Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15160 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Booklist
Lucien Carr, college roommate of Allen Ginsberg and friend of both William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, killed David Kammerer in 1944. Ginsberg began and then abandoned a novel based on the incident; Burroughs and Kerouac collaborated and completed this one, which has remained unpublished until now. Writing alternating chapters from alternating points of view, the eventual Beat icons adopted a hard-boiled voice without adopting the conventions of a crime novel. Where most crime novels start with a murder, Hippos leads up to it, and the only tension is generated by the reader’s knowledge of what happened in real life. But if it isn’t successful as a crime novel, it’s fascinating for the glimpses it provides into the authors’ lifestyles (the aimless partying is more On the Road than The Big Sleep) and its indications of the writing styles they would later develop. Interestingly, while references to Rimbaud suggest a parallel to the poet’s volatile love affair with Verlaine, the portrayal of Carr, aka “Phillip Tourian,” is not romanticized—in fact, he would have been a great character for Hammett, Cain, or Chandler to work with. --Keir Graff

Review
"Eccentric, engaging, and readable ... What makes the novel particularly fascinating, however, is its ability to provide a window into the early autobiographical styles of both Burroughs and Kerouac as emerging, unpublished writers." -- Marcus Niski

About the Author
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (1914 1997), one of this century s most influential writers and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters, was the author of numerous books, including Naked Lunch, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, and The Wild Boys. JACK KEROUAC (1922 1969) was one of the most inventive writers of the twentieth century and is considered the father of the Beat Generation. He was the author of On the Road, The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and many other books.

Customer Reviews

IN PRINT AT LAST!!!! For the first time in over 60 years!!!
First off, the release of this book is nothing short of a literary event: two literary icons known for their convention breaking novels collaborating in fiction and basing their book on a real life murder that happened within their circle of friends. "...HIPPOS..." is not as amazing as Kerouac publicly recalled it being, nor is it really the "minor work" that Burroughs dismissed it as. 64 years after it was written, this book takes on a new importance outside of it's literary merits. The work is instantly fascinating to me (as I think it will be to any fans of these writers) because it is an important early step in these artist's development. We can really get a sense of the early Beats relationships in the book, their wild energy and their literary fascinations.

Kerouac and Burroughs wrote this book from two points of view. The Kerouac is the character Mike Ryko and Burroughs character is Will Dennison. For those of you aquainted with the circle of the Beats, Lucien Carr is the character Philip Tourian, David Kammerer is Al Ramsay, Edie Parker is Janie and Celine Young is Barbara....and so on.

A note to the Kerouac fans....This was written before TOWN & THE CITY and has neither TCs sweeping Wolfean images or ON THE ROAD's spontanious bop prose. One can barely detect Jack's love for words in this book. His writing at times is a little whispy (which hints at his Wolfean tastes) but Jack never dives into the full breadth of nostalgia of which all Kerouac fans know he's capable. His writing is more clipped and economic. In fact one can imagine William Burroughs looking over Jack's pages and telling him, "Less literary, deary" In a rare moment of abandon, Jack does let his character Mike Ryko recount (at length) his wild experiences at sea but that monologue goes on a bit too long and disrupts the clipped flow of what is essentially a dime store crime novel.

Bill's pages resemble his later though commonly dubbed "first book", JUNKY - a novel which I very much enjoyed for the same reason as I enjoyed this. It's early Burroughs, who writes his prose like an anthropologist or a police officer writes on his notepad, "Just the facts"
****But one should keep in mind when reading this book that THESE ARE NOT THE FACTS about what happened with the Carr/Kammerer murder case. Jack and Bill are intentionally creating fictionalized account. Their creative embellishments sometimes reveal their personal interests or preoccupations so it becomes hard to decipher what in the book is fact and what is fiction - much like most of Jack's novels.

Critical Readers Be Warned: I think the reader should curve their expectations accordingly, with respect to the writers youth and inexperience. Though indeed an interesting work, "...Hippos.." is not in the vein of their groundbreaking work. it's a good and quick read, though the book ends abruptly. It seems that Kerouac and Burroughs either lost interest in writing it or were discouraged by Lucien's wishes for them not to continue the book. It was due to Lucien's influence that the book has remained so long out of the public's hands for 60 years. It was only published after Lucien passed in 2005 - RIP.

If it's facts about the real events you want I'd suggest reading one of the many Kerouac or Burroughs biographies available - though many have contradicting information. It should be mentioned that James Grauerholtz's Afterward for the book will be quite helpful for those unaware of the true facts of the case. And we should all give a big thank you to Mr. Grauerholtz, executive of the Burroughs estate for publishing this book at long last. It really is a gift.

Legendary, sure, but that doesn't make it not boring
Don't let the hype of this book's true history or the fact that it was written by Burroughs and Kerouac, two brilliant authors in their own right, fool you. It just isn't that good.

Someone could spout off about how this depicts the hectic and audacious lives of pre-beats and their friends, but really what you get is a couple writers, K and B, alternating a poorly written narrative. This is more Kerouac's style of writing, straight up and unpolished prose, while Burroughs' signature vocabulary and eerie atmosphere are missing completely.

If you're a fan of Burroughs' Naked Lunch or Nova trilogy I can't imagine there being much of literary value here, but historically I suppose it may be at least somewhat interesting, though honestly since the names were changed I can only wonder at how else the story was fabricated.

If you like On The Road, however, or really anything else by Kerouac this may be more your preference, but even still he's written much better work than this. Really if this never made print I don't think it'd too big a deal.

A Neccessary Turn
"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)