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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
62 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What Is Hip?,
By Hostrauser (San Diego, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: On the Road (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
So I finally sat down and read "the legend," the book that has shaped the minds and lives of millions of artistes and pseudo-intellectuals over the past 50 years. Going into "On the Road," I assumed a book so legendary could only be one of two things: it was either going to be a five-star masterpiece, a life-changing book of indescribable beauty---or it was going to be a disaster, a wreck of over-wrought, pointless ramblings.
I wasn't expecting it to be both at the same time. How can I describe "On the Road"? Have you ever been to a party where everyone is drinking and getting high, smoking weed and maybe doing a few other illicit drugs, and you're the only sober person? Do you remember how wildly entertaining all the other chemically-altered people are, how funny and silly and strange they are that first hour? And do you remember how, in the second hour or so, they started seeming less and less funny, and indeed even started to get on your nerves a little? And how, after two or three hours, you couldn't help but be thoroughly irritated at how LAME and STUPID everyone is, and GOD why didn't they realize it? That, in a nutshell, is "On the Road." There's no point to this novel, beatniks be damned. It's just a series of stories about Sal Paradise (aka Jack Kerouac) and his journeys back and forth across the country with assorted friends, primarily his best friend Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady). The characters never develop, they're the same people at the end of the book they are in the beginning, and no "goals" or "achievements" are ever realized (primarily because few are ever set). Indeed, there are a few passages where Kerouac almost seems to be needling the beat generation this novel both named and inspired. There are moments where he hints at how pointless and silly the characters' lives are, but never really delves too far into that thought. The psychology behind the book is interesting, to me. There's more than a hint of self-loathing in some of the passages, and the way Sal Paradise self-sabotages his personal relationships is kind of sad (particularly his relationship with Teresa in the California farmlands). He is not a suave character, and has a knack for innocently saying exactly the wrong things. Sal's idolatry of Dean is fascinating, too. Dean is a free-spirit, yes, but he's also basically a scum-bag: a serial philanderer, he stays with women only long enough to knock them up and start cheating on them. In one scene he seems particularly okay with the idea of smashing some guy on the head and stealing his money, and there are several parts in the book that display a latent pedophilia, his fascination with girls as young as nine, ten or eleven and his friends warning him not to touch them. Dean is portrayed both as a well-hung lout who can bed a woman in the time it takes most men to utter a pick-up line, but also as a "deep-thinker" fascinated with the mystical and unexplainable. He comes off, intentionally, as a madman, and his psychosis only seems to deepen as the novel progresses. But Sal's narrator-voice continuously paints him in adoring, nearly religious tones, referring to him as a metaphorical seraphim and even, one time, god. The book is at its finest when it is dealing with people OTHER than the main characters in Sal's life. Passages dealing with the random people Sal encounters on the roads across America are the most brilliant in the book. These mini-portraits of Americana are terrific writing, aided greatly by Kerouac's skill with metaphors which he unrolls in long, unforced, breathless takes. Kerouac's writing style is quite good, and when he's observing the lives of these strangers the novel is a breezy, easy read. Unfortunately, he's far too enthralled with his friends---sad, directionless friends, one-trick-ponies who never change and whose actions become predictable by their very unpredictability---and by the end of the novel you're left wishing everyone would've just sobered up and gone home.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Changes each time I read it,
By
This review is from: On the Road (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
I first read this book when I was 17 yrs old in Austin, Texas. I promptly left on a 5 yr adventure back and forth across the country with a stay of no more than 3 months in any one home and no more than 6 months in any one city.
Obviously this one made an impression with its story of criss- crossing the nation. It's set in a time that I didn't really know that much about when I read it (late 40's , early 50's). I really knew nothing of the Beats and their ultimate influence on the counterculture of the 60s. This is a great story from the perspective of seeing the country in this era through the eyes of people influenced by the Great Depression and a World War. It is written in a language almost musical in nature. One thing I noticed- I have read this book at least 10 times over the years. I re-read it last year, at age 30, and finally realized that these groups of characters are not good people for the most part. These guys I looked up to as a kid are really a bunch of misogynistic con men who lie, cheat and steal their way through life. I am puzzled how I could have missed this before other than due to Jack Kerouac's ability to make you understand and care for his characters and paint them in a very sympathetic light. All in all essential reading for anyone interested in 20th century American Literature
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So that is what the fuss is about,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: On the Road (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
Oftentimes I've heard so much about a writer's amazing talent only to be disappointed when I get around to reading his/her work. Ayn Rand falls into this category to a degree and Bukowski falls all the way into it--but not Kerouac.
I don't know if Jack captured the heartbeat of a generation. I don't know if Jack motivated even one person to actually get "on the road". I do know that this is a book written with the skill of a master storyteller. Jack didn't try to convince you of anything--the philosophy contained in On the Road was haphazard and disjointed. What he did was simply tell a story that reads like prose poetry--or maybe it reads like jazz put to words. Simply put, it is just a joy to read this novel because it tells a story in a way that draws you in and lets you live it as well. You may never actually get in your car and drive to the end of the road but this is the next best thing.
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