On The Road

Kerouac's brilliant novel. What does everyone think. PLease remember that this is the only time most people ever read a ''beat'' writer. What else would you recommend to someone who wants to investigate that periods literature. Ive always liked burroughs as well. Your thoughts please...
~~may your life always be as vivid as your dreams~~

 

hmmmm...
allen ginsburg
gregory corso
gary snyder
carolyn cassady's _off the road_
neal's _the first third_
_tales of beatnik glory_ by ed sanders

~

there's plenty more out there...

 

Would Hermann Hesse count?

TTFN

Sage

 

I just recently finished "on the road" myself... great book! I would reccomend anything by Kerouac; he has to be one of my favorite authors. If you haven't read "the Dharama Bums" yet, that is another great one. I'd also read just about anything by Burroughs, Cassady, or Ginsburg.

 

Oh, I actually really liked this book when I read it, even though I found it to be a bit boring at times... I mean, the book doesn't really have a story and that's what bothered me a bit, like it's more Kerouac talking about his adventure and that's it...

I prefer Kerouac's Dharma Bums, personally.

 

I liked this book when I was 18 and thought I was "hip," but it truly is overrated. Kerouac did much better work than this, it's just that this is the proverbial hippy bible of sorts. Of course the book is HISTORICALLY important, though I don't exactly care much for the content itself. I probably would have been more blown away if I had first read this book when it was published in 1957. It's pretty dated now.

PS: There have been about five posts about this book already.

 

I agree! Actually I wanted to say something like that but I just woke up and there's also the fact that I am in a hurry so I couldn't find a way to put it! (even though it's easy... stupid me!)

 

I did enjoy reading it, but I wasn't exactly a book I couldn´t put down. Some parts held my interest alot more than others.

I'm gonna order Naked Lunch in a few days. It's gonna be my first first non-Kerouac book from anyone in the Beat scene, and I hope I'll like it.

 

hehe, If u didn't dig the passages with no story naked lunch is all like that! I personally liked the "boring passages"too and I think they're great. It's a matter of your perception. It's like a mantra . Keroac is blessed for a new approach in literature as well as Burroughs and the rest of the gang The thing is, they showed us that simple life with no story is beatiful and worth of recording. It's not about who was the good author anymore, Keroac's message is : look around you and become a writer too, why should you listen to others? If you didn't noticed this one, On the Road is a secret for you and maybe just another book pushed on you by others. well, maybe you did notice it

 

Actually Hesse wasn't a beat writer. On the Road changed my life.

 

"I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On The Road,
The Doors would never have existed. It opened the floodgates."

-- Ray Manzarek, The Doors' keyboard player

 

I've heard a lot about this book, but am yet to read it. Will have to get my hands on a copy soon.

 

I read "on the road" a couple of yeras ago.I found it excellentages were flowing fastly and the mind was travelling with jack´s characters.Of course is a bit old-fashioned but its descriptions are timeless and most important(when reading) is to enjoy it and that something remains(in your head) afterwards.

a book which i read recently, instead is "The wrong way". Peter Moore is the author.

 

i thoroughly enjoyed on the road. i like antics.

 

Its a really good book if youve been traveling on the road alot, because so much of the stuff that happens in it you've experienced yourself. Moriarity/Cassidy makes the whole book worth reading. I don't think I've ever read a character that entertaining. And the funny thing is, thats exactly how he was.

 

Yass! Yass! Yass! man i dig that book

one of the best books ive read!

 

Yeah, I didn't really like it either.
But I also expect that it was because I'd read so much about how amazing, and life changing it was.
I also couldn't find it in me to finish it. So I just returned it to the library.
I hope the end wasn't the best part, because if so .. I missed it?\

But then again, I think I missed the entire concept of the book?
Because I didn't find it life-altering?

Any thoughts?

 

daisie: It's really hard to explain why it is so good. I think Jack Kerouac just expressed the inner thought of an outsider. If you're not an outsider, you find it boring, because you can't relate to the problems an ousider encounters -the wonderful taste of liberty

 

hi daisie

i think that part of the problem is that this book was amazing and heralded in the new generation of the late 50's and early 60's...but that generation is now gone. it was life altering when it came out because the world was in a whole other place. i grew up down the block from a place called the cedar street tavern (though god knows why it was called that since it was on university place not cedar street) and kerouac and most of the writers and painters of the beat generation hung out there all the time. (kerouac was pretty much an alcohalic and was once thrown out of the bar for peeing in the sink). maybe growing up there was part of the reason i felt such a connection with this book. i remember when i first read it i was totally blown away. but back then people for the most part didn't do the things that kerouac was talking about and very few people lived with the freedom that he expressed in "on the road". so maybe for you as it is with lots of people now it's not very impressive because so much has changed since this seemed relevant. but his stream of consciousness prose/poety was very new and totally hip when he first wrote this.

as an aside..neal cassidy was portrayed in many of kerouac's books, but he wasn't always dean moriarty. he was the model for cody pomeroy in other kerouac novels.


jack kerouac and alan ginsberg 1959

deezee

 

vision of Cody for example. Nice post deezee