Kerouac's On The Road

[Ilash]

I'm thinking of picking up Jack Kerouac's On the Road and am just looking for opinions about this seminal beat novel. I figure that with a novel as popular as this, quite a few of you have read so any opinions would be really appreciated. Thanks.

[FroggieBKT]

An enjoyable if somewhat (in my opinion) overrated book. It was certainly influential and I like a lot of what Kerouac does in it, but his style does tend to ramble a bit much (which admittedly was sort of the point, but anyway...) for my taste. Worth reading though.

[Shellhead]

I wanted to like it. My favorite philosophy professor was a big fan of Kerouac. But when I finally got around to reading On the Road a few years ago, I hated it. Reckless young people careen frantically around the United States, drinking heavily and seeking excitement. But they are shallow, foolish people, so nothing worthwhile ever happens. The pace of the story continues to accelerate, and yet nothing seems to happen except lots of drinking and lots of driving. A boring person doesn't become interesting just because he moves from one place to another.

The best I can say about On the Road is that it was clearly an influence on Hunter S. Thompson, a writer with a stranger life and more vivid writing style than Kerouac could ever imagine.

[Doodle Bob]

I've never been able to get through the whole thing. There's really no plot per se: They go across America then back again then back again etc. And it's deceptively long.

That said, some of Kerouac's prose is about as rich and vibrant as anything else written by an American author in this book. And it provides an absolutely amazing description of life and society in America during the late 40s and early 50s from a perspective that was very much underrepresented at the time.

As for the characters, as you probably know, every one of them was based on someone that Kerouac knew. I believe Allen Ginsberg was Carlo Marx in the book, and Neal Cassaday was Dean Moriarty. The characterizations were a bit 2-dimensional. Nevertheless, they reminded me a lot of the characters of Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night, except much less well-heeled.

[Edman]

one of the few books i tell everyone has to at least attempt to read. try and read it the way kerouac wrote it, in as little time as possible. the rambling and rushing is not random, it is deliberately supposed to reflect a free-form jazz session.

once you're through, then your interest of the beat era and its plethora of hilarious personalities will be hopefully sparked. next stop burroughs.

[Shellhead]

one of the few books i tell everyone has to at least attempt to read. try and read it the way kerouac wrote it, in as little time as possible. the rambling and rushing is not random, it is deliberately supposed to reflect a free-form jazz session.

Oddly enough, that's just how I read it. I started slowly, but once I realized that nothing of consequence was happening, I picked up the pace and kind of half-read/half-skimmed it. It seemed like the right way to read it, especially after that senseless scene where Dean and some other guy are sitting face to face and close-up, both talking fast for hours on end without listening to each other at all.

[FroggieBKT]

By the by, I revisited it a couple months ago as a book on CD and appreciated it much more that way. I was taking a really long road trip and found a copy of it read by Matt Dillon. I enjoyed that much more than sitting down and reading it and that form seemed to be ideal given the already discussed "free form jazz" kind of thing that Kerouac does. Dillon gives a top notch reading that sort of lulls you in and keeps you going even in the long winded rambling passages. I kind of wish I'd first experienced the book in this manner.

[DWEarhart]

I tried, I so tried, but...snore.