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.
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.
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda
Thanks for the tip, Papayahed and Evi. ;~) As soon as I have the chance, I'll take my chances reading it.
Victoria Concordia Crescit
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.
"Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house, they are company and don't let me catch you remarking on their ways like you were so high and mighty."
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.
"And the worms, they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine"
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
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!
I first got into Kerouac because -i may as well say it- I loved his name.
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)
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!
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).
Last edited by Piercing; 11-03-2006 at 03:34 PM.
Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
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
Originally Posted by eventide
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.
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
Jack Kerouac is a good writer.
good? hmmm. could homer be merely good? or shakespeare? blake?
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
I agree with NikolaiI. Kerouac was a good writer. He wasn't great, and he had trouble turning events around him into stories that most people could identify with. Much of what he wrote was unimaginative retelling of events that had happened in his life, that focussed on a few events and people.
Well I think Jack Kerouac was a great writer....He took Thomas Wolfe's undisciplined but optimistic all encompassing view of life and worked it down into a much more disciplined form that is easier on the reader..
On The Road is of course my favorite but The Dharma Bums is also excellent especially for its discussions of Buddhism. Big Sur I would also recommend highly.
kerouac reproduced wolfe's style in his first novel, the town and the city, but abandoned it not long after in favor of the bop-prosody style he lays down in On The Road. i like your recommendations. Big Sur, one of my favorites as well.
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
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