On the Road by Jack Kerouac

[Scheherazade]

On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

Story of a group of young 'intellectuals' criss crossing the USA. I am not very familiar with the Beat Generation... nor with the US geography and could not sympathise with the sentiments expressed in the book:
'Nothing in this lousy world is my fault, don't you see that? I don't want it to be and it can't and it won't be.'

The book might be offering some enlightenment to some people out there but did not do the trick for me:

5/10 KitKats!

[papayahed]

I read the book and thought it was just ok. After I read it I did some other reading about the Beat Generation which made me realize how great On the Road really was, it captures the essence of that generation.

9/10

[Virgil]

It was OK, but it was also fun. I don't think it's the great American novel, but it was enjoyable.

6.5/10

[one_raven]

I have a genral distaste for the word "favorite", especially when referring to works of art in various forms, but I have used the term countless times when recommending this book to people. I have bought it at least 15 times, because I always find myself giving my copy away to someone who just "has to" read it. I drove 13 hours each way through snow storms to see the first public viewing of "the scroll" when it debuted in Iowa on opening day. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Having some knowledge of the Beat Generation writers, the intimate insider's perspective of the true stories of Jack's cohorts was welcome to say the least.

William Burroughs was painted as the broken junkie he was, but with a tender affection that is normally reserved for dead grandfathers. Burroughs was the patriarch in Jack's eyes.
Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, were wide-eyed young idealists in love - if not with each other, with transcendence - and their childlike fascination and understanding of the Dharma was endearing and beautiful.
Then, of course, there was Neal Cassady. The black sheep that only Jack believed in, who never truly reached the potential Jack saw in him.

That aside, it was such an exquisite depiction of post war United States and the boys lost without a purpose, drive or direction in life. A bunch of confused children in the bodies of men. They were a generation without war. They had no glaring devils or demons to fight. They didn't have a cause to unite them, like the hippies in the late sixties. They were alone. They rejected teh materialism that was running rampant in the post war prosperity, and took that up as their cause. They needed something to be a part of. Much like the teenagers of today - teenagers of most prosperous ages. Jack was a lost man searching for peace in a chaotic world and grasping for something to hold onto. Something to make sense of it all. Something to rid himself of his internal demons... just like everyone else.

There was also the appeal of the free spirited, adventurous road life that I have always been drawn to, and the romance he portrays it with always has me forcibly restraining myself from quitting my job every time I read it. It's a dangerous book for me. Then I come to my senses and remember that the world Jack knew is not the world we live in anymore. One can't survive in this country anymore the way Jack did. Everything he was so passionate about has been swept away and sold off to the highest bidder. America Inc. killed a way of life that was Jack's driving passion (aside from writing, of course) and, though I was unaware of it for much of my life, it was dead before I was old enough to appreciate it for what it was (perhaps before I was born). Jack's America is my America, though I have never seen it with my own eyes. I have yet to meet anyone who describes that America the way Jack does. That scroll I drove through the snow to see with my own eyes - the owner paid $40 million for it.

The Jazz. The Jazz could not be ignored. The soundtrack to the book and adventure was so vivid I could almost hear it when I was reading. His pace in many parts matched the frantic rythm of the Jazz that drove him and all those he considered friends. Have you ever heard him read from the book? "now it's jazz, the place is roaring, all beautiful girls in there, one mad brunette at the bar drunk with her boys - one strange chick I remember from somewhere, wearing a simple skirt with pockets, her hands in there, short haircut, slouched, talking to everybody - Up and down the stairs they come - the bartenders are the regular brand of Jack, and the heavenly drummer who looks up in the sky with blue eyes, with a beard, is wailing beer-caps of bottles and jamming on the cash register and everything is going to the beat -- it's the beat generation, it's beát. It's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world and like old-time lowdown and like in ancient civilizations the slave boatmen rowing galleys to a beat and servants spinning pottery to a beat..."

One thing I keep coming back to. The single element, if there is one, that makes this my favorite book is Jack's voice. Throughout the entirety of the book, there was Jack sitting next to me, on a bar stool, recounting his stories, laughing, wailing, yelling, sweating and drinking. The way it is written, in his unpretentious, honest, innocent, conversationalist style was endlessly captivating. When I finished the book I felt as though I knew Jack. Not just knew him through his stories, but knew him personally because he didn't just tell the stories, he shared them with me. I think this is why he became the "voice of the Beat Generation". Because he didn't simply write a book, he sat next to you and talked on for hours - his hand slapping your knee - pulling your face in close - slapping you on the back, laughing - crying from time to time. As long as you kept the Jazz playing, and kept buying him beers, he would keep telling you stories.

On the Road is a beautiful thing - and the most profoundly moving book I have ever read.

10/10

[AuntShecky]

OneRaven's review of this book was extremely well-written.
I've read sections of On the Road. I don't think it's the great literary phenomenon of the Twentieth Century, but nonetheless a good representation of the time. The Beatniks, you know, were the precursors of the Hippies, except instead of hating Nixon and Johnson, the Beatniks hated Eisenhower.
Allen Ginsberg was one of the best poets of the time, and his work achieved greater literary value than Kerouac, I think. Truman Capote said of Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typing." (By the by, if you want to know how to write a truly great English sentence, read Capote's prose, his essays more so than his novels, in my humble
opinion.)
Other Beat poets that are fun to read are Gregory Corso
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti Lives! (In San Francisco.)
Oh, and thanks RavenOne, for mentioning the music. Oh my. What a contribution to American culture: Charlie Parker, Dizzy, Miles. . .I always thought that jazz (the bebop variety) was so much more satisfying, enriching than rock n roll. When my peers went whacko for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, etc., they all thought I was weird for
my music tastes. But I think jazz is better!
Auntie

[one_raven]

Thank you for your kind words.

...
and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti Lives! (In San Francisco.)

I think he's the only one left.
Have you been to City Lights - the bookstore he owns in San Francisco?
It's a fantastic store.

[mortalterror]

Thank you One Raven for that excellent review. I also thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. I felt enthralled by Kerouac's narrative voice, caught up in the energy, and the raw will to live, the exuberance of his characters. I've loaned copies to friends and they've all loved it as well.

I like Breakfast at Tiffany's but Capote is not in Kerouac's league.

[thom]

Rich, epic, wild, its the quintessential american novel!

[Scheherazade]

R e m i n d e r

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[Dharmabeat]

I picked up 'On the Road' from the cult section of Waterstones in my town. That was about a year ago, and through reading it I've developed a great admiration for Kerouac's generation, the beat generation.

I love the idea of the Beat generation, in a time 40 years before I was actually born, groups of people doing exactly what they want to do, and rejecting the material lifestyle. Free spirits, if you will.

A book that had a big impact on me, I'd definitely rate it the whole 5 stars.

[Dharmabeat]

The whole "beat generation" were really very conformist. They simply rejected the standards of most of society, but anyone who was "one of them" had to conform to their standards. That's make them no more individual or nonconformist than what they were protesting. It actually makes them a little hypocritical.

A true free spirit goes his own way, not conforming to anyone's standards but his own.

That's very interesting.

I believe Kerouac himself actually got fed up with the following, when so many people decided to take on the lifestyle. I just enjoy the ideas of the generation.

[Taliesin]

I remember reading it this winter, in translation. A little bit self-discipline was needed to get through it due to its narrative not being ..well, narrativic but a bit stream-of-consciousness-like. Felt more like a poem.
It didn't feel as if it was meant to tell a story, rather, it felt as if it was meant to convey a feeling, and such it was - it felt a bit like reading a blog, with the occasional moments of awe and numinosity.
I don't live in America. I have never gone to a road trip. But reading did convey a feeling.

By the way, when I was reading that book I was having a crush on someone who reminded a bit of Dean Moriartry to me (or rather, vice versa) so this book had quite a personal effect to me. Perhaps it was also that which made me like the book so much.

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

[Tsuyoiko]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I'm about half way through this book and wanted to see what other people think of it.

So far I'm finding it rather hit and miss.

There are beautifully poetic bits, quotes that I want to write down so I don't forget them, and wonderfully evocative descriptions. There are also laugh-out-loud bits, such as when Remi and Sal are raiding the kitchens at the army barracks. The writing style is quite new to me and I'm finding it refreshingly honest.

Aside from the unforgettable quotes though, I'm finding it very hard to relate to the characters, the journey or the philosophy behind it all. Kerouac makes the road trip seem horrible, the hand-to-mouth existence, the scary people, the petty crime. Dean Moriarty is just horrible. He reminds me of Teabag from Prison Break. He's just a dirty old man who didn't get old yet. He beats Mary Lou black and blue, but we're supposed to believe he's a great guy? I'm afraid for once I have to side with the majority who don't "get him".

[Chava]

Dean is a spell of promise. He lures and seduces everyone into his world, which is never realised in all of it's glory. I had trouble reading this recently and made a thread about it here. Seems you're not the only one, and neither was I.

However, I really got into it after I got over it. I was previously annoyed with dean, annoyed with the fact that they weren't getting anywhere, and annoyed by the language. Not unlike when travelling, you are at first annoyed with the heavy backpack, the mosquito's the relentless sun and foreign tongues. But then you give up, and let everything speak to you. I've known plenty of Moriarities in my life, both male and female. Paradise is at least as interested in being a part of Dean's life as he is to be on the road. I believe in his view, Dean is the epitomy of the careless lifestyle, which in many ways he is. But he is a tragic character, and it is a tragedy refllected in the writing.

Oh gosh, I'm rambling... Time for bed.

[LitNetIsGreat]

On The Road is cool.