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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koa
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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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koa
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.
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.
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 :)
:banana:
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.
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.
well i was 16 or so when i read it but my teenage imagination wasnt really impressed...at all...
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by mister_noel_y2k
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.
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....
: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"
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.
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!
damn straight bandini!
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!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bandini
then it's probably too late at the moment...i'll wait for the next existential train to pass...
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...
let me help you out....cocain.
Casey Jone you'd better
Watch your speed
Everybody must get stoned.
Everybody now,
You can get anything you want
at Alice's restaurant
You can get...
excepting Alice
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.
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”
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...
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.
I'd've paid money to have seen that.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
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/
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.
See, that's what I was trying to say but my fingers just wouldn't type it.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
Thanks for the helpful link, papaya. Very interesting! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
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?
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
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.
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
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:
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.
Hello, A Hard Rain, welcome to the forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Hard Rain
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:
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. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by A Hard Rain
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.
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?