blindly in style of execution, I lifted the cover easily, and read. It was hard; boring. Heavy-on-the-brain and a lot to digest barrenly ("what's going on? Who's 'Cathcart' again?"), the movement of The Hippos into a place in me that confessed to it, was not a smooth one. It's hard to stay hooked on it, but maybe just for a theme addict and a development addict, because the novel is purely plot with no implication of implanted theme other than what is already contained between the characters and their interacting conversations. Like"Phillip", a theorist of his kind discusses (like many of the characters) possible theme, but the authors don't seem to imply it's the theme of the novel; "'The artistic man alone will find the New Vision'" (41) Although the embedded discussion is a large clue into the context of the novel, the surrounding importance, it's all very subtle.
I could've finished a book of it's friendly, non-menacing, classy-menage, "important literature" calibre in about ten hours (ten for a book is not a lot of expense), but instead I found myself tackling layered and persistent, beautifully dictated, plumply characterized plot. Plot, plot, plot. It is down to it's bare back really a plotted piece of history. And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks is a challenge to what's loved about fiction, because it's so heavy on plot, a lot to "keep up with", and like I said was rather dry at first. There was no obvious indication of theme in terms of the plot, or what we like to call "meaning" within the story: something to pull out of the pages and reinvent ourselves with, a joust to our thought, perception, room design, wall-collage of "meaningful" quotes. However, as read on, the characters become more and more authentic and although they aren't per-say "telling you something", they imagistically (and slowly) create a very vivid and involving personality for the book, telling each-other something-- involving, yet with effort. Aside from the ton of plot, another reason it's so hard to submerse yourself in is there is no diversity within the plot, no climax. It just treads, but treads beautifully, for the plot somehow enables the characters and the setting to develop gradually, and detailed with artistic detach, and vice-versa.
Half way through, I couldn't really say I liked the book, or I disliked it, for it wasn't giving me much other than a recap of elaborate certain people in elaborate certain places. But as I trudged on and finally finished, at the end, upon the murder of "Al" ( "Ramsay Allen"), the main and singular "event" that occurs, the writing takes a turn and feels very good and fetching for a final chapter. I then closed the book (after reading the afterword by James Grauerholz of course), and felt agreed and teetering on blown away..."wow, that was weird...that was an experience".
And that's exactly what it is; an experience. A prolonged, developing "wow", not an immediate one. It's a shocker and a startler, asking you to prove your commitment and dedication to the dry and cycling plot, then rewards you at the finish with a beautifully short fiasco that makes and turns the as-of-old fifteen chapters, one-hundred-and-sixty pages, worth the while. The end, if you make it, portrays the book as a lot better than you'd been led on, worth it, incredibly smart and validating of all the "Hippo talk".
As the story is told from alternating perspectives of Burroughs and Kerouac, alternating their characters of "Will Dennison" and "Mike Ryko", the two come closer together and it's sure something grand-scale is about to happen, but the novel continues to lead you on and still "nothing" happens...until the finish, where the writing style, plot confusion on the behalf of the two writers, two characters, and two perceptions, all become very effective in twisting the book into one you can actually give a consensus on. It is carefully crafted and thankfully deceiving. Will Dennison (Burroughs), in chapter sixteen, after a whole book of something, something, something (mostly nothing): "It was about seven o'clock Monday morning when my buzzer rang and woke me up...I opened the door and Phillip slid in quick...'Here' he said, 'have the last cigarette'. He held out a pack of Lucky Strikes smeared with blood. There was one cigarette left in the pack. 'I just killed Al and through the body off a warehouse'. I took the cigarette and held it in my hand. Then I went and sat on the couch and motioned him to a chair opposite me. I said, 'sit down and tell me all about it.'"(160)
With the turnover and go-away-ending, the repetition of the characters' dragged on daily affairs, interests and anti-climatic relationships, seem neccessary, if not brilliant, and conquered as well as conquering (your intellect).
I'm sure possible consensus vary based on an understanding of it's context and of the writers because the afterword may stand beyond essential in gaining one's respect for the book. As I mentioned and as many are evidently aware of, it's a witty and grand piece of history, that is finalized in the afterword by its confirmation of the importance of it to itself, the world of literature, the world (here comes theme!), and the writers.
It is a true story depicting a monumental segment of Burroughs' and Kerouac's involvement in a murder case, a case that ties in many of the great writers of their circle, from Ginsberg to Capote, highlighting some of their style back in Beat Generation days. They wrote the book very fragmentally in a time where the case was too hot to be written about, and so it was not published, hidden in suspended literary hyper-space. Written in 1945, it was finally published and released in 2008, once the writers had become distinctive and famed through their latter works--an interesting and important episode. It depicts their early writing, still identifying themselves, as a resurrection from all the rumor, a missing piece, a secret of literature, that would have not done nearly as well had it been released then, and that could be looked at as it's greatest adornment. This information has got to be more intriguing than the actual content of the book in itself. However the knowledge also aids the book, makes it so much more interesting and unveils its brilliance as a very carefully and well-disguised true story of a vivid segment in their history, an important piece in the development of brilliant writers--but maybe it disables it from speaking for itself. I conclude that for all the confusion, the book is very worth it if you are interested in Burroughs and Kerouac and chitter-chatter, but if you are not, as well as not a fan of drinking, sea-stories, and great homoerotic relationships, you won't make it.
"'I think I'll go down there tonight and climb into his room'...'well', I said 'that's taking the bull by the horns'...But Al was serious. He said 'No, I'm just going to go into his room while he's asleep and watch him for a while'...'And suppose he should wake up? He'll think it's some vampire hovering over him'...'Oh no', said Al in resigned tones, 'he'll just tell me to get out. This has happened before'... 'What do you do...do you just stand there'...'yes', he said. 'I just get as close to him as I can without waking him up, and stand there till dawn.'" (51)"
"The bizarre, non sequitur title was inspired from a shared joke between Kerouac and Burroughs about a circus fire that they overheard on the radio after a Nazi bombing campaign in Great Britain...and it couldn't be more appropriate.
The naivete of these characters is what truly drew me in. Their reactions to death and war are illogically flippant...an attestation towards their mindsets at the time. Yet these events must have had great impact upon them as their writing careers flourished, representing an island of harsh mortality in a sea of bohemian self-indulgence. And with the knowledge of their later works, it gives the book a little more weight.
This is by no means a great magnum opus of either author; you must remember that a decade passed before either became well-known novelists ("On the Road" 1957, and "Naked Lunch" 1959) But what it lacks for in beauty of prose and cerebral conclusions, it more than makes up for its unflinching insight int the beat lifestyle of the East Village during World War II; the type of writing that borders on Gonzo journalism.
I recommend it to anyone interested beat history. And I also suggest you read the editors incorrectly labeled "Afterword" first. It gives some framework to read the book in a more objective light."
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