The Subterraneans
Who are the subterraneans of the title? That is a question easily answered. Because the narrator explains it in the second paragraph of the novel using imagery to give them vivid life beyond mere prosaic descriptive prose:
“They are hip without being slick, they are intelligent without being corny, they are intellectual as hell and know all about Pound without being pretentious or talking too much about it, they are quiet, they are Christlike.”
Existential Shrieking
Although not exactly what one would necessarily term an existential novel, there are occasionally little pockets of existential screaming mixed in amongst the be-bopping rhythmic beat of the hipsters. In fact, one of the most quoted passages from the text is pure dynamic existential imagery that almost reads as if Albert Camus had fixated on Maynard G. Krebs instead of Sisyphus as the Absurd Hero:
"Making a new start, starting from fresh in the rain, `Why should anyone want to hurt my little heart, my feet, my little hands, my skin that I'm wrapt in because God wants me warm and Inside, my toes—why did God make all this so decayable and dieable and harmable and wants to make me realize and scream”
The Beat Goes On
In a way, one can almost make an argument that the entire book is really just a long stretch of imagery. The primary differentiation is that some passages introduce the bare outlines of a narrative while others are content to exists merely as examples of rhythmic energy collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the subconscious apprehension of life taking place all around:
“the wash hung out and in the afternoon the great symphony of Italian mothers, children, fathers BeFinneganing and yelling from stepladders, smells, cats mewing, Mexicans, the music from all the radios whether bolero of Mexican or Italian tenor of spaghetti eaters or loud suddenly turned-up KPFA symphonies of Vivaldi harpsichord intellectuals performances boom blam the tremendous sound of it which I then came to hear all the summer wrapt in the arms of my love--walking in there now, and going up the narrow musty stairs like in a hovel, and her door.”
Pop Culture
The Beat writers were really the first generation of American authors to introduce pop culture imagery into their works as genuine part of the spinal foundation of their efforts. Whereas 19th century writers would as a rule have alluded to myth and epic literature and Modernist writers would have referenced present-day cultural icons only ironically, Kerouac and others felt free to drop names that might or might not still be famous a few years later or decades later. This is imagery without irony or even self-conscious rebellion. It is merely the imagery of the moment:
“there was another final great figure in the group who was however now this summer not here but in Paris, Jack Steen, very interesting Leslie-Howard-like little guy who walked (as Mardou later imitated for me) like a Viennese philosopher...Out of the bar were pouring interesting people, the night making a great impression on me, some kind of Truman-Capote-haired dark Marlon Brando with a beautiful thin birl or girl in boy slacks with stars in her eyes and hips that seemed so soft when she put her hands in her slacks”
