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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'What's Your Road, Man?,
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This review is from: On the Road (Essential Edition): (Penguin Essential Edition) (Paperback)
Before there were Hippies or Yuppies, it was hip to be "Beat".The generation of writers, poets, artists, and musicians living Bohemian lifestyles, yearning for knowledge,and enjoying life to it's fullest.
"On The Road",a novel based on Kerouac's own travels, follows the adventures of the life loving Sal Paradise and the complex Dean Moriarity as they criss-cross North America, usually broke, trying to find themselves. They experience life, and lifestyles new to them and savor every moment. Every colorful character they encounter touches their lives in some way, and adds greatly to this story. Kerouac's zest for life and love of people becomes apparent and is contagious.His wonderful descriptive phrases leave you with fabulous images of the people, the places, and the times.I often found myself smiling or even laughing out loud. It's a story that captures and preserves on it's pages the essence of the "beat generation" and is so engrossing, you may lose track of all time. And for those that love Kerouac's words and can't get enough,you can take him with you! This book is also available on an unabridged CD -On The Road CD or cassette-On The Road audio editions. With a reading that will give you an even deeper appreciation of these wonderful characters,one that brings them to life, actor Matt Dillon,captures every delicious moment as if he was Kerouac himself.For details on the audio editions - see my reviews. With every read, I have a great time, and wish I was there! "What's your road, man?"....enjoy...Laurie
0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
extremely uneven but culturally important meandering across America,
By
This review is from: On the Road (Essential Edition): (Penguin Essential Edition) (Paperback)
This is a book that surfaces again and again in popular culture. Last year I saw high school students in the show "Freaks and Geeks" discuss it in their English class. In the Australian indie film "He Died with a Felafel in His Hand," the protagonist aspires to be a new Kerouac, repeating over and over how Kerouac wrote the whole book on a roll of butcher paper to avoid the artificial structure imposed by separate sheets of paper.
So I read the book; actually, I listened to the audiobook narrated by Alexander Adams (published by Books on Tape). Kerouac has some excellent turns of phrase: he loves laughter, as the protagonist (Sal) encounters a man with "a long quivering crazy laugh," one whose "tremendous laugh roared over the California woods," one whose "laugh was maniacal," and yet another whose "laugh...was positively and finally the one greatest laugh in all this world." And Kerouac tells some great stories. But the book was frustratingly uneven. Sometimes the stories are really interesting, and other times they drag on and on, with exhaustingly unchecked hedonism and lack of purpose. Note that the book is also pretty gritty, with lots of alcohol and drug use, and several depressing sexual encounters. A friend asked me to compare the book with Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie: no comparison; there is a reason Steinbeck won a Nobel Prize. But the other fundamental difference is that Steinbeck traveled with purpose (to get back in touch with America), while Sal travels with no purpose but to "go, go, go."
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