Jack Kerouac

I read On the Road four years ago and fell madly in love with Kerouac (in a strictly platonic way :D ). For my birthday, my uncle sent me a copy of Vanity of Duluoz after I had talked with him casually about which authors made me laugh, which made me cry, and which left a totally different kind of mark on me (or, more precisely, which one). I can't say I have read anyone like Kerouac before, he is full of contradictions and uncouth edges . . . but he appeals to me in a way I can hardly describe. If I were banished to the moon, I would definitely bring Kerouac's collected works with me.

I haven't read Vanity of Duluoz yet, so any comments are sincerely welcomed.

Am I the only Kerouac enthusiast on this board? What a devastation.

Well when I read On The Road I was still young and in a phase where I never gave up on a book and read it all even if I hated it... On The Road was really a hard task. I only have a memory of going through this 300 pages hoping that something happened in the story...but nothing ever did... Only going from San Francisco to New York or wherever it was then back again and then the other way... argh.

If it's so famous and loved there must be something beyond that boredom... but I really couldn't find it. Any clue to find it, incase I give it another try someday?

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Originally Posted by Koa

If it's so famous and loved there must be something beyond that boredom... but I really couldn't find it. Any clue to find it, incase I give it another try someday?

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You sound like my high school English teachers. Did you totally skip over the concluding part set in the impoverished, southern regions of Mexico? Ah-h-h . . . who could possibly find boredom in an episode like that? I guess the story is loose, but it's a story about travelers--it's not supposed to be 'grounded'. On the Road is the third best work of literature on my list.

Currently reading On the Road and it is written beautifully, with a style that seems to have required no effort to put the words on the page. (I mean this in a good way). ;)

"On the Road" is episodic...meaning there needn't be an overiding plot, merely a series of adventures. I'd love it all on its own for the flow and the language, but I have a special reason for loving it. It is, to my knowledge, the only piece of literature that comes anywhere near my backyard. I remember when I first read it and saw references to Arcadia and El Monte (tiny towns in Southern California)...I nearly tore the pages from the book to show people! "Look! Someone who was someone has heard of this place and actually been here!" It was truly remarkable to me back. In fact, it's still pretty remarkable to me.

ihrocks

Kerouac wrote On the Road in (would you believe it?) two weeks.

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Kerouac wrote On the Road in (would you believe it?) two weeks.

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Get out of here! That's amazing. I look up to people with such a skill.

His life was a movement towards that one point: the purifying act of abandoning the past, abandoning everything, emptying out the closet and meditating on the hollow state of the soul.

Check out the 'Pynchon' thread just below this one.

I am currently re-reading On The Road. Kerouac makes me feel almost the same way as Hemingway, shooting myself, though not as much. Henry Miller's prose is the same style, he just pulls it off and makes me want to live. Not forgetting he did it 20 years earlier. Though I know people who feel antipodal to that and hate Miller while exalting Kerouac and Hemingway.

Sloegin,

I had never considered the similarities between Miller and Kerouac, but you are right, they're there. Personally, I didn't find Kerouac depressing, but I guess compared to Miller most writers would seem that way. Miller makes joyful noise with his writing, in most cases. I have read some of the work he did to "pay the bills" in his career. :oops: Now that is depressing!

ihrocks

i like the beat generation, but i have read only the Burrougth´s Naked lunch
and i liked it much.

Burrough's `Junky' was crap, the histrionics self-indulgent pap. I use it to prop up one of my bookshelves now. :P

I read Kerouac's The Dharma Bums many times, and left my dogeared copy of On the Road in a Tecolutla, Mexico cantina. Art living life.

Life mirroring art. ;)

i noticed no mention of Kerouac on this site

what do you guys think?

ive read "On the Road" and "Subterraneans".

i think Subterraneans wasnt to crash hot. An insite into the mind of an alcoholic pill popper

never the less

poetic

ive read "On the Road"

thought it great, one wild adventure infused with Jazz and drugs.(like jazz hate drugs though!)

i just finished reading subterraneans

very poetic account of a love affair

at the same time, confusing, and frustrating to read

all in all. in insite into the mind of Kerouac. An alcoholic (self confessed) and benzedine popper

any thoughts?

dont think ill read any more of Kerouac...back to Dickens! (at least i put the book down and feel like i have accomplished something!)

i mean no collected works available to download from this site...

Kerouac's (1922-1969) works are copyrighted (pub. post 1923). I never really got `into' him but liked Dharma Bums the best.

cool

thatll explain it

im about to start reading "God's smuggler" by brother andrew

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Originally Posted by Don Ferdinand

ive read "On the Road"

thought it great, one wild adventure infused with Jazz and drugs.(like jazz hate drugs though!)

i just finished reading subterraneans

very poetic account of a love affair

at the same time, confusing, and frustrating to read

all in all. in insite into the mind of Kerouac. An alcoholic (self confessed) and benzedine popper

any thoughts?

dont think ill read any more of Kerouac...back to Dickens! (at least i put the book down and feel like i have accomplished something!)

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I think that The Dharma Bums was better than either of the two that you mentioned.

i read on the road this summer. great piece. ahh, the pulses of youth.

might have to read Dharma some time

whats the gist of it?

isnt it like Kerouac spritual experience? sort of his experince with Buddhism?

also ...

i started to read Satori in Paris, but man, that was a tough read. didnt finish it

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Originally Posted by Don Ferdinand

might have to read Dharma some time

whats the gist of it?

isnt it like Kerouac spritual experience? sort of his experince with Buddhism?

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Yes, it is about Buddhism. It is quite good and easy to read.

any of you guys read Naked Lunch?

ive got it at home but havent read it

now, i hear thats a hard read!(suppose to be a classic though)

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Originally Posted by Don Ferdinand

any of you guys read Naked Lunch?

ive got it at home but havent read it

now, i hear thats a hard read!(suppose to be a classic though)

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I've tried to read it several times and can't seem to get through it.

I read the first part of Naked Lunch and thought that it was kind of boring and a bit obscene.

Can the Beat writers write at all? There's On the Road and Howl, but then after that, what is there?

yeah i guess there is alot of talent, and their style is unique, but i dunno. they reckon Kerouac wrote like the way Charlie Parker played jazz. (kinda in form, but sporadic)

dont forget most of them where poppin benny pills too

cant be too good for you!

any one read his first novel "The town and the city" ?

supposed to be pretty tame...havent read it myself though

I never read any book from the Beat Generation and wonder if On The Road is the best option to start myself on it. A friend of mine said Howl (Ginsberg) is great and some of you mentioned Naked Lunch, which is another book that I see mentioned all the time. Which book do you guys think is a good start? Or it really doesn't matter??

Evendite,

My opinion is that if you like start with beat generation, then Jack Kerouak is your best choise ( at least it was for me when i was 18 ) I firtsly read it at that age and i was in love with it! I secondly read it two years ago ( when i was 36 or something) and i didnt like it so much, the first magic has been lost, i sont know why. Maybe when we are younger we are getting enthousiastic more easily. I have read all Jack kerouaks books during the years. And for me, the best ones were On the road and Darhma. In my opinion both of them is a must read.

Evi

I'd go with On the Road as well. I really liked that book, but couldn't get into dharma Bums that much and as I posted above Naked Lunch stunk.

Thanks for the tip, Papayahed and Evi. ;~) As soon as I have the chance, I'll take my chances reading it.

Personally, I absolutely love On The Road... It's one of those dog-eared, scribbled on books I've kept for years. I might suggest reading something about the beat generation, perhaps a biography of Kerouac or William S. Burroughs. It might make reading On The Road a bit more engaging.

Something I love about Kerouac's writing is his sheer honesty. I mean he put On The Road together over a few weeks using his notes and didn't touch it again after that. It's not the best written/structured novel because of that but it has its own qualities.

yep id say "On the Road" too mate... not that ive read too many beat novel, but its cool.

get a new version of it and you'll probably get Author info at the start. (penguin tend to do this.)

later

I first got into Kerouac because -i may as well say it- I loved his name. :cool:
I got a hold of a copy of On The Road and fell in love with it's ethics and style. It's the only book i've ever read where I have grabbed a pencil and circled phrases on the page so i'll remember them.
One aspect of the Kerouac canon that i think is overlooked alot is his spoken word poetry. Nothing comforts me more on a lonely night than to have Kerouac wrap his words around me, talking about all the wonderful things in life.

yeah i got his stuff he did with Steve Allen , Al Cohn and Zoot Simms on cd.
(over Jazz music)

very cool stuff

(i actually like it better than his books)

I just got done reading Big Sur. really wanted to go through with the "Legend of Duoluz" started with On The Road then The Subteraneans then Tristeza then Dr. Sax then Dharma Bums but the last book which really got to me was Desolation Angels where he's not to heavy on the Buddhism and more or less content with traveling (hoppin cities and countries) and at the end meeting Salvador Dali which was a big surprise to me though (like him) he didnt make a huge deal about it.
Big Sur is sad (at the end wanting to meet Henry Miller even but too drunk to go through with the arrangement); the ravishes of heavy drinking (why'd he do it?) they say that the publication of On The Road ruined his life (spun him into this depression) but in Desolation Angels (took place before the publication in 1957) you can pick up the bare beginnings of the depression.
On The Road i read with a big map of the US beneath my seat: i enjoyed it because of all the travel writing and his sparse musings that later became the basis for his spontaneaus prose. yet i think alot of people identify with him because of his big social party-animal nature (well, in his youth).

http://mailcenter3.comcast.net/wmc/v...&no=318&sid=c0 Link to latest comment/review of the original scroll for Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" from NYT book review section quasimodo1

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Originally Posted by eventide

I never read any book from the Beat Generation and wonder if On The Road is the best option to start myself on it. A friend of mine said Howl (Ginsberg) is great and some of you mentioned Naked Lunch, which is another book that I see mentioned all the time. Which book do you guys think is a good start? Or it really doesn't matter??

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if Kerouac is the "father of the Beat Generation," then John Clellon Holmes is the "first writer of the Beat Generation." a great Beat Generation primer is Holmes' Go, a novel its back cover aptly provides is a "peek into what it meant to be a Beat before the term had ever been used."

Holmes wrote another excellent work called The Horn.