Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:41:48.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 10 - Visions of Cody as Metafiction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2024

Steven Belletto
Affiliation:
Lafayette College, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

Kerouac considered Visions of Cody his masterpiece. A strange, highly complex work, it is both a radical reimagining and rewriting of some central motifs and characters found in On the Road, and a showcase for Kerouac’s varied theories of writing. If On the Road is “about” the relationship between two friends, a writer and a raconteur, Visions of Cody is about how to best represent this relationship, and so becomes in turn “about” the nature of the writer’s consciousness and his ability to represent or not “the real.” Given such preoccupations, Visions of Cody more closely resembles postmodern metafiction than it does On the Road. This chapter reads it in light of its metafictional experimentations and explorations. In Visions of Cody, Kerouac strives to get down what “actually happened” by turning to sketching, Spontaneous Prose, and even tape recording and transcribing lengthy conversations between him and Neal Cassady. Ultimately, this chapter shows, by reading Visions of Cody as metafiction, we can see how Kerouac created new possibilities and directions for postwar avant-garde writing.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×