On the Road- Kerouac [Archive] - Literature Network Forums

fayefaye

01-04-2004, 02:30 AM

Wow. I did NOT like this book. Kerouac BORES me. (heh heh. That ought to get a discussion going) Well, I mean... it's like this spiritual journey where the characters hardly develop as they travel around the US with no direction in their lives. Kinda feel like shaking my fist at them and screaming 'get a job you hippies!' Worst thing is, it made me FEEL like I actually WAS on a road trip. A long trip going nowhere with that eternal feeling of 'are we there yet?' I would love to read Neal Cassady's letters though. 'Cause at the same time, it made me feel llike going on a road trip. Life is so dull and mediocre. I love the idea of cruising downhill with the motor off and the clutch in. I feel like taking someone's car, tracking down a large hill and doing that. In Dunedin, they have these great steep cliffside roads with the most beautiful views.... I'd love to just cruise by there.... On the Road made me feel like my life was really claustrophobic. Like-'stop this car! I'm getting out.' Stupid Kerouac. Make me realise there's something else out there. Geez. I hate it when authors do that. :mad: :( :)

AbdoRinbo

01-04-2004, 04:11 AM

Who cares what you think? You don't exist.

fayefaye

01-04-2004, 06:25 AM

I'm all too real. Besides, I was just trying to get a discussion going. There isn't much in General Lit right now... I didn't really DISlike it, I just didn't like it much either. Come up with a better reason to ignore my opinion than that. How about I'm too stupid to appreciate it, or the fact I contradict myself in my last post? Doesn't that sound like I'm too indeterminate in my opinion?

Koa

01-04-2004, 02:18 PM

Have you read it? I mean, you said you had just bought it or something, or am I mistaken? *getting confused* I remember it's awfully long and as I said I wondered how the hell I read it all, it's so useless... If I wrote a 500 pages book about my daily bus journeys to university and back, it'd be waaaaaay more interesting, at least I happen to have some real adventures at times...

AbdoRinbo

01-04-2004, 05:35 PM

Shut up, both of you.

Don't mess with American Pride.

ihrocks

01-04-2004, 05:59 PM

Since none of you were born when this book was written, let alone had the opportunity to grow up in pre-60s America, the best advice I can give you is wait a few years, grow up, get jobs, face life in the cubicle for a few more years, then sit down and re-read the book. The sense of liberation it captures, as well as the world-weariness, then may have more meaning for you. Of course, the American road Kerouac traveled doesn't really exist anymore, which I guess makes that book even more meaningful for some of us.

ihrocks
The Aging Hippie Woman

P.S. -- Ever decide to throw an askew glance over "Howl" and there'll be hell to pay!

fayefaye

01-05-2004, 01:19 PM

Koa, I have read it. I was only half way through when I wrote it 'sucked' in another thread though. It's a pretty easy read, if you don't mind the lack of plot. I still don't LIKE it-it's not as great as everyone makes it out to be. Whether or not it's a good book remains to be disputed though. Even though I don't like it, I generally think any book that manages to have some sort of effect on you is good, just because it had the ability to do that.

Ihrocks, I get the point. I got the point when I finished the book (I don't sit around for years with a book trying to work out what it's about. :mad: and if I did, I'm sure I wouldn't come to any greater conclusions), anyway that's the thing that got under my skin. That's sort of what I meant in my last post.... it makes me realise how claustophobic my life is, and suddenly I want to hop a plane to Alaska. that's what I meant when I said that kerouac made me realise there's something else out there. (damn him) But the bum lifestyle appeals waaaayyy too much for me(more than it should), and the book left me with the feeling that I'd like to run wild and free and at the same time I KNOW I can't. Which is largely what irritates me about it. If it was just some book about people on a road I'd simply find it boring. Since it's more about life, I find it .... *pausing to think of word* almost depressing. No, irritating. No, the thing I'll use in my defense in the insanity hearing when the courts are left to decide my future.

p.s Abdo, I'll mess with American pride all I like.

AbdoRinbo

01-05-2004, 02:21 PM

Did you know America has plans to go to war with Australia?

fayefaye

01-05-2004, 02:29 PM

Oh, so John Howard's little love affair with Bush didn't work out?

uh-oh. Current politics. Back on topic!

azmuse

01-05-2004, 03:27 PM

well...back to the road; i am slightly embarassed to admit that got this book as a gift from my beloved brother...started to read it about 4 years ago, and couldn't; it put me to sleep in the same manner that studying the stamp act did. maybe maybe should go feed the brain cells left in limbo when i stopped turning the pages... thanx, ihrocks

DumbLikeAPoet

01-05-2004, 04:51 PM

I've never read it....what road does he travel?

Jonus

AbdoRinbo

01-05-2004, 05:33 PM

Stupid, lazy Australians and their crocodile hunter . . .

(Munro being aware that he is the only exception.)

sloegin

01-06-2004, 05:49 AM

Kerouac isn't a bum; compared to Miller, he is a responsible citizen.

ihrocks

01-06-2004, 09:34 AM

First Kerouac, now Miller??? Who's next? :)

Sorry, fayefaye, didn't mean to lecture. Obviously, I wasn't bored by Kerouac. And btw, Kerouac wasn't a hippie. As a member of the Beat Generation, he pre-dates the hippies by a considerable margin. It also makes him a great deal more interesting. It's always fascinating to me how the generation that came of age in the 1960s (especially in America) tends to claim credit for a great many things that really came well before them, like the Beats, Rock n' Roll, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Uh-oh, I may be lecturing again! I better stop now.

irhocks

Koa

01-06-2004, 03:18 PM

Originally posted by fayefaye
it makes me realise how claustophobic my life is, and suddenly I want to hop a plane to Alaska. that's what I meant when I said that kerouac made me realise there's something else out there. (damn him) But the bum lifestyle appeals waaaayyy too much for me(more than it should), and the book left me with the feeling that I'd like to run wild and free and at the same time I KNOW I can't. Which is largely what irritates me about it. If it was just some book about people on a road I'd simply find it boring. Since it's more about life, I find it .... *pausing to think of word* almost depressing. No, irritating. No, the thing I'll use in my defense in the insanity hearing when the courts are left to decide my future. [/B]

Thankfully I didn't get that. I'm like that all the time: would like to be anywhere but here. I'd like to travel and live somewhere for 6 months and somewhere else for the other 6 (alwyas in an emisphere where it's winter :D) and so on... It's a mood I often have, don't need Kerouac or whoever.

Still I have a feeling that this book is overrated....might be because of the nostalgics? ;)

aiks

01-06-2004, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by ihrocks
First Kerouac, now Miller??? Who's next? :)

And btw, Kerouac wasn't a hippie. As a member of the Beat Generation, he pre-dates the hippies by a considerable margin. It also makes him a great deal more interesting. It's always fascinating to me how the generation that came of age in the 1960s (especially in America) tends to claim credit for a great many things that really came well before them, like the Beats, Rock n' Roll, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Uh-oh, I may be lecturing again! I better stop now.

irhocks

ihrocks, I am quite confused with the Beats vs. hippies... I though that Kerouac did have some influence with the latter...

so how did really hippies get started?

would you know if there's any literary or other figure that could take credit for hippies? at least in part? or would that be just Jerry Rubin?

actually I am writing a research paper on the sixties, but unforunately (or really?) was not around then. would very appreciate a piece of advice (as long as the society here won't mind that it is rather off topic...)

-

aiks

AbdoRinbo

01-06-2004, 11:08 PM

Koa, you'd understand On the Road better if you were American. I know I wouldn't care for a book about some guy roaming through Italy.

IWilKikU

01-07-2004, 01:48 AM

aiks, strands get highjacked all the time here. Dont be shy ;). Oh and Abs, I'm not Spanish and I liked Don Quixotie.

azmuse

01-07-2004, 01:56 AM

wow!!!
faye, i certainly didn't like it much 'tall when i first picked the book up (like when i first read tolkien in my rosy youth (doesn't that sound Awful :))) but, re-reading it - simply because of this thread - must say i Like.
maybe (?) that's the trick with this particular book...give your life time to grow on it

fayefaye

01-07-2004, 07:11 AM

Ihrocks-I know he wasn't a hippie. I was just using the hippie statement to illustrate my point. Conjures up images of crazy, cynical, bitter old ladies telling people to keep off the lawn, the phrase 'Get a job, hippies!'

koa-hooray! Another person who loves winter.

azmuse- I know I will hold the same opinions regardless of my age. Either way, when I'm old and senile, I'll be able to find better ways to entertain myself than re-read On the Road.

Koa

01-08-2004, 11:31 AM

Originally posted by AbdoRinbo
Koa, you'd understand On the Road better if you were American. I know I wouldn't care for a book about some guy roaming through Italy.

I thought of it but I'm not sure it matters... It might be interesting to see someone wandering through a country... if it was a travel report :D No, really, maybe it's something about the mentality, there's something (some kind of feeling) in the USA I can't really get, because I've never been there.

But as I said I'm not sure it matters with the book...I love Russian literature even if I'm not Russian...

fayefaye

01-09-2004, 06:01 AM

Yeah-all the people who I've met who've read it say it's SUCH a GREAT book[the reason I wanted to read it so much in the first place]. And they're Australian. I don't see why it should be an 'American' thing.

piquant

01-10-2004, 04:46 PM

sorry, i put my comments on On the Road in the wrong place! I guess I should read the names off all the discussions first.

If the book was irritating/depressing, which I agree it was, it's because it steals life options. When you're sitting in one place for a while and you get that itch to up and leave, you can always console yourself with fantasies of what life on the road would be like. But with Kerouac, you realize that life on the road is not all it's cracked up to be, and that it would most likely steal your sanity, and anything else of value you have. After on the road, I don't want to stay and I don't want to leave. Somebody give me some options!

dru

01-11-2004, 12:43 AM

I could not believe just how boring I found "On the Road." I expected it to be exciting from all I had heard about it. He travels back and forth over the country and not much happens. He meets a girl and even that was boring.
"Travels with Charlie" by Steinbeck was a better road book and he had no one with him but his dog.
If dropping everything to hit the open road is as boring as the book was to read I might as well keep going to work everyday.

ihrocks

01-11-2004, 01:48 PM

Sounds like lots of people reading "On the Road" with no concept of what the Beat Generation was all about.

The term "Beat," despite popular misconceptions, was not a reference to jazz music, though jazz seemed to always being swinging along in the background. "Beat" is an American slang term that means "exhausted," "defeated," and "worn out." That was the Beat Generation.

ihrocks

Going out on a limb here, but I'll make a recommendation to those of you who find "On the Road" too long and too <<shudders>> boring...

There is a little book called "Diary of Rock n' Roll Star" by Ian Hunter (yes, that ih). It is short, it is a road story, and it is filled with fisticuffs, adventures, and just a hint, a hint mind you, of sex. After you read it, you'll feel compelled to shower to get the six weeks of road grunge off you. My only word of warning is that there is some politically incorrect language (black people are referred to as "spades" but it is out of ignorance and not malice).

It is considered, by some, a classic of rock 'n roll literature, and perhaps some of you might be inspired to listen to the music of IH and Mott the Hoople. If only one of you does, then my job here is done.

I'll probably live to regret this.

ihrocks

azmuse

01-11-2004, 08:14 PM

...further into "On the Road" - and Liking it. Then again, I've been in all western states except Montana and the Dakotas, and lived on both coasts...still. It is like reliving a wonderful, wonderful excursion that i never appreciated while i was in it.

ihrocks

01-11-2004, 08:52 PM

Bless you, azmuse. I was beginning to despair.

ihrocks

fayefaye

01-12-2004, 07:06 AM

Originally posted by piquant
If the book was irritating/depressing, which I agree it was, it's because it steals life options. When you're sitting in one place for a while and you get that itch to up and leave, you can always console yourself with fantasies of what life on the road would be like. But with Kerouac, you realize that life on the road is not all it's cracked up to be, and that it would most likely steal your sanity, and anything else of value you have. After on the road, I don't want to stay and I don't want to leave. Somebody give me some options!

yeah-that's sorta how it made me feel. Like I hate road trips, but want to travel. Conflicting emotions.

piquant

01-12-2004, 01:04 PM

Ihrocks, yeah, before I read it I did some research into the beat generation and learned that stuff. It definately made my reading more enjoyable. I liked on the road, I just didn't like the way it made me feel. It made me really understand the beat generation, and feel a bit beat myself. I felt a breathless, exhausting despair when I finished it. I was beat.

fayefaye

01-12-2004, 01:19 PM

I didn't like On the Road, but I can respect it as a book because it made me feel something. Books that can alter how you think or feel generally deserve a little credit. Thing is, if Sal Paradise and co. were beat, it was from doing whatever they felt like doing 24/7. That sense of freedom-you gotta envy that.

p.s. I was going to criticize plot, but I'll spare ihrocks. ;)

azmuse

01-15-2004, 01:35 PM

Just finished the book: something about the last paragraph, it vomited itself up to me like a sick, lost child and i cried...this is a beautiful story, a poignant, mad, gorgeous love story.

fayefaye

01-18-2004, 11:48 PM

See, I don't think I'll ever see it like that. Ever. I'll pick up the book again when I'm fifty, rifle through it and think, 'don't waste your life'

piquant

01-19-2004, 01:19 AM

Yeah, I almost cried at the end, and I'm not sure why. Most of the book I was emotionally detached, and didn't even like it till they hit mexico. Something just grabbed me at the end.

fayefaye

01-19-2004, 01:53 AM

the fact it was the end of their adventure?

serpico

01-19-2004, 03:58 AM

It was the way Dean Moriarty never found his father.

In a sense we are all searching for the same thing: our origins, something that gives meaning to our lives. You look elsewhere for happiness, but really your life is nothing more (or less) than what you make of it. It doesn't matter where you are. And in the end, neither Dean nor Sal were any better off than they were in the beginning. To some this makes their journey seem pretty futile, but it all works out in the end.

azmuse

01-19-2004, 08:41 AM

and that Dean traveled all that way to NYC for a matter of days, and they never said a proper bye, and he'd gone to such lengths to see him so briefly 5 1/2 weeks early, and here Sal's getting his act together, but Dean can't come along for the ride (also literally considering Remi wouldn't give him one)...and he's so loyal, and he loves Sal so much, and neither of them ever say so, but Sal finally, finally does...

dakota

02-12-2004, 03:18 AM

I read On the Road and Dharma Bums just last year. At the time I was also writing a research paper on Allen Ginsberg for a class. If you know about Beats and their lives the book is so much better. They were a group of people that were very intelligent, and could've been "succesful" in societies view but they decided to give all that up, and lived life how they thought it should be lived. They understood that there is no such thing as right or wrong, and there is no "truth." Kerouac is always criticized for not having a plot, but he is writing about real life. There isn't a plot to life, it's just random sequence of events just as in his novels. Another admirable quality about the Beats was thier openess to different cultures and life's experiences. Not many people during the 50's (or even today for that matter) were open to drug use, anti-capitalist values, homosexulaity, different religions etc. etc.

Someone said they found the book depressing, I thought the complete oppisite.

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-23-2004, 06:03 PM

I read On the Road and then tried to read the Dharma Bums, the quasi Buddhist ideas in turned me off. I was only 15 while reading On the Road and now I'm 16, Dean Moriaty (Neal Cassady) was such an expressive character that I got attached. Today I had to present a poem to my Advanced Writing class and I picked "Howl" just to see how it compared to all the Emily Dickenson and Robert Frost poems. Their still good but I guess I got more of a reaction after reading some of "Howl". I think I'm identifying with the Beats more than today's punks and goths. I don't have to buy much more than a few books and listen to jazz to call myself a Beat. I bet I sound queer to you older folks because I'm naive and unenlightened. Oh well, On the Road was a good book, had an effect on me, my poor delicate mind...

amuse

02-23-2004, 11:03 PM

Dakota...liking/loving this book in no way made me open to drug use suddenly. Especially when my birth mom's been in and out of rehab for 3 decades because of speed, and a boy i've known since he was 5 months and 2 feet long is now experimenting with weed/hard liquor. So, much as I appreciate some facets of the book, in no way does "On the Road" make everyone who reads it, in whatever decade, a convert to all its aspects, and neither do they necessarily find them admirable.

sisyphus

02-24-2004, 12:17 AM

so why don't you gather all of your albums, tapes and all of your cds together and burn them?

amuse

02-24-2004, 12:39 AM

abdo, you obviously didn't read my whole post carefully. i liked most of "On the Road;" it was very moving.

Kinch

02-24-2004, 01:30 AM

What's obvious now? Did I mention On the Road in that post once, ever?

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-24-2004, 10:33 PM

Uhh read my post, drug use is not very admirable. I bascially thought that in the late 40's they didn't see drugs as the danger they are now and were stupid for trying to "expand" their minds.

amuse

02-24-2004, 10:40 PM

Hm...reread my post. I prefaced it with "Dakota." It wasn't directed at anything you wrote, Comrade. Ok? And I like reading comments by people who enjoyed the book besides moi. Though I totally understand people who don't - it took me years to pick it up again.

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-24-2004, 10:43 PM

Oh I worded my post wrong, I know you weren't commenting about my post, I just wanted someone to respond to it. I was stating my general opinion about drug use in the novel. I'm new here so I guess I should be more careful.

amuse

02-24-2004, 11:03 PM

:) Didn't realize you were asking for feedback/commenting further. Had just figured I wasn't clear. I should read more carefully :).

Interesting about beat writers. I was never exposed to any until I took a small publishing class. Their stuff made me realize I'd missed a lot re: modern poetry. Though as far as jazz goes, I think it's so varied - like you have the fat, smooth sounds of trumpets and saxaphones, or the more phrenetic fast paced stuff. I like how it's so individual, but only like the slower stuff personally. Not as far as beat literature goes - this in reference to music. I really liked how the varied tempos lived in the book.

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-24-2004, 11:40 PM

Well I'm into bop basically, Miles Davis and John Coltrane stuff. I don't know if I listen to hard bop or not but I do like my jazz fast paced and lively. Theres also avant garde jazz which is really eccletic but I haven't gotten into it as much.

amuse

02-25-2004, 12:13 AM

I listened to Coltrane when I was little, falling asleep. Will have to find out the name of the album. It was/is blue and beautiful, had "My Favorite Things" on it. (Maybe? that's the title.) He was on the cover facing his right. Never payed attention to the names of the other songs, just knew that one from the movie. Wish I had...
...have to backtrack on not liking fast-paced stuff. Saw one guy on the sax - a friend of a friend's. Had never seen fingers literally fly before that. I was just stunned. :)

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-25-2004, 06:28 PM

I wish I had that kind of connection with music when I was younger, my taste for jazz is hardly a year old. Theres a cafe downtown that has a jazz blues jam every week and I listened and asked the musicians about what jazz they liked. I do like the slower stuff, "So What" by Miles Davis is a great song and so is Dave Brubeck's "Foggy Day".

Sancho

02-25-2004, 07:20 PM

Used to think of Jazz as "wrong note" music. Strangely though, the older I get the more I dig it. (to borrow a verb from Moriarty) Coltrane's "Blue Train" seems to keep finding its way into my CD player.

I know I'm joining this fight late, and its been quite a few years since I've read "On the Road," but I have to admit my initial impression of that text was much the same as Faye's. Here's the wierd part though. "On the Road" is one of those rare books that I have continued to think about with surpizing frequency since reading it.

I followed up "On the Road" with Tom Wolfe's "Electric Coolaid Acid Test." A difficult but interesting piece of literature for me. I've never in my life done a drug stronger than Advil (and supposedly neither has Wolfe) but there's a description of an acid trip in that book that made me think I had. Thought it best not to drive a car for a while after that chapter.

Then I listened to a bunch of Grateful Dead records -- but that's another story.

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-26-2004, 06:29 PM

Hehe, well I was turned off by the drug use in On the Road, I was thinking about reading The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test but if its one long trip I'm not so sure. Then theres Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I've seen the movie and I'm not sure how easy to read such a book could be.

Sancho

02-26-2004, 07:54 PM

I've never read "Fear and Loathing..." either but it is on the list. Its just not very high on the list. It was primarily the style that made "Electric Coolaid Acid Test" interesting for me. Took me about a hundred pages to tune-in, but once I had, I was bouncing along in the magic bus with everyone else. The other interesting element in the book was just purely the history - the recording of the event by Wolfe. Fascinating.

That being said, I'll never reread "Electric Coolaid." I will however reread "On the Road." I think it was Faye earlier in this string who wrote that the book may speak to her when she's fifty (bad paraphase I know - Lo siento mucho Faye.) Well, that made me sort of unofficially decide to revisit Jack Kerouac's book on its fiftieth anniversary just to see if it had changed for me. Think that's next year.

Between now and then I plan to travel the other direction and read "Augie March" Has anybody been there?

Cheerio!

atiguhya padma

02-26-2004, 08:03 PM

If I recall correctly, isn't Burroughs' Naked Lunch a big weird, zany, psychedelic drug novel?

I sure remember thinking it was one hell of a drug feast.

Sancho

02-26-2004, 08:29 PM

Big weird, zany, psychedelic, and metaphoric.

Or was it metamorphic?

Ahhh the sixties.

Born too late.

Tragic.

-Tootles

IWilKikU

02-27-2004, 10:33 AM

I just read "Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, and if drug use turns you off, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! All it is is drugs. There is VERY little plot other than what these two guys are thinking on this crazy drug binge. That being said, I loved it. I thought it was a great book.

Comrade_Ogilvy

02-27-2004, 05:47 PM

heh crazy drug binge. Is Mr. Thompson dead now? I'm very antidrug straightedge so while I'll read about it I won't ever condone it. I guess I admire the achievement of being able to express the farout effects of drugs to someone who is tuned out.

IWilKikU

02-27-2004, 08:28 PM

I don't know what Thompson is doing now. With the amount of drugs he does, I'd be surprised if he's still around, but than again so is Keith Richards.

Sancho

03-01-2004, 12:13 PM

Conventional weapons cannot kill Keith Richards.

(plagiarized that from a bad movie I saw a while back)

As far as I know Thompson is still alive although not necessarily all that well. Saw him in an interview on public television last year after the release of his latest book, "Kingdom of Fear." He did not look good.

Comrade_Ogilvy

03-01-2004, 04:56 PM

He's probably in his 60s by now. Most people who took drugs like that would be dead by now so he should consider himself lucky. Actually the protagonists of On the Road, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac died in the mid and late sixties, Jack from alcoholism and Neal I'm not sure of.

papayahed

04-30-2004, 09:12 AM

I just finished this book last night and after reading this post I searched the internet to find out more about the Beat Generation. The book makes more sense after I found out a little more about this group of people. I respect the book because it gave insight into a different time and place, but I'm finding I don't really like the book because I don't really like any of the characters in the book. None of them seemed to have any qualities to make me want to know more about them or care what happens to them.

piquant

05-02-2004, 10:23 PM

Dean Moriarty was the one I loved. Even if I had hated the rest of the book (which I didn't) it would have been worth it for Dean.

What I liked most about this book is that it was about people looking for a way out and none of them really found it. Drugs are a temporary fix that kill you in the end...but what other options are there? What other ways are there to escape from society and yourself? Today people are facing the same problems that Dean and crew were facing, and we still have found no better solutions. The most interesting, enlightened people are almost always drug addicts or "freaks" in some other way. My question for all of you is what other option did the characters of OTR have? Suits, ties, respectable jobs, middle-class morals, 2.5 children? No wonder they chose drugs.

Also, I would like all of you to join the campaign to bring back "dig". I have so far unsuccessfully attempted to start the trend, but I still have faith that it can be done!;)

IWilKikU

05-03-2004, 12:42 AM

Not sure I know what you mean by "dig".

Sancho

05-03-2004, 11:00 AM

Duuude, I can dig it. It never left my vocabulary. If you manage to bring it back, I'll be back in touch. I'm diggin' that.

papayahed

05-03-2004, 11:18 AM

Can ya' dig? man

piquant

05-03-2004, 03:43 PM

I dig it that you are all about bringing dig back. Well, I have to go dig my biochem final (proper usage?). Bye!

IWilKikU

05-03-2004, 06:42 PM

people here at my school say 'dig' and 'diggin'' All the time. Guess thats why I wasn't sure what you meant by "bringing 'dig' back".

papayahed

05-04-2004, 08:27 AM

I think that's my problem with the book, I just don't understand the concept of having to "escape yourself", what does that mean?

emily655321

05-04-2004, 11:08 AM

*appears out of the blue* (:D Planning to read this book, so I'm getting some education here.)

Papaya, if you don't know why someone would want to escape themself, I believe you're far luckier than most. However, the theory that one *must* escape himself via chemical means to truly understand the world, I don't believe is justified. I've listened to some of my Kerouac/Thompson-worshipping friends yack on and on about it, and they're almost fried by now -- far from enlightened. Gaining another perspective is important for one's development, but drugs are a poor substitute for meditation and introspection. Recreational only, I say.

*fades into the shadows*

Sancho

05-04-2004, 12:41 PM

Someone may have already written this but I think it’s important to put this story in the context of the times. That generation, or rather that small slice of people who were just barely too young to have fought in WWII, were indeed a lost generation. The servicemen who were lucky enough to have survived the war returned to thankful nation and had taken all of the jobs and had the respect of the rest of the population. Those who didn’t serve had difficulty finding work, and had difficulty “defining themselves,” and were truly set adrift. I personally think that this is what text portrays so beautifully. The book had resonance then and it continues to speak to people today.

fayefaye

05-12-2004, 07:55 AM

I'm going to start researching into the beat generation-sounds interesting. Anyone have anything to tell me? I still think about On the Road, and I STILL feel like hopping a plane to Alaska, there's that immortal sense of 'I wish I could live my life however.... go anywhere, do anything, just on the spur of the moment' Hey, I've got a fun idea! let's drive to mexico! sort of thing.

Calvin:' I'm going to hitch a ride to Africa'
Hobbes:' Africa's another continent., You can't drive there'
Calvin:' life is full of possiblities. Precluded possibilities.'

Neal Cassady sounds fascinating.

papayahed

05-12-2004, 04:59 PM

I did a little research also, it was an interesting time. I found a great website: http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/

I've also started reading Naked Lunch and a little Allen Ginsburg although I have to admit I've never really gotten into poetry.

Scheherazade

04-13-2005, 12:00 PM

I have started reading (read about 30 pages) Jack Kerouac's On The Road as it is one of the books in BBC's 100 Big Reads. I had heard/read such positive things about this book that I could not help being disappointed. Although it is an 'easy' to read book and I am not bored while reading it, I am still not getting that 'tingly feeling' either. Is it me? Does one need to be familiar with the American culture to appreciate this book? Or feel a connection with the beat generation? I hardly give up on books so I will carry on reading but I sincerely hope to find 'something' more in later pages.

amuse

04-13-2005, 01:07 PM

Exactly! how i felt first reading it!! i've no connection to the beat generation, it was a gift from my very beloved brother, and i tried, tried, and tried to appreciate it.

well, 6 years later, i loved it. no idea why. 34 is not that much different from 28, but the book spoke to me. go figure. it called to a sense of loss, of wide open spaces that i didn't know i missed, the cold nights in the middle of

what it was was the sense that life could snowball into nothing with or without you, and that could mean something, and hedonism and music and sex could take over and at the end one edgy man could shake you and say "This, This was what you have to see, this is what i meant by living"

and that is why the last line made me cry.

shortysweetp

04-13-2005, 01:49 PM

i tried reading it and could not get into it.

mister_noel_y2k

04-13-2005, 02:24 PM

completely agree with you sche, i read it when i was 16 and was soooooooooooo bored by it. my dad and my friend are the only ones i know who have also read it and they both think that it is rubbish and just typing. apparenly kerouac wrote it on several rolls of wallpaper strapped into his typewriter and typed it in 3 sittings while doped to the gills. frankly it reads that way. boring, nothing prose. bad overrated book just like naked lunch bu william burroughs and most stuff by the beats (with the exception of junky by william burroughs and charles bukowski's work)

:banana:

papayahed

04-13-2005, 03:04 PM

I think this is a link to the last discussion of On the road:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2010

I read the book and reading the posts it made me more interested in finding out more about the beat generation, but I still say the book wasn't all that great.

mono

04-13-2005, 03:18 PM

I have yet to read Keruoac's On The Road, but I intend to, with time, having heard both extremes of the book being "truly amazing" or "absolutely horrible." I have heard of many ideas by Jack Keruoac and especially Allen Ginsberg, his fellow beat poet, relating much to Buddhist thought, first bringing into fame Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible - an excellent book worth reading for anyone interested in spirituality.
Having confidentally felt overly-indulged with beat poetry by Jack Keruoac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Charles Bukowski, I still hope to read On The Road with high expectations, and will confer with this thread.
Thanks, Scher! :)

Bandini

04-13-2005, 03:54 PM

Love a lot of the beat ethos - and I think 'On the Road' is probably better if you're 'that way on', but never really rated much else by Kerouac. It is years since I read Kerouac though - perhaps better at acertain age? I used to have a CD of some of his stuff being read over Jazz and that was great - can't remember what it was called though. Bukowski's poetry is sublime - traet yourself to a volume and throw in a copy of 'Ham on Rye' to get aquainted with the man.

Koa

04-13-2005, 04:10 PM

PeterL

04-13-2005, 05:18 PM

Does one need to be familiar with the American culture to appreciate this book? Or feel a connection with the beat generation?

On the Road is descriptive of the beats and their time. It has no great literary merit in itself. It was written in the hopes that Herouac could make some money from it. There are a few sections that are pretty good, but, if you don't have affection for the beats, you probably won't find it pleasant.
No one has ever written a book that accuratly conveyed the way that it feels to do long distance hitch-hiking, but Kerouac tried.

papayahed

04-13-2005, 06:16 PM

as i said in the old thread if you go look at it.... i hated it, It bored me to death. I read it all hoping that it was going to improve, and it never did. And now all i remmeber is this going from side to side of the USA millions of times for no apparent reason, and ome drugs here and there... and a horrible feeling of boredom.

Now I remember, they were always running off to somewhere else. It did convey a type of restlessness. I like the book now more than when I first read it.

simon

04-13-2005, 11:15 PM

I hold a ribald facination for the beat generation. Yes On the Road is hard to get through beucase your expectations are for something crazy and marvelous. What you get is a low key cross country car trip without any nightmares or fighting. Perhpas this puts some people off, but I still found the book of historical benefit and the characters interesting, for what they reveal about the generation. As a whole read the beat generations works on the beat generation, try tackling some of Ken Kesey's works or Tom Wolfe's (Acid Kool Aid Test --very observational). I found the later beat generation stuff to be more entertaining, but remember these are about travel and alot of travel is just getting someplace which can be boring.

nadinka

04-14-2005, 01:37 AM

I join to the side of those who didn't like it when they read it first time. I tried to read it only once, but didn't finish, because mostly I had to struggle on it:( BUT I really hope to read it some time later, and to appreciate it more than I did then. I think that there should be the right time for reading some books.

mister_noel_y2k

04-14-2005, 02:28 AM

simon

04-14-2005, 05:01 AM

That's why they are so facinating, how they got such a following when they didn't do anything but take a bunch of drugs. And alot of the stuff created isn't even that good, so why are they revered? That's partly why I read the book, I wanted to see what was going on.

blp

04-14-2005, 08:48 AM

I had a dog who read it once and really related to it. I think he was a teenager at the time, but it's hard to tell with dogs.

Koa

04-14-2005, 04:53 PM

well i was 16 or so when i read it but my teenage imagination wasnt really impressed...at all...

Bandini

04-14-2005, 05:11 PM

Hmmm - think that 16 is maybe too young. For me, 'On the Road' is meant for that time when that existential life style (to a greater or lesser degree) is just in reach; the book heaves with possibilities! And if you bypass an existential 'period' then it's just too late.

mono

04-14-2005, 07:20 PM

i think it is one of those books that you like at a certain age (mostly teens or twenties) and then beyond that you don't. i read an interview with john irving recently who said that he didn't like the beats at all anymore but when he was a young man he thought they were great. it's an age thing perhaps. still say they're a bunch of drug addicted losers :)
True, many of them (Jack Keruoac, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Lawrence Ferlinghetti) had a great affinity for mind-altering substances, but I often feel impressed with what admirable minds have written while under the influence, both fiction and non-fiction. Most works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, O. Henry, Honoré de Balzac, and Rumi, among others, who, I would like to think, theoretically suffered for the sake of art, I cannot help but express the most immense gratitude; and I question whether their literature would have seemed the same without their afflictions.
Even highly intelligent and enlightening non-fiction works, I have found, formed out of experiments with mind-altering substances - research done by Timothy Leary Ph.D., John Lilly M.D., Robert Anton Wilson, Aleister Crowley, Sigmund Freud, Steven Pinker, and Oliver Sacks M.D.
Though I cannot 'advocate for the devil' entirely on the pros and cons of seeming a 'drug-addicted loser,' but in terms of literature, poetry, and scientific research, I feel that some good has appeared out of substance abuse.

Psyche

04-14-2005, 07:23 PM

I agree with everything you said there Mono, but wait....the time that you posted. IT WAS 4:20!!!
;) You missed your chance to congregate in the collective ritual of smoking the Mary Jane at that time of day!!!! Shame....

mister_noel_y2k

04-15-2005, 07:03 AM

:banana:

though apparently aldous huxley's book on his drug experiments "the doors of perception: heaven and hell" is very good and was the inspiration for jim morrison calling his band "the doors"

Capnplank

04-16-2005, 10:18 AM

I liked On the Road. I'm not exactly anywhere near the Beat scene, though I have friends that related to it more closely and enjoyed it more for that reason, but I still found it to be a good read. When reading it the desire to rip out on a road trip was instilled in me, and a few years after reading it when I finally got the chance to take a nice long road trip I could recall parts of the book, but uhm, I drove sober and straight so the similarities wound up few and far between beyond that.

Bandini

04-16-2005, 11:47 AM

Huxley's book is well worth a read. Glad to see Robert Anton Wilson on that list -his non-fiction is also extremely illuminating - 'Prometheus Rising' is a must; though I've known many people who just haven't got it. Don't forget the late, great Hunter S. - obviously the list goes on. Just had a message aboutswearing on the site! Bit surprised that a seemingly intellectual, literary site advocates censorship in this way. Abject hatred etc. are obviously beyond the pale, but come on! Does that mean that we can't quote Bukowski ...or Lawrence? Or Phillip Larkin? Come on!

mister_noel_y2k

04-17-2005, 05:57 AM

damn straight bandini!

Bandini

04-17-2005, 07:30 AM

T'ank you my Welsh friend. One of the contenders for best living band are from Wales, in my opinion. Are you a Super Furry fan? (I realise that sentence will sound strange to many!)

Koa

04-17-2005, 08:33 AM

Sancho

04-18-2005, 02:01 PM

Does anyone else find it weird that we had this exact same discussion a year or so ago, only with different folks?

I'm off to listen to a bunch of Grateful Dead records again.

...Drivin' that train
High on...

simon

04-18-2005, 10:19 PM

let me help you out....cocain.

Sancho

04-20-2005, 03:53 PM

Casey Jone you'd better
Watch your speed

simon

04-20-2005, 05:52 PM

Everybody must get stoned.

Sancho

04-20-2005, 07:35 PM

Everybody now,

You can get anything you want
at Alice's restaurant

You can get...

papayahed

04-21-2005, 09:35 AM

excepting Alice

simon

04-21-2005, 11:48 AM

I've got almost that whole song memorized. Arlo Guthrie came out to my island but I didn't have the time to see him.

Sancho

04-22-2005, 03:54 PM

Was lucky enough to catch Arlo, in Austin, Texas at the Armadillo World Headquarters…a few years ago…

and we was both jumpin’ up and down and yellin’, "KILL-KILL-KILL"
when the sergeant came over
sat me down
pinned a medal on me
and said, “you're our boy”

Bandini

04-22-2005, 05:02 PM

Koa - not that you can't live 'existentially' at any age, it just takes more...more...just more! Simone De Beouvoir (? can't be arsed to look at my books in the other room) reckoned that the female could never 'transcend' to live as an existentialist, because she is grounded by her biology (bit more complex than that - but you know) - but I reckon that's extended to all who have kids. You can't follow just any path...

simon

04-22-2005, 08:48 PM

I made the mistake of singing that part out loud in the grocery store once and I got a little overexcited at the "I want to kill, kill, kill" part. It wasn't received well to say the least.

Sancho

04-24-2005, 09:53 PM

I'd've paid money to have seen that.

Scheherazade

04-25-2005, 06:55 AM

Hate to do this but I will HiJaCk the thread and put it back on the track! ;)

So I finished reading On the Road. As PeterL suggested the book does not have much literary merit (or if it does, my mind is too feeble to grasp it). I could not sympathise with the sentiments expressed in the book. I was strangely reminded of Waiting for Godot. Yet, I loved Godot and hated the Road. Seems like in On the Road, the waiting is replaced by running to 'it'. People, selfish and self-pitying, are desperately waiting/hoping for something great to happen while refusing to take any responsibility and positive action to 'make things happen' for themselves; seeking solace in alcohol, drugs, sex and a kind of pseudo 'camaraderie'... Really not my cup of tea.

papayahed

04-25-2005, 09:38 AM

Sancho

04-25-2005, 05:41 PM

I’ll volunteer to be the contrarian. I liked On The Road. In fact, I loved On The Road. However, I must admit, I had much the same impression as you guys on my first reading. But then a weird thing happened: for months after I’d read it, I kept thinking about it. So (like Papayahed) I did some related reading in order to gain a better perspective.

I read Tom Wolfe’s Electric Koolaide Acid Test, Ken Kesey’s , One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; I went backwards and read Saul Bellow’s Augie March; went forwards again and read Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Burrough’s The Naked Lunch. Then I listened to a bunch of hippie music and dragged the old lady out to a mountain music festival to dance barefooted on the Blue Ridge.

And I think I started to catch on.

I know that On The Road seems a little dated now, but it really spoke to a certain generation. And I think, more so than any other generation in recent history, that the generation that was just slightly too young to have fought in WWII, badly needed to define themselves.

And they did. And in that respect, On The Road helped to change the course of history.

papayahed

04-25-2005, 05:54 PM

I know that On The Road seems a little dated now, but it really spoke to a certain generation. And I think, more so than any other generation in recent history, that the generation that was just slightly too young to have fought in WWII, badly needed to define themselves.

And they did. And in that respect, On The Road helped to change the course of history.

See, that's what I was trying to say but my fingers just wouldn't type it.....

mono

04-26-2005, 06:05 PM

that's what I thought too, but after reading about the beat generation I thought it captured their time very well:

http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/
Thanks for the helpful link, papaya. Very interesting! :)

I read Tom Wolfe’s Electric Koolaide Acid Test, Ken Kesey’s , One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; I went backwards and read Saul Bellow’s Augie March; went forwards again and read Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Burrough’s The Naked Lunch. Then I listened to a bunch of hippie music and dragged the old lady out to a mountain music festival to dance barefooted on the Blue Ridge.

And I think I started to catch on.

I know that On The Road seems a little dated now, but it really spoke to a certain generation. And I think, more so than any other generation in recent history, that the generation that was just slightly too young to have fought in WWII, badly needed to define themselves.

And they did. And in that respect, On The Road helped to change the course of history.
I have heard similar comparisons between the books you listed. Though, I admit, I have not yet read Jack Kerouac's One The Road, but I intend to, I have found that some of the most controversial, mind-provoking books that seem difficult to understand and relate to can seem some of the best; not related to On The Road, I had a similar impression of Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw.

Saint Jack

09-15-2005, 06:29 AM

I noticed a lot of you seem to hate Kerouac's On the Road. Personally I quite liked it, it reminds me a bit of Catcher in the Rye which I also liked. Does anyone like one and not the other? I was just wondering what you thought of it, and if you didn't like it why not?

papayahed

09-15-2005, 09:27 AM

I liked On the Road. While reading On the Road I was thinking it was ok but once I read a few other articles on the Beats it made me like the book more, I guess because I was able to view it from the Beats perspective.

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye in quite a long time, but I remember really disliking it. I'd say I read these book roughly 20 years apart and that may be the difference

B-Mental

09-16-2005, 06:57 AM

I enjoyed reading On the Road, not as much as Dahrma Bums, but I couldn't stand Catcher in the Rye. Catcher just seemed too symbolic. I felt I was reading an adult trying to convey his youth and not quite creating the feeling of youth. Then again I was banging my head to "Flock of Seagulls" back in dem dere days.

A Hard Rain

10-08-2005, 02:38 AM

Howdy,
first post.

Lucky for those of you who will read this post, it has other questions and ideas besides those concerning 'On The Road'. But lets start there.
Over the past several months i've renewed my interest in reading literature via short stories and novels. a quick list off memory of novels:

Faulkner - as i lay dying, the sound and the fury
Hemmingway - Old man
Vonnegut jr. - Hocus Pocus, slaughter house 5, breakfast of champs
Camus- the stranger
Bukowski- lots of poetry, ham on rye
Twain- Huck Finn
a wonderful novel/shortstory titled 'the things they carried.'
the author escapes me,
and then we come to, On the Road by Jack Kerouac

everyone knows it, enough have read it,
and honestly i have few qualms with any of those books besides, yes,
On The Road.

Now, there are passages within OTR that tittiliate my goose, and are as well written as anything i have read. the prose is hauntingly eloquent.
However i don't know if i fully understood the novel as a whole, or even
Dean Moriarty, or Sal's lust for such a character.

My sore understanding of it after reading a little bit about the era is that these boys and girls were growing up in a time where they felt a bit lost... (gee) no war no depression etc. And that is where Dean comes in to save them with his antics. To give something to them they needed or longed for.

Anyway...
a girl i know and have fancied a while says its her fav. book. An english teacher i work with says the same, (he works at a private school and isn't payed enough, thus works 2 jobs) But, On the road (as a whole)doesn't do it for me. Please fill me in if you can offer any insight into the book.

I have a few other thoughts as a first poster, so if you care to read on, please do.

As a reader, i notice i have a few different ways of taking the action of reading. This is with some introspection done myself. Now if i'm reading a newspaper i'll read it and not think much of it get the jist, hear the facts, etc. If i am reading a book, i can do the same, yet more slowly... making sure to fully comprehend the material, get the facts, understand the characters emotions and feelings and such. The last way i can read is to imagine everything described with none other then my imagination. At times the novel i am reading will come ALIVE, and i couldn't think of reading any otherway, however i read at a much slower rate because of this. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Also, i have began working on my vocabulary because of my neglect through middle and highschool of doing much of any reading, or for that matter, studying period. I picked up a book called word power made easy by norman lewis, its quite good. But of course the phraseology working smarter not harder is up my alley so if you have any feelings on vocab. improvement or reading strategies please let me know.

My final thought is maybe the most important one.
I had lurked around these forms maybe 15 minutes 3 days in a row before posting and if i can help any of you i will do so, but i to some degree feel that this forum as with any forum a waste of time, and also being one which likes to trust personal experience... i feel that all the posts on WHATS A GOOD BOOK TO READ and IS ULYSSES A GOOD BOOK<? etc. are a waste of time and i hope that with the effort and time i put into this forum i may find at least a few little gems of thought or wisdom, which might elude me.

I hope to help you, and vice versa. Oh and hopefully we can challenge eachother too.

Thanks.

-JJR

Logos

10-08-2005, 03:41 AM

While I don't consider it a waste of time being on this site, as I find it's (mostly) just an extension of my reading life (and I have a `job' to do here :) ) I find many of the discussions thought provoking and either lead me to further reading, or just making a few friends.

I guess you've gotten a bit of the old forum bug by posting so I hope you will enjoy your time here! :wave:

Pensive

10-08-2005, 08:40 AM

Like Logos, I don't think that its a waste of time. I love to be on this forum, reading posts and writing posts. Whenever I get free time I try to access the forum because I enjoy it. It is a very friendlt atmosphere here. I hope you will TRY to enjoy yourself here. You can't enjoy unless you think that the forum can entertain you or provide help in many things. Reading posts will speed up your reading speed and there are many more advantages like this other than entertainment.
You will find all of the members, mods and admin friendly here- this is my word....unless you try to....um...be unfriendly...so have a nice time. I hope to see you here often.
I like the novel "Huckleberry Finn"
It is very good. Have you read The adventures of Tom Sawer? I like it even more than Huckleberry Finn but both of them are great.

mono

10-08-2005, 02:42 PM

Faulkner - as i lay dying, the sound and the fury
Hemmingway - Old man
Vonnegut jr. - Hocus Pocus, slaughter house 5, breakfast of champs
Camus- the stranger
Bukowski- lots of poetry, ham on rye
Twain- Huck Finn
a wonderful novel/shortstory titled 'the things they carried.'
the author escapes me,
and then we come to, On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Hello, A Hard Rain, welcome to the forum.
Obviously, you have a very diverse taste in literature, for which I send my compliments, particularly for Hemingway, Faulkner, Bukowski, and Twain. Ironically, I just read The Old Man And The Sea months ago, and read it entirely in one sitting, having a fair amount of spare time that day; out of many, many published and honored authors, I think Hemingway ought to remain distinguished as one who specifically highlights the art in literature, and of telling allegories. Having read the short novel in a local coffeehouse, I had to bow my head a few times to hide tears, and feel extra motivated to read more by Hemingway. :nod:

As a reader, i notice i have a few different ways of taking the action of reading. This is with some introspection done myself. Now if i'm reading a newspaper i'll read it and not think much of it get the jist, hear the facts, etc. If i am reading a book, i can do the same, yet more slowly... making sure to fully comprehend the material, get the facts, understand the characters emotions and feelings and such. The last way i can read is to imagine everything described with none other then my imagination. At times the novel i am reading will come ALIVE, and i couldn't think of reading any otherway, however i read at a much slower rate because of this. Anyone got any thoughts on this?
In my opinion, knowing one's self helps him/her better understand his/her perception of art, so your 'introspection' sounds reverentially wise and interesting. Though some very devoted readers of newspapers, magazines, and the like would debate with me of the so-called 'artistic' quality of them, but I, too, have always seen newspapers and magazines as more long statements of facts (or biased facts, gossip, etc.). A novelist, poet, and playwright state more facts of imagination, encouraging the reader to share that quality and personalize it, I think. ;)

A Hard Rain

10-09-2005, 12:36 AM

B-Mental

10-09-2005, 12:50 AM

I made a slight mistake.

I meant to say these forums 'can' be a waste of time more or less.

I've read forums for years on different subjects... i use to be into some
online video games etc. lots of forums there.

Over the years i've learned though, as while you can speculate and analyze
and take what everyone has to say and try to piece it together as one big puzzle... sometimes it helps to just go and find out for yourself.

I didn't mean to militate against any of your feelings about this forum.

Any thoughts on the other stuff that i mentioned?
-on the road
-the way you read
-vocabulary
-etc.

[QUOTE=A Hard Rain]Another question i thought of recently was about the order i read an authors works. So far i've just been jumping around, trying to get a feel for many different writing styles and topics. However, i wonder if i would get a bigger feel for the artist if i read many of his works consecutively. It is interesting jumping around seeing how different of a style of writing can be and whilist still love every moment of it. And i suppose insight has many mediums. ok i gotta run uh

any thoughts on that?

I've done this with several writers...Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, the list is quite long. I think for some authors you pick up their style, and it grows on you making it easier to read especially translated texts. However, if you really grow fond of an author, stop after a couple and savor the remaining ones. The first read of a book is probably the way you will remember the book.

I like On the Road, but I really like Darmha Bums by Kerouac. Same feeling, a little less manic.

Scheherazade

10-09-2005, 05:43 AM

Hi Rain,

I have read On The Road not so long ago. Even though I found it to be a fairly easy read, almost a page turner, it is still a mystery to me why the book was written and what sort of message it wanted to give. It seems like I cannot see eye to eye with the beat generation and their way of coping with life (mainly drinking or another way of intoxication).

There has been a discussion thread on this book before, which you might find interesting: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4360&highlight=road

When I started learning English, I used to learn a word a day. I know it sounds like an awfully slow process but they usually stay with you. And I try to look up the words I don't know while reading books rather than pretending they are not there. We also have a 'Word of the Day' thread on the Forum if you would like to take part! http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4224&page=1&pp=15

And vocabulary quizes as well: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/quiz.php?catid=4

As for reading the works of the same author... I have done similar things; I kept reading the works of the same author one after another especially those whose styles I particularly liked. However, later on I realised that one can have too much of a good thing. Reading similar things one after another made it feel sort of bland after a while. Nowadays, I try to vary my reading diet. The Book Club is a good chance to get out of the usual reading cycle and see what other people read: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15

Welcome to the Forum! :)

PeterL

10-09-2005, 09:48 AM

I have read On The Road not so long ago. Even though I found it to be a fairly easy read, almost a page turner, it is still a mystery to me why the book was written and what sort of message it wanted to give. It seems like I cannot see eye to eye with the beat generation and their way of coping with life (mainly drinking or another way of intoxication).

On the Road was written for two reasons. The main reason was the hope that it would produce some income for Kerouac. He had been writing for years without getting a noticeable amount of income. The reason why something like that was the vehicle was that it would be controversal, and it also would give the general public a picture of what the beats were actually like. The public knew that there were beatniks around playing bongos and writing poetry, but the rumors about their lifestyle were pretty extreme. On the Road did result in the beats beong given more attention by the American public at large. In effect it was a recruiting pamphlet, and a very effective one, consider how many people became part of the counter-culture over the next 15 years - nearly all of them had read On the Road.

For several reasons I prefer "Dharma Bums", but that didn't become as notorious. The Subterraneans should have been buried.

Another question i thought of recently was about the order i read an authors works. So far i've just been jumping around, trying to get a feel for many different writing styles and topics. However, i wonder if i would get a bigger feel for the artist if i read many of his works consecutively. It is interesting jumping around seeing how different of a style of writing can be and whilist still love every moment of it. And i suppose insight has many mediums. ok i gotta run uh

any thoughts on that?

The writings of some authors should be read in the order that they were written, but for other authors the order makes no difference. For example, James Joyce probably is best read in order, but for Nabokov the order isn't important.

A Hard Rain

10-10-2005, 11:40 PM

papayahed

10-11-2005, 09:59 AM

Thanks guys. Your infos were very helpful and provoking. :thumbs_up

It just ate me a little that i didn't find a very easily clear message in on the road and what Schehe and PeterL wrote helps make a lot of sense.

See you around.

Not having a clear message could be part of the message of the book. The Beats were not very clear with their place in society, and didn't really know what to do or how to be. Sal was always traveling somewhere and was always in a hurry to get there, but once there there was always someplace else to go, never really find the right place.

A Hard Rain

10-13-2005, 07:21 AM

I was reading these boards the other night after i took a bunch of vicodin and i came to exactly what you were saying papaya. It makes sense to me now. The book in retrospect, now, is quite interesting, as anything challengign to me is. However, i'm not an advocate of drugs. I just use them. I'm working on that...

I've always looked for a good work on alcoholism or the use of drugs...

I even thought i'd write one...

It ended Faulkner, Hemmingway, and more...

i hope i can stop.

kimpossible

10-13-2005, 10:53 AM

you know kerouac wrote while he was high on benzedrine right? When you're reading his work, you can really feel it in his prose, i really enjoy his spontaneity, though i have not yet decided what i think of him as an author...

from what i have read in the many posts concerning him, you either love him or loath him

What do you think of Kerouac's prose?

Chase

10-13-2005, 02:11 PM

I dig Keruoac a lot, but I admit it is frustrating that nearly all of his books (at least his more famous ones) are a chronicle of someone that he finds more interesting than himself. I think the underlying thread of both OTR and Dharma Bums (an excellent read) is that his particular blend of self-discovery lends itself to observing others. If you read, say, Lonesome Traveler, which is about his own extremely drunken thoughts, it leaves the reader (or at least me) a little bored. This genre, though it seems to be lead by Keruoac, is pretty sprawling. As far as discovery through traveling goes, I also liked Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, and a personal favorite Blue Highways by William Least-Heat Moon. This last one chronicles his journey over all of the little roads throughout the country. It has more of a journal feel, which can be boring at times, but it is beautifully written. I am sorry to have rambled, but this genre get me going. Take it easy.

A Hard Rain

10-14-2005, 05:42 PM

i like kerouacs prose.

Scheherazade

10-14-2005, 06:28 PM

Kerouac writes nicely. OTR is a page turner and very well paced; something I read without getting bored. It seems like he is a good observer and good with words... which makes me wonder. Those who have read his other books: Are all his books based on his observations and experiences with his friends? Or has he ever written out of his imagination?

B-Mental

10-14-2005, 07:30 PM

I can't think of any that aren't written in a similar manner. The Subterraneans is about a relationship. Dharma Bums is Kerouac drinking in SanFran. and then going a little mystic in the natural world (probably my fave for writing and context).

PeterL

10-14-2005, 07:42 PM

Are all his books based on his observations and experiences with his friends? Or has he ever written out of his imagination?

You got me wondering, so I searched. It appears that he wrote one novel that wasn't a fictionalized account of him and his friends: "Pic (written 1951/1969, posthumously published 1971) Adventures of a black child in the South."
http://www.litkicks.com/Lists/KerouacWorks.html

I have read OTR, Dharma Bums, and the Subterraneans, and part of Visions of Cody. I kind of like his writing style, but it's a pity that he didn't have anything to write about.

Chava

01-17-2009, 05:45 PM

I recently bought On The Road, by Jack Kerouac after a friends recomendation. We'd been sittin in the sun all day on an empty street, too hot, to sweaty, and too exhausted to do our Amnesty International campaiging. So we started talking about music, about art, and about great literature. A few days later, I had this ordered, couldn't get it in the country, so I had to have it sent from abroad. He, in exchange, got a hold of Catch-22, by my all time favourite, Joseph Heller.

I've read about half of the book now, and it is going very slowly, having to compete with course material and such. I know it's a classic, and I know I should be more into it than I am. But I'm wondering, why, why did this man;

http://www3.wittenberg.edu/rdavis/kerouac.gif
who had to restart, and restart, and eventually just gave up, and decided to write about what he knew, his life, captivate so many people?

I really need to get more interested in this book, and I think some discussion of it might help, so if anyone is prepared to present some interesting analytical views, or just praise/slay it, lets join forces.

optimisticnad

01-17-2009, 07:30 PM

JBI

01-17-2009, 07:43 PM

optimisticnad

01-17-2009, 07:47 PM

I personally don't like the book, and don't consider it a classic, and I know there are others here who agree. It's such a cult-book, like Fight Club really, but doesn't quite do it in terms of literary value. Also, it happens to be so darn American, so that may say something.

It's definitely 'american' but that's not neccessarily a bad a thing. I love 'true' classics but I also love cult-books like Fight Club! (Didn't know fight club was a classic? Really?)

JBI

01-17-2009, 07:50 PM

It isn't, but people like to pretend it is, as with On the Road, being that it is barely 50 years old.

mayneverhave

01-17-2009, 08:58 PM

Arguably owing to the cult phenomenon that is Fight Club, the movie.

weltanschauung

01-17-2009, 09:46 PM

I personally don't like the book, and don't consider it a classic, and I know there are others here who agree. It's such a cult-book, like Fight Club really, but doesn't quite do it in terms of literary value. Also, it happens to be so darn American, so that may say something.

indeed. its a rather dull book to be quite honest, i started it and never finished, because it was just anoying and infantile. i guess it was pretty amazing back when it was writen, but right now, it tells me nothing.

Pewnut

01-17-2009, 09:52 PM

I've said it before. This book depressed the hell out of me and I quit reading it when I had only 20 or so pages left to go.

Chava

01-18-2009, 05:28 AM

Does someone need to visit the lit net crush thread? :D

I assure you this is not necessary, I'm a large proponent for discussing literature, music and art with friends, without it involving crushes ;)

In general it seems that everyone so far has agreed with me about On the Road. But I can't help but feel I'm missing out on something. There are a lot of people who love this book, and I'd really like to understand why. Maybe I should restart it :)

novelsryou

01-18-2009, 09:01 AM

Doesn't everyone have a friend like Dean? Think about it...

I enjoyed the book for the story it's self and it could easily be rewriten as a couple of kids following Phish around the country or in 50 more years as whatever the trends might be.

My favorite part was the trip From Denver to Chicago in the Cadillac - they really trashed that car!!

LitNetIsGreat

01-18-2009, 09:49 AM

I’ve got a soft spot for poor Kerouac and have read the most of his books. I think that Kerouac really seems to divide people and quite often it seems the sexes too. He often gets criticised as being infantile or immature and I can see that argument, but nevertheless that infantile aspect of the novel is very much part of its nature, it makes it what it is in some ways.

All in all I think that On the Road is a great read and I would argue worthy of some literary acclaim. As for latching on to something to get you into the novel a perspective or angle I really think do look for something of this nature is missing the point of the novel. You really just have to go with the flow, read it for the flow of the words, the beat and rhythm of the language, focus on the how it is said as well as what is said. Read it quickly and feel the novel and don’t look too deep into it.

I suspect that if you have got half-way and you are unsure you will be one of those who end up hating it in the end, dashing it for being “silly” and “immature” or wondering why he just doesn’t get a job and stop chasing around. Let us know how you get on with it though you might prove me wrong, hopefully, though I doubt it.

Chava

01-18-2009, 09:55 AM

Doesn't everyone have a friend like Dean? Think about it...

Yes

Neely: I'm glad to hear some positive feedback. I don't think Kerouac is anly less mature than myself, and the tale of travelling around the country is completly fine. Write now, what's killing it for me is the style of writing. It feels so unenthusiastic, which is odd since he claims that this would be the experience of his life!

Chapter 13, hitchhiking with Terry: "He had my dollar already. He was afraid to point at the floor. It was no floor, just basement. There lay something that looked like a little brown turd. He was absurdly cautious."

And so on, and so on. It's so straining to read, because of the choppy sentences. I'm sure there si a point, and what I'm really hoping is to somehow gain some form of insight that will allow me to enjoy this. Hemingway uses short sentences, but they have a flow to them, this is just hearbreaking.

LitNetIsGreat

01-18-2009, 10:49 AM

Yes but from the same page:

Who did they think they were, yaahing at somebody on the road just because they were little high-school punks and their parents carved the roast beef on Sunday afternoons? Who did they thing they were, making fun of a girl reduced to poor circumstances with a man who wanted to belove?

I think there is a lot in the "roast beef" part. You get the picture of the people Kerouac is describing quite easily, the white middle class snobbery, the expensive clothes, the senseless grins and distorted faces as they whiz pass in their expensive cars looking down at the rest of the world. You get a feel for the people, and the lifestyle which is being criticised here just in a simple line about roast beef.

More than that, the style of the novel changes rhythm and flow throughout, at this part we may have shorter sentences, but later you may find longer, free-flowing sentences. I don't think it is correct to compare his style to Hemingway's, whose style is more or less consistent throughout, Kerouac’s isn't, if I recall correctly it is much more varied.

papayahed

01-18-2009, 10:58 AM

All in all I think that On the Road is a great read and I would argue worthy of some literary acclaim. As for latching on to something to get you into the novel a perspective or angle I really think do look for something of this nature is missing the point of the novel. You really just have to go with the flow, read it for the flow of the words, the beat and rhythm of the language, focus on the how it is said as well as what is said. Read it quickly and feel the novel and don’t look too deep into it.

Exactly. I really like the book for the feeling it created.

Here are some reviews:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27563

Chava

01-18-2009, 11:38 AM

Ah, yeah, I didn't mean a literal comparison of Hemingway and Kerouac, that would be very misplaced.

I'm glad you've given me some insight. I've read that chapter twice already, and didn't even remember the roastbeef part, which is very odd, because i'm usually good at remembering citations. I'm going to attribute it to my beeing distracted by the short stubble sentences, and thus just skimming for a while.

Taking your word for it, and acknowledging that the worth of the text lies in the writing and in the flow, I might have to restart. I've been reading this to substitute my text books, and what I should really have been reading would have been more plot and action oriented. Literary junk food if you may.

But thanks, I'm glad to get a better opinion of this, because I'm in love with the book, the cover, the page texture everything.

Mag Master 21

01-18-2009, 03:03 PM

Dara1409

01-19-2009, 01:12 AM

I read the origonal scroll and it tired me. i love paragraphs. i did happen to pick up a copy of the 'edited' version but dont have the incentive to read it based on what i saw inthe origonal scroll. i started reading the dharma bums during the summer but once again...just kind of fell off of the story. maybe another time, another place.

mono

01-20-2009, 10:27 PM

Ah, Keruoac, lovely, lovely! His endless tales of free-spiritedness, risks, human nature, and spirituality astound me!

I’ve got a soft spot for poor Kerouac and have read the most of his books. I think that Kerouac really seems to divide people and quite often it seems the sexes too. He often gets criticised as being infantile or immature and I can see that argument, but nevertheless that infantile aspect of the novel is very much part of its nature, it makes it what it is in some ways.
Absolutely! Just because Kerouac writes in 'infantile' language, and rarely uses words over 10 letters does not subtract from his genius. Perhaps we could say the same of Hemingway or Salinger? Never!
Though all of Kerouac's novels seem written simply, only a simpleton could call his writing simple; so much more seems written, as we say, 'between the lines.' He writes in such a raw, uninhibited style, as if composing his sentences by describing each moment in its own moment, much like the same intention as poets had of free verse. Words do not make an author great, but rather thoughts; words only seem an author's tools, and we would not question the tools of a great automechanic, but instead his/her ability.

I'm glad to hear some positive feedback. I don't think Kerouac is anly less mature than myself, and the tale of travelling around the country is completly fine. Write now, what's killing it for me is the style of writing. It feels so unenthusiastic, which is odd since he claims that this would be the experience of his life!

Chapter 13, hitchhiking with Terry: "He had my dollar already. He was afraid to point at the floor. It was no floor, just basement. There lay something that looked like a little brown turd. He was absurdly cautious."

And so on, and so on. It's so straining to read, because of the choppy sentences. I'm sure there si a point, and what I'm really hoping is to somehow gain some form of insight that will allow me to enjoy this. Hemingway uses short sentences, but they have a flow to them, this is just hearbreaking.
Indeedy, Keruoac can get a bit choppy, but at least we have found a writer who never uses run-on sentences. :lol:
These brief, separated (but often related) sentences seem a common trend in Keruoac's era of writing, especially among the Beat poets. It can get a bit annoying, and, as Neely described by alluded to critics, infantile, but I think it further contributes to his rawness of style - writing of that exact moment, unedited. Most of us write, stop, think, edit, etc.; even while typing this, I have stopped several times to think, deleted that thought, added another, a comma here and there, while Keruoac had a talent for composing haikus nearly within seconds.
I have not read all of his novels, but, if you have the time, give The Dharma Bums a chance; though On the Road gets a lot more publicity, I got a bit more out of The Dharma Bums.

Virgil

01-20-2009, 10:40 PM

I thought it was a fun read, a sort of beatnik adventure. I do not consider it a classic.

LitNetIsGreat

01-21-2009, 09:15 AM

I have not read all of his novels, but, if you have the time, give The Dharma Bums a chance; though On the Road gets a lot more publicity, I got a bit more out of The Dharma Bums.

Me too, I think that in Dharma Bums Kerouac is at his best, a better all-round novel than On the Road.

Chava

01-21-2009, 09:44 AM

I have not read all of his novels, but, if you have the time, give The Dharma Bums a chance; though On the Road gets a lot more publicity, I got a bit more out of The Dharma Bums.

I was going to get the Dharma bums at the annual copenhagen book fair, but I was just starting On the Road, and actually decided against. I'll get a hold of it as soon as a I finish On the Road, at least now I'm feeling more encouraged, and thus hopefully more perceptive.

1n50mn14

01-21-2009, 01:41 PM

Chava

01-21-2009, 03:27 PM

It's an anthem for everybody who's ever felt the passion of the wandering feet. Who's just wanted that adventure and freedom. For some people, life isn't about the progression of infancy-school-work-marriage-kids-death and the conventional patterns that are dictated by society.

Is it though? I definatly relate to this, and I love traveling, I don't really have a national identity, and I'm most comfortable 'on the road', any road, so to speak. But from what I've read so far, none of that is really coming accross. Back to the start of the thread, when my friend described it i was compltely excited, and just figured this would be the book for me.

However, being quite the traveller myself, I'm just not getting the vibe from this book. :( not yet anyway.

1n50mn14

01-21-2009, 03:35 PM

Meh... I guess you have to click with the writing style.

Chava

01-21-2009, 03:38 PM

Meh... I guess you have to click with the writing style.

;) I guess... But I want to be cool, and love Jack!! :) I do really like the cover though, and the texture of the paper, and the smell of the paper. I guess I can always have it as a trophy book :)

Hank Stamper

01-22-2009, 07:39 AM

Is it though? I definatly relate to this, and I love traveling, I don't really have a national identity, and I'm most comfortable 'on the road', any road, so to speak. But from what I've read so far, none of that is really coming accross. Back to the start of the thread, when my friend described it i was compltely excited, and just figured this would be the book for me.

However, being quite the traveller myself, I'm just not getting the vibe from this book. :( not yet anyway.

what kind of 'traveller' are you? i dont think kerouac was particularly interested in going sight seeing!
kerouac captured (as i have said on another thread somewhere) that sense of disillusionment and the will to resist the drudgery of everyday life by seeking spiritual fulfillment etc (and getting massively off your tits!).. if you question conformity and yearn for something more in life than what society expects of you, then kerouac makes perfect sense..
that will obviously never convince those vanguards of the dead white male's literary canon that kerouac is a great writer, but it is exactly the reason why he and on the road enjoys such cult status

LitNetIsGreat

01-22-2009, 07:53 AM

Chava

01-22-2009, 06:38 PM

mono

01-22-2009, 07:49 PM

what kind of 'traveller' are you? i dont think kerouac was particularly interested in going sight seeing!
kerouac captured (as i have said on another thread somewhere) that sense of disillusionment and the will to resist the drudgery of everyday life by seeking spiritual fulfillment etc (and getting massively off your tits!).. if you question conformity and yearn for something more in life than what society expects of you, then kerouac makes perfect sense..
that will obviously never convince those vanguards of the dead white male's literary canon that kerouac is a great writer, but it is exactly the reason why he and on the road enjoys such cult status
I have no idea what you mean here, nor do I find it relevant, nor intelligent, nor even worthy of reading, let alone related to anything written by Jack Keruoac. This forum does not allow personal attacks, and ***umptions themselves seem rude of what kind of 'traveller' you would place a label upon a stranger on an Internet forum, whose only recognition you give in a slang reference to breasts . . . what the fornication under consent of king?

Anyway, getting back on topic, and writing with good grammar, capitalizing the beginnings of sentences, and using correct punctuation, as I would expect every self-proclaimed freelance journalist to know (but intelligence can get affected by the frequent head trauma of football), Jack Keruoac seemed well renowned for his traveling. That he visited the tourist sites, I have no doubt he 'stopped by,' as in The Dharma Bums, he mentions a few tourist sites in my home city of Portland, Oregon (USA).
Most importantly, whether he contributed to tourism or not, as he receives some worthy mentions in helping the building of a Buddhist school established by his friend, Allen Ginsberg, no one can deny Keruoac's free-spiritedness. He often traveled by hitch-hiking, train, and by foot, frequently slept on the ground, and had no fear of exploring great lands with minimal funds.

Hank Stamper

01-23-2009, 07:06 AM

ah you totally misunderstood me... so apologies if you thought it was a personal attack? i was merely asking what kind of 'traveller' you are? as im not sure kerouac was a 'traveller' in the conventional sense

and re. slang reference to breasts?? i was talking about kerouac's propensity for indulgence of the narcotic kind (ie. getting off one's tits/getting high)

once again, sorry if that offended you (perhaps i should have asked 'what kind of travel do you enjoy?')... and especially i offer my sincere non-apologies to mono for such wanton misuse of grammar and punctuation..
what i said was very much on-topic... the thread was about not 'getting' what the big deal is with kerouac, i was merely offering my views that kerouac captured that sense of disillusionment with everyday life and the will to resist it, and if you have ever yearned for something more, then kerouac appeals to those yearnings.. im not sure how that bit could be misconstrued as a personal attack (or unrelated to anything kerouac had written), i was trying to point out why he has such popular appeal.. he wasnt a 'tourist' in the conventional/current sense was my point...

writing with good grammar, capitalizing the beginnings of sentences, and using correct punctuation, as I would expect every self-proclaimed freelance journalist to know (but intelligence can get affected by the frequent head trauma of football).

how is this not a personal attack, out of interest?

i dont think there can be any misunderstanding here! :thumbs_up

mono

01-23-2009, 11:53 PM

I apologize, Hank Stamper, for the misunderstanding - definitely a fault on my part, and I obviously demonstrated my lack of knowledge in slang. Hopefully, we will not let our off-topic comments, nor my insolence, ruin this thread or literary discussion.

-----

i was talking about kerouac's propensity for indulgence of the narcotic kind
Indeed, Kerouac seemed very known for his . . . influence from substances, whether alcohol or illegal drugs in his time. He spent a lot of time with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, who . . . if anyone has read Ginsberg's poetry or Burroughs' Naked Lunch, enough said. :D Kerouac, himself, even died at an early age from the health complications of alcoholism, liver cirrhosis and esophageal varices.
That many writers' influences came from substance abuse I think remarkable, and a lot of scientists even researched the influence of certain substances on creativity, like Dr. Timothy Leary, a good friend of some Beat poets.
What would have come of Jack Kerouac's literature without drugs? Since he consumed such by choice, I do not even want to imagine; if those substances contributed to his creativity, I suppose that further proves that the artist sometimes suffers for the sake of art.

Chava

01-24-2009, 05:57 AM

Thank you for teh clarification Hank Stamper. When reading your first post it just struck me as quite agressive and provocative in it's tone, and therefore my reaction. And thank you for your views on Kerouac.

oblivion252

01-24-2009, 07:38 AM

Reading on the road atm.
It is interesting, wouldn't say it was good though.

Hank Stamper

01-24-2009, 08:29 AM

yes it was a rather ill-phrased question! and no worries mono, i should probably choose my colloquialisms more carefully in future ;)

re. kerouac's drink and drunk abuse.. it obviously had an impact on his creativity - i wonder in the long run whether positive or negative... certainly to use hunter s. thompson as an example (one of my favourite writers), the drug abuse had a negative effect on the quality and output of his later work... i would say that certain drugs do make you look at the world in a different way/alter perceptions (ask any hippy! ;) ) and in that sense may well have a positive influence on creativity, but it is clear (IMO) that when drug use (and booze) becomes an addiction, then creativity definitely falters and writers tend towards repetition ..

and as you mention, there are the obvious health implications, which is sadly why we lost kerouac so soon

_Shannon_

01-26-2009, 09:38 AM

Maybe the year before last I re- read it. I originally read it as a teenager, and it called to me...it's what made me love reading, and I really empathized with the searching lostness in it.

When I re-read it, I loved it for the language.. There are some heart-breakingly beautiful descriptions in there. For me it's like Fitzgerald- the novels are flawed, but within them lies some places where the English language is at the height of it's beauty.

I also loved it for what it is historically--a outpouring of the serious brokenness and individual isolation of so many who grew up in post-war America. It's like Rebel Without a Cause--it touches on what was sacrosanct- talking about the seriously messed up family dynamics of the 50's. And like Rebel, Kerouac seems to think that meaning and redemption lies within one's friends. And I find that especially relevant right now, as there are circles of people who hearken back to the 1950's as some sort of idyllic dreamworld--and yet the 50's are what paved the way to the upheaval of the 60's.

I also like that there isn't a neat tidy ending, that the search for meaning feels somewhat unfulfilled--because there are times when that is precisely how I feel. I think many, many people sort of wander through their lives from island to island of experience- with lots of desolation and lostness in between.

country doctor

02-13-2009, 05:33 PM

On the Road is a beatnik, hippy sort of classic. It's an anthem for everybody who's ever felt the passion of the wandering feet. Who's just wanted that adventure and freedom. For some people, life isn't about the progression of infancy-school-work-marriage-kids-death and the conventional patterns that are dictated by society. For some, it's just about the experiential value. I believe Kerouac is one of them.

I love On the Road.

yes. counter culture living. taken in it's time it is an extraordinary tale of folks yearning to breathe free. if you think that america even today has been shackled by the corporate structure and a very sophisticated police state that does the bidding for the powerful, kerouac is for you.

to live outside the law you must be honest. kerouac at this stage in his life still had some juice and had the energy to live life as a footloose and fancy free anarchist, buoyed by the spirit of cassady. his books (desolation angels, dharma bums also) are a liberating force for those wanting to break out of the straight jacket that society tries to dress them in.

oblivion252

02-13-2009, 06:30 PM

To be honest, this is more of a Geography textbook than a novel.

jon1jt

03-31-2009, 12:26 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inFtwnp0R0g

Kerouac's novel considered inside one of the best college classrooms in America.

oblivion252

03-31-2009, 01:20 PM

Thanks for the link - good stuff.

Buh4Bee

09-21-2009, 09:07 PM

What do people think? Most seem to just go nuts over this book and I sit here wondering what is wrong with me. It's a hard read for me, because I instantly got sucked in emotionally. I fell for Sal (Kerouac) and then toward the last hundred pages realized he was a giant bum. Dean is a product of the 'system', and even still, his history, does not redeem his tragic or flawed character. My one recurring thought is: why is Sal so fascinated by Dean? I'm not finished yet, but will be soon.

:rolleyes:

WICKES

09-22-2009, 08:02 AM

Not impressed- thought it was overrated. There is something inauthentic about Kerouac and thus the novel. He seemed to be striking a pose- to be too self consciously playing the part of the romantic, free American drifter 50 or more years too late. That's why I dislike Hemingway as well. They were both poseurs playing a part.

sixsmith

09-22-2009, 08:48 AM

It's a book i enjoyed a great deal when i was 17-18. Undoubtedly Kerouac was striking a pose, but i don't think that makes him inauthentic. Indeed, i think 'On the Road' recognises your point Wickes. He (Sal/Kerouac) was probably too late in more ways than one.

dfloyd

09-22-2009, 12:07 PM

and have only recently read On the Road and am now reading Dharma Bums. I think On the Road tells the story of the late forties in America quite well. This was an age when young Americans could hitchhike from coast-to-coast without worrying about serial killers etc. I am several years younger than Kerouac would have been, but I think you had to experience those years personally, especially the modern jazz as it was then called, to have an appreciation of Kerouac.

Also, to lump Kerpouac and Hemingway together, and as poseurs, comes across as a supercillious presumption by one who has a lot of growing up to do himself. He, the poster, needs to rid himself of such obvious pedantic notions. If anything, his posts are boring.

TheFifthElement

09-22-2009, 01:52 PM

Read the Original Scrolls. For a start you'll know who he's talking about (no pseudonyms) and secondly it's unedited. If you want to understand what Kerouac is getting at you need to read what he meant to be published. I didn't get the impression it was a pose. My impression was more that Kerouac was sitting back and observing and recording. Perhaps that's why Neal is so important, he's the spark that lights the fire but in the end he's all burned out. Everyone else moves on. I found it at times difficult, at times boring, at times profound. But it also struck me as an interesting mirror of life which shares those qualities. In the end, aren't we all on the road?

Buh4Bee

09-22-2009, 04:47 PM

It's good to see different perspectives on the book. Reading it is like being on a roller coaster ride, because you literally are being taken for a ride. I'm not one for such pacing.

I can appreciate the honest portrait of America Kerouac writes. It seems to really be a time when people could hitch hike across the country without the same level of fear we experience today. Things were less computerized and more isolated, so life in some ways, seems simpler.

I have read one book by Hemingway and I can see why the two get compared. They both had a way of writing about whats occurred around them as well as adding their own characters in the story. However, when they put themselves in the story, their characters are likable, but also flawed. I think they both wrote about themselves well.

MarkBastable

09-22-2009, 05:01 PM

"That's not writing. That's typing."

Truman Capote, considering On The Road.

lupe

09-22-2009, 05:33 PM

"That's not writing. That's typing."

Truman Capote, considering On The Road.

Funny that this was said by somebody whose work was so mediocre that will be soon completely forgotten.

Kerouac's novels did captured a whole era, though I understand that young people find it hard to understand them today. In spite of the different opinions on their value as literature, they remain as some of the most important works of the 20th century and will be read by many generations.

Hank Stamper

09-22-2009, 05:47 PM

kerouac is clearly divisive but i love on the road, think it perfectly captures the restlessness of youth and that search for something beyond the everyday drudgery of mainstream society / rejecting conformity etc and living by your own rules .. he has a lust and appreciation for life that i think many people can relate to, or find inspiring ..

MarkBastable

09-22-2009, 06:26 PM

Funny that this was said by somebody whose work was so mediocre that will be soon completely forgotten.

Kerouac's novels did captured a whole era, though I understand that young people find it hard to understand them today. In spite of the different opinions on their value as literature, they remain as some of the most important works of the 20th century and will be read by many generations.

I don't agree with Capote because I'm young - which I'm not - or because I like Capote - which I don't - but because I think it's a valid, if glib, encapsulation of what Kerouac did. What Kerouac did, I'd say, was little more than turning a magazine article into a philosophy. I don't think he captured an era at all -I think he attempted to capture the big idea of a tiny minority of a large country at a significant moment.

And I think that's a valuable thing to do. In fact, I think that's exactly what cutting edge fiction should do - it should universalise the specific. It should illuminate corners.

I just don't think Jack was very good at it.

lupe

09-23-2009, 03:16 AM

I don't agree with Capote because I'm young - which I'm not - or because I like Capote - which I don't - but because I think it's a valid, if glib, encapsulation of what Kerouac did. What Kerouac did, I'd say, was little more than turning a magazine article into a philosophy. I don't think he captured an era at all -I think he attempted to capture the big idea of a tiny minority of a large country at a significant moment.

And I think that's a valuable thing to do. In fact, I think that's exactly what cutting edge fiction should do - it should universalise the specific. It should illuminate corners.

I just don't think Jack was very good at it.

You are certainly not the only one who thinks so, though the wide fame of his works - and the amount of discussion that has genereated - suggest the contrary.

Kerouac did inspire a lot of people of his generation and the next ones; if this is not an indication of sucesfully "illuminating corners", then what it-is ?

MarkBastable

09-23-2009, 05:27 AM

You are certainly not the only one who thinks so, though the wide fame of his works - and the amount of discussion that has genereated - suggest the contrary.

Kerouac did inspire a lot of people of his generation and the next ones; if this is not an indication of sucesfully "illuminating corners", then what it-is ?

I'm not trying to persuade you not to like it. I'm simply mentioning that I don't think it's much good. I could go on at some length about why I don't think it's much good, just as you could offer a perfectly cogent argument as to why it's very good.

But can we be bothered? Let's just agree that Tom Waits is very good indeed.

sixsmith

09-23-2009, 07:36 AM

Let's just agree that Tom Waits is very good indeed.

Here, here.

rich_pip

09-23-2009, 07:52 AM

I loved this book when I read it, and from reading it started to loook at life in a much more spontaneous way...whether this is a good outcome or not is debatable. I am not going to go into they whys too much, as this is page 13 of this thread and most reasons have probably already given for both liking and disliking this book.
I just found this a very enjoyable read, and it was just my cup of tea. I could understand why people don't like it though.
I recently read Maggie Cassidy, one of Kerouacs more poetic books, definitely worth a read. And for anyone who liked On The Road could I reccomend Memoirs Of A Beatnik by Diane Di Prima? And of course, you would have read Howl...