On the Road- Jack Kerouac

you should always give a book 50 pages to get interesting

 

I really really really tried to love On the Road. I'm not the biggest of fans. I see Dean Moriarty and realize that's the type of men I (unfortunately) go for.... and the reading experience goes downhill from there. I'm just not a big Kerouac fan, either. He's my least-favorite Beat writer.

 

Same, but I don't think it's his best book either. The beat writers all had, by necessity and the way they wrote and lived, brilliant material as well as total garbage. If the garbage didn't exist, then the brilliant stuff couldn't either.

 

I read it a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I'll probably read it again sometime because I sort of rushed through it.

 

The book is a total gem! I might pick it up again just for the heck of it... I'd recommend it to anyone with an adventurous spirit!

 

Totally can be a magical time. Personally, I love the book, but my opinion on Kerouac and his later novels are a bit... meh. He isn't a great writer imho, but his subject matter, era and situations made the life he led. Without those, we wouldn't even know who he is, which is sad.

But, on topic: the book really, really changed my life and perspective, for the greater, I'd like to think. I read the book over at least 10 times from 16-18.

And when I graduated I briefly went into college, dropped out and traveled across America several times. And continue to do so. From 18 to 26 I have pretty much traveled off and on, more on than off. Originally I had that "hearth side dream" and quickly learned to improvise. Man, what a life. And now, in the past ten years I have read that book at least 25 times, second only to "Sometimes a Great Notion".

The seed started with "On the Road".


BTW, if you like and understand this then Franz Kafka.

 

I heard a lot about the book before I got it from the library. Read it , and absolutely loved it!
I am backpacker, hitchhiker myself, so really felt the book.

Loved Sal, hated Dean.

 

I've read the book twice and seen the movie twice. I myself love going on road trips so this appealed to me. As a baby boomer I also enjoyed reading about my parents' generation when they were young, coming back from WWII and sowing their wild oats before settling down and raising us. In later years Jack Kerouac turned his back on the counterculture while Neal Cassady continued to embrace it, joining Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters on their cross country odyssey. Sadly they both died in their 40s largely due to health problems brought about by their wild lifestyles.

 

I always come back to this book. And it is one of the few books that truly changes each time readin it. My first read, while I was younger, I focused on the party aspect and adventure, but now as I grow older I've come to realize it is a sad book where the heros a feel teuly out of place.

 

I never got that impression. It seemed to me the characters were happy to be a part of the Beat Counterculture, proudly defiant of the accepted norm.

 

That is how I read it initially, but now I read it as they are constantly looking for acceptance, anywhere. They pride themselves on their uniqueness, but Dean always trying to find his dad and love, and Paradise just trying to find meaning in anything.

 

Tremendous.

 

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 centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

 

I remember reading "Pic " from him as well ! I liked that book !

 

i know im from California

 

I read the book also....I enjoyed it but I picked up an unacknowledged current of untreated alcoholism throughout and in Neal Cassady’s death. Interesting that it was written about the time Bill W and Dr Bob were offering a ray of hope to so many alcoholics.