Customer Reviews

On the Road (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

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

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.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was initially fascinated by the heavily ornate style of novelist Thomas Wolfe, a writer best known for LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL; at the same time, however, he led an outsider's life that placed him on the fringe of American society, drifting across the country with little more than the clothes on his back, drinking hard, using drugs, and occasionally involved--at least in a passive sense--with a series of criminal activies, most notably Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. In 1951, however, Kerouac suddenly shed his infatuation with Wolfe and, in a three week spree fueled by drugs and alcohol, wrote ON THE ROAD.

The book had tremendous difficulty finding a publisher, and did not reach the public until 1957, when it tapped into the rising undercurrent of society's rising dissatisfaction with the American status quo. Highly autobiographical in nature, it chronicles Kerouac's off-the-cuff roamings from New York to California and all points in between and presents a fairly nihlistic portrait of hustlers, users, abusers, derelicts, and the exhausted desperates of the era, all of them presented in a random and kaleidoscopic mannner.

There's no doubt that ON THE ROAD was and is a highly influential book, inspiring everyone from Bob Dylan to Hunter S. Thompson; it essentially reshaped notions about subject and style. But almost from the moment of its publication there has been a core complaint: what, ultimately, is the book about? What is the point? There is no plot per se, no linear story per se, simply a series of incidents and events and portraits. The leading characters, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (in actual fact Kerouac and Neal Cassady) rush headlong, speeding for the sake of speed, engaging in activities that raise their levels of desensitization and lead them to exhausted ennui that self-destructs into madness, self-pity, and despair--and the work ends as suddenly as it began.

In terms of literary success, the language is the thing. Kerouac can turn a phrase with the best of 'em, and his passions roll off the page in a series of bright images that transcribe the power of youth, the urge we all have to do the unacceptable just for the fun of it, a great rush of words that explode and recombine and tremble in an amazing jumble of the beautiful and the sordid. In a very real sense, language is "the point," the way in which Kerouac speaks is "the point." But there is indeed an overall point, although it may not be one that many will appreciate, much less enjoy.

The point, ultimately, is that there is no point. It is all speed for the sake of speed, movement for the sake of movement, and the fact that in spite of their nationwide crisscrossing and adventures, in spite of the passing affairs, drugs, alcohol, arguments about philosophy, and jolts of jazz neither Sal nor Dean are able to find any actual point or purpose--something that Sal seems to ultimately understand but that Dean is never really clear on. As such, ON THE ROAD not only taps into the underlying dissatisfaction that characterized America of the 1950s, it also forecasts the restlessness of the 1960s and the hedonism of the 1970s and 1980s.

It's easy to grant ON THE ROAD status on all these points, but it is more difficult to recommend it as a "casual" read. It is not, and never really has been, the sort of thing you pick up at random; it requires a fair amount of concentration and, ideally, a certain prior knowledge of the "beat" writers, thinkers, and figures upon which the work is founded. It also requires the ability to read without any particular expectation in terms of structure and narrative line, as well the ability to place its dated slang and attitudes in historical perspective. If you can do all that--you'll love it. If not, this is one you'd do better to pass by.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

One of the most original voices in America. This book is the answer to Walt Whitman, Yeats and many other poets who longed for freedom and beauty. In my opinion, its prose and insight may never be matched. It's not plot driven it meanders and goes from left to right but that is life on the road my friends. This piece of art is the fictional yet autiobiographical narrative of Jack Kerouac's seven years on the road. Written in only a few weeks, Kerouac provides the reader with some of the most beautiful quotes ever. It's hard to put the beauty of this book into words or to describe the story to someone. This is a book you can get lost in the writing itself without worrying about where it is taking you.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "AWWW!"

Tell me who can do better that?

I liked and disliked this book. There is no real plot or storyline. It's more of an anecdotal conversation. While reading the book, I felt as if I were reading a long letter that Kerouac (or Sal) had written to me. As far as being an enjoyable work of literature, it just didn't do anything for me. But On the Road gained my respect as a piece of art. Kerouac's writing style is nothing less than emotion come to life. At times it is hard to follow because of the harried and scattered development. But that is exactly the feeling that Kerouac was trying to get us to understand. The wild and sweaty underground jazz halls, the half-remebered half-spaced out road trips, the crazy relationships. All of it is infused with "beat". So, although I'm not sure if you will enjoy the book, you should read it because of its embodiment of the rebellion of the fifties and its influence on modern times.

I'm only a freshmen in high school, but this is my favorite book. I liked it so much that I got through the 300+ page book in 3 days. I would read it during classes under my desk, during my study halls, and the first thing I did when i got home was read it. It Kerouac made me feel compasion for the characters criss-crossing endlessly across the country. Sure, at times the plot may have gotten a little of track and aimless, but not enough to make me stop reading.

Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" certainly paints a very different picture of the so-called "American Myth" than one would normally imagine. Instead of the freedom of the open road, we get lost souls without purpose or direction. Instead of the vast expanse of the West, we get vastly empty realities, and characters that can barely be said to exist. Rather than the allure of the big city, Kerouac gives us the dreary, crime-ridden concrete jungles of Los Angeles and Manhattan, where only the strong and ruthless survive. It's not the romantic world that we remember as children, nor the storybook fantasies that fill our youthful dreams. There is a great couple of lines as Sal attempts to hitch his way back East: "Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life." This is of course a gloomy prospect, but one that became a sad and frighteningly accurate reality during and after the horrors of WWII. There is great sadness in these characters, mainly Sal, that is due not to one particular event. Instead, I sense the sadness is a disillusioned one; a disappointment about the world, and about searching for something that may have never existed.

The escapades of Kerouac's semi-autobiographical twosome, narrator Sal Paradise with Dean Moriarty as they crisscross the entire USA, inspired a generation. Set in 1948, the book epitomises post-war America, but it echoed down into the 60s.

Elements of quest and picaresque abound in this search for dream-fulfilment and self-realisation, almost Quixotic in its delusional frenzy. Place-names are intoned hypnotically for the necessarily strong topographical slant: "...we rolled across the hoodwink night of the Louisiana plains - Lawtell, Eunice, Kinder, and De Quincy, western rickety towns becoming more bayou-like as we reached the Sabine. In Old Opelousas I went into a grocery store to buy bread and cheese while Dean saw to gas and oil."

The imagery is strong on colour, especially red of all kinds: for night, for heat, for desert, etc. There are also photographic snapshots, people glimpsed once and never again: " - a little girl in the back seat, crying to her mother, "Mama when do we get home to Truckee?'"

Included in the vast cast of supporting characters are Dean's wife and one true love Marylou, his lovers Camille and later, Inez, plus legendary, larger-than-life folk like Old Bull Lee, Carlo Marx (ha, ha) and Remi Boncoeur. Kerouac exhibits knowledge of humankind at work and at play - including some marvellous sections on club life and jazz (George Shearing being compared to God).

I found the last hundred pages hard going. Dean's inevitable downward trajectory is tragic, though. Essential reading for the background to James Dean, to "Easy Rider", "Midnight Cowboy" and other "buddyship" classics. Not to mention the intellectual underpinning of post-world War II, and the precursors of rock'n'roll.

The book "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac is a fictionalized yet autobiographical story about his journey across the U.S. He goes from New York to L.A. and back in a crazy sequence of events from hitch-hiking through rainy forests to staying with a poor Mexican family with his hoped-to-be wife. But when it doesn't work out, he has to press on and find his way home. He learns many lessons of life along the way, and he meets a lot of interesting people. He sees the country from a drifter's point- of- view, with no direction and no one to look out for but himself. He faces the harsh realities of life in the world of his time, and he experiences first hand what it is like to struggle for your next meal and to wonder if money is ever going to come at all. As the stories narrator, Sal Paradise, describes life on the road, he also teaches you some valuable life lessons on every day scenarios, such as love, meeting new people, and how to hop a train.

In this book, Kerouac gives the average American a look at poverty and adventure. He speaks for the "Hobos" and "Hitchers" that populated the countryside in the late 40's and early 50's. He lets you feel the freedom of the road with his descriptive, in depth style of writing. He is excellent at painting a picture and giving the emotion that is needed to get his story across. At a turning point in the story when Sal returns to New York for the first time, he realizes something about the life he had been leading. "Seeing with my innocent road-eyes the absolute madness and fantastic hoorair of New York with it's millions and millions hustling forever for a buck among themselves, the mad dream-grabbing, taking, giving, sighing, dying, just so they could be buried in those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City." This passage exemplifies his great use of alliteration that seems to just flow from Kerouac; it makes the reader want to go experience life on the road for himself.