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On the Road: The Original Scroll (Duluoz Legend)

by Jack Kerouac

4.13 · rating details · 1,839 ratings · 216 reviews

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of "On the Road," published as Kerouac originally composed it
IN THREE WEEKS in April of 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote his first full draft of "On the Road"?typed as a single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper, which he later taped together to form a 120-foot scroll. A major literary event when it was publi...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published August 26th 2008 by Penguin Books (first published September 18th 1957)

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Feb 14, 2009

Alice rated it

· review of another edition

I've been meaning to review this book for a while, but I get sort of emotional reading what other people think about Kerouac, and it has been hard to figure out what I want to say. I feel almost personally insulted by some of the more negative reviews which is totally weird and inappropriate of me. I guess I identify with Kerouac because in his heart he's not really all that unconventional, but he loves the company of wild adventurers and can be talked into almost anything.

I reread...moreI've been meaning to review this book for a while, but I get sort of emotional reading what other people think about Kerouac, and it has been hard to figure out what I want to say. I feel almost personally insulted by some of the more negative reviews which is totally weird and inappropriate of me. I guess I identify with Kerouac because in his heart he's not really all that unconventional, but he loves the company of wild adventurers and can be talked into almost anything.

I reread the original (well I guess the scroll is the real original, but you know what I mean) before I read this, and they are very similar. On the Road is an amazing book & the scroll is the same amazing book minus paragraphs, plus all the sex, drugs and real names. The biggest surprise for me was that Carlo Marx was Alan Ginsberg. How did I not know that? Including the sexual relationship between Carlo Marx/Alan Ginsberg and Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady changed the dynamic of the book's Denver portion quite a bit. Cassady's bisexuality is hinted at in the edited OTR but spelling it out the way Kerouac does in the scroll makes the whole situation more complex. In OTR as originally published, Marx & Moriarty have a weird dynamic. Marx always seemed a little jealous of Dean's girls, but I never really got why. Now it makes more sense. Another interesting bit cut out of the edited OTR is Kerouac's visit to his ex-wife. All that gossip and trivia aside, the spirit of On the Road feels the same in this version.

I read OTR for the first time when I was in high school, and every time I've read it since then I learn something different about the characters and myself. There is so much in this book I never get tired of: the motion, the adventure, the sense of an America of boundless size and possibility...

Okay, I'll stop gushing now. I guess I can understand why Kerouac isn't for everyone, but he changed my life for better or worse and helped make me the sort of person who feels compelled to drive aimlessly around the country every few years just to see what's out there. I'll never regret the road trips I've taken, and though there are many writers whose travel narratives have inspired me, Kerouac will always be my first love in that category.

I have to admit that with the exception of Dharma Bums I'm not crazy about his other books. I’ve tried to get into them, but I never could. I think Big Sur is the only other one I've managed to finish and it depressed the hell out of me. The exuberance and optimism that made me fall in love with On the Road faded quickly for poor Kerouac.(less)

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Oct 10, 2007

Tosh rated it

· review of another edition

Five stars is not enough for this book: it should be ten stars! This is a very beautiful book and rightfully an American classic. Stunning!

"On The Road" is the real deal. I just started reading this and it's just a fantastic read. The energy just pops out of the page. The punk rock of novels. Mr. Jack just had the 'moment' when he wrote this, and it is incredible experience to share that 'moment' with the great man. Great.

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Jan 28, 2012

meltem rated it

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Shelves: mızmızın-favorisi

Bir süredir bu kitap hakkında bir şeyler yazmak için kafamı toparlamaya çalışıyorum. Sonunda o gün geldi galiba...

Kitabı kabaca özetlemek gerekirse, kitap yazarımızın arkadaşlarıyla, ülkenin bir ucundan diğer ucuna yaptığı yolculuklar üzerine.

İlk olarak şunu belirtmeliyim ki, bu kitap kesinlikle beklediğim gibi değildi. Overrated bir hipster kitabı bekliyordum. Hipster kısmı tuttu ama kesinlikle overrated olduğunu söyleyemem. Biraz kıyaslama yapma fırsatı bulduğum için be...more

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Aug 22, 2010

Kathryn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classics

On the Road – Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical novel of the exhilarating and exhausting cross-country road trips of 20-somethings Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty – was such an enormous watershed in American culture that it seems quite fitting that its 50th anniversary should be noted by Viking with no less than three newly published books: "On the Road: The 50th Anniversary Edition," "On the Road: The Original Scroll," and "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of ‘On the Road....more

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Jul 31, 2010

Jim Cherry rated it

· review of another edition

The plot to “On The Road” wouldn’t really tell you what “On The Road” is about because the travels of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity are more existential than overt action. Yes, they drive from coast to coast, meet people, go to parties, but it’s not the action that is important but the experience Sal and Dean derive from each adventure.

The real story of “On The Road: The Original Scroll” isn’t in the book but in how Kerouac created it. The autobiographical elements that made up “On...moreThe plot to “On The Road” wouldn’t really tell you what “On The Road” is about because the travels of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity are more existential than overt action. Yes, they drive from coast to coast, meet people, go to parties, but it’s not the action that is important but the experience Sal and Dean derive from each adventure.

The real story of “On The Road: The Original Scroll” isn’t in the book but in how Kerouac created it. The autobiographical elements that made up “On The Road,” Kerouac and Neal Cassady taking three road trips across the United States occurred between 1947-1949. After years of false starts, Kerouac decided to lay out the whole story and write it from beginning to end on one roll of paper so he wouldn’t have to stop his train of thought replacing page after page as he finished it. Inspired by Jazz improvisation and spontaneity, Kerouac undertook to get the novel he had in his head onto the page. He got a roll of teletype paper, and with help from Benzedrine and coffee Kerouac wrote the novel in marathon sessions of writing over the course of 3 weeks. When he was done he took it to his editor, Robert Giroux, who was dumbfounded when Kerouac unfurled it in his office.

“On The Road” the version that was released in 1957 was a masterpiece and changed the rules of writing fiction, as well as inspiring a generation of teenagers that would go on the road in the 60’s in search of their own existential adventures and kicks. Reading “On The Road: The Original Scroll” you realize that the story flows much better in Kerouac’s original vision of it. Giroux as editor had with all good intentions made Kerouac’s book salable for the times, without removing Kerouac’s artistic achievements but left a somewhat clunky novel that later readers have found hard to get into. I think if they read “On The Road: The Original Scroll” they’ll find that shortcoming removed.

For the avid Kerouac fan and aficinado “On The Road: The Original Scroll” will be a revelatory look at Kerouac’s process of writing in what he had originally intended. And there’s a certain fun in reading the book with all the people’s real names intact, instead of character names that the publisher insisted on to avoid lawsuits. If you’re coming to Kerouac new, I think this original version of Kerouac’s work will highlight the spontaneity of Kerouac’s work and the reader will come away with an appreciation of the freshness of Kerouac’s work.(less)

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Jan 07, 2009

Stop added it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Read the STOP SMILING review of the British edition of On the Road: The Original Scroll:

We’ve been waiting a long time for a definitive (textual) edition of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. But, alas, On the Road: The Original Scroll (Howard Cunnell, editor: Viking-Penguin, 2007) isn’t it. Yes, we have the original unexpurgated transcript with the real names reinstated and an informative if at times ill-organized introduction on the writing of the novel by Cunnell that corrects some misconc...more

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Jun 15, 2010

Stephen rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of poetic prose and searchers for an earlier hillbilly america

The continent "groans" again and again.

The night is too often "sad," the cities are "mad" or "wild" and "sad" some more. New York is the "edge of the continent," and San Francisco, too and sometimes they're the "rim of the world," or some similar allusion.

Jack Kerouac and his friends, would be considered drunks and losers by the standards of most. The author's muse and messiah, Neal Cassady, is a fell...more

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Jan 22, 2009

Rosemary Ceravolo rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: all the world

You had to be there to love and understand Kerouac's genius.

Here's an amazingly prescient quote from the (c. 1948-1951),
Original Scroll of "On the Road," finally published in 2007:

p.219 - "When daybreak came we were
zooming through New Jersey
with a great cloud of Metropolitan NY
rising before us in the snowy distance.
Neal had a sweater
...more

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Sep 10, 2011

Shima rated it

· review of another edition

The whole road as a proof of possibilities and experience... Living the life to its full extent... The visions seen after drugs, being a whole with the nature and the outside world. I get it. Quite accurate with the Romanticism movement... On The Road can be easily accepted as a modern and an American branch of the Romanticism movement... I was quite hopeful about it. At some point, I really did believe that I was enjoying it. But, as it went on and on, my brain just could not ignore anymore ho...more

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Aug 31, 2011

Jenn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, dropped

I tried, I really did. I genuinely tried to like this book, given the ubiquitous hype surrounding its supposed literary merit and brilliance.

The first few sections (was about to say chapters, before I remembered there are none) of the book did interest me quite a bit, but as soon as he got to Denver, the stories from the road grew wary and bored me to tears, and at one point even gave me a headache. The fact that the main characters were pretty much bums who blew their very little cash...more

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Nov 27, 2011

Natalie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I just finished re-reading it.

Its different, and in many ways better than the version from 1976 or others...

This is the unaltered essence of Jack Kerouac originally intended and written scroll. The way HE wanted it.

A sad, beautifully, poetic prose of a rather prosaic mind. A poetic, solitarily driven soul that contradicts the mind and keeps on going, restless, relentless in its pursuit of the perfect words... His words... Not the editors... nor the publishers, but ...more

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Aug 13, 2011

Kate added it · review of another edition

Wow, blew my mind, really addictive reading. Its strange to have read the scroll version first rather than the novel version which most people know so well, but I cant imagine it any other way. This gets right into the heart of things, right into 'IT.' And the whole thing is gritty, just like life, it doesnt make sense to have edited that out, these things in fact werent meant to be edited out, except for the fact that Kerouac was so keen for his vision to be shared and read by others. Highly in...more

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Mar 06, 2009

Robin marked it as to-read

I have been trying to read this for ages, it's been recommended by many friends and i know it's a classic. Not to mention the history and comments it makes on the times, but sadly I've not been able to get into it. I'll have to try again soon.

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Jan 17, 2011

SamanthaLee rated it

· review of another edition

Perhaps it's because I am a 19-year-old liberal arts college student or perhaps it's because I always have and probably always will yearn for excitement and beauty and adventure, but whatever the reason may be, I absolutely loved Kerouac's On The Road>i>. Every passage drew me in deeper and deeper until I could hardly stand just how much I wanted jump in the car or on a train or bus and make it across the country to the West Coast. Even the frantic tales of endless NYC nights beckoned me t...more

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Sep 25, 2007

Cat rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: randomfiction

I believe this was probably was a ground breaking book for it's time and I appreciate it's place in American History. That said it wasn't really my type of book.

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Feb 02, 2012

Michael Irenski rated it

· review of another edition

Before reading the original scroll, your humble reviewer felt strongly in the idea that "On the Road" was one of the most overrated novels of all time. I was clearly wrong! I'm sorry, Jack. I take it all back.

"On the Road: The Original Manuscript" is a work of genius. Retaining the names of several beat figureheads, the book takes on a nonfiction feel. Granted the lack of paragraph breaks can make the reading a little, um, difficult at first. But, in the right atmos...more

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Oct 29, 2011

Art rated it

· review of another edition

On the Road is a life-changer. And here it is for the first time in glorious unedited first-draft form, complete with typos, real names instead of aliases, and more sex than was then publishable. It's remarkable how lucid and richly detailed this book is for such a rambling adventure written on a single scroll in a stream of consciousness. I first read the original in one frenzied session on a flight from Japan, and I've now come to this version after having been to the US. Now I know the moods,...more

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Jan 20, 2011

Meghan Moloney rated it

Shelves: own

My dad bought me this for Christmas a couple of years ago because it was on my booklist. Of course, my dad being who he is (and I love him for it), he wasn't content to just get me the standard edition. He hunted down this newly released edition known as the "Original Scroll", which goes back to Kerouac's original manuscript. The manuscript is literally one long sheet of typewritten paper that rolls up into a scroll, and it contains the first draft of what would eventually be edited an...moreMy dad bought me this for Christmas a couple of years ago because it was on my booklist. Of course, my dad being who he is (and I love him for it), he wasn't content to just get me the standard edition. He hunted down this newly released edition known as the "Original Scroll", which goes back to Kerouac's original manuscript. The manuscript is literally one long sheet of typewritten paper that rolls up into a scroll, and it contains the first draft of what would eventually be edited and rewritten into the novel known as On The Road.

Since I've never read the edited version, I can't truly compare it, but it seems that either Kerouac or his publishers edited out a large portion of the more scandalous sections of the book -- drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex... Especially the parts referring to encounters between two of the men Kerouac hung out with, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, who went on to be famous beat writers. But he also changed the names of several of the other people in the book, presumably to protect the privacy of his friends and family.

Something else that changed from the original scroll to the final version of the book was the formatting. It would seem that Kerouac sat down one day at his typewriter (with a bottle of gin and a disgusting amount of cigarettes, I'd imagine) and banged out the entire story in three sections. Each section is one paragraph that goes on for up to 50 pages. If you've ever read 'The Stone Angel' by Margaret Laurence and were totally frustrated by the stream-of-consciousness style, as I was when I read it at 17, you will likely DETEST the total lack of pacing and, at times, of punctuation.

That being said, there may have been an intentional choice made by Kerouac to keep the voice in a very informal narrative style. Maybe he wanted it to feel like you were at your local pub, and some crazy-looking disheveled guy with a backpack had randomly launched into an hours-long tale of his travels around the country. That guy wouldn't have structured his story like a novel, holding back certain details until the end. And he would most certainly have interrupted himself often, saying "Oh, I forgot to tell you about this part first--".

Or maybe I'm giving Kerouac too much credit as an author. I've never read his other works of fiction, so I can't say. But my instinct tells me not to assume he was simply vomiting his story onto the typewriter and letting it all trail down the page without reflection or purpose. Because there were themes and repetitive motifs throughout the scroll: the search for a lost or unknown father, the deluded optimism of someone searching for a place where they feel they belong, the infatuation that comes with making a new best friend or starting a new romantic relationship, the letdown that inevitably comes once the curtain falls from your eyes and you see people for who they truly are. There is also some of the more classic American Dream ideology here, with Kerouac describing his attempts to stay solvent and establish his family in a house that they own. But to me, this was much less the focus of the story than his search to find meaning in his relationships with other people.

For once, I'm not analyzing the book from a feminist angle. If I did, I would probably convince myself that I'd hated every character in it, including the women. But as it is, I'm glad I read it. I'm still not convinced that it should be considered a classic on the same level as other mid-century American novels ('The Great Gatsby'?) but it's worth reading just as a glimpse into the lives of some of those great writers.

Assuming Kerouac wasn't just making it all up, of course...(less)

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Sep 12, 2010

Jackichan rated it

· review of another edition

Interesting story, terrible novel. I'd like to re-title it, "In the Closet." Because that's exactly what it is. The truth of the matter is that this book is about a man's struggle with being homosexual in a culture that was not open or accepting of such things. The way Kerouac would write in great detail about sexual encounters with women in such a way that felt passionless; as if he wrote it just in attempt to prove a point. Where as when he hinted at Neal's homosexuality and even his...more

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Jun 23, 2010

Josh Woods rated it

Wow! I didn't really know what to expect when I first picked up this book. I thought it would be pretty much the same story as the one originally published in '57 with the exception of a few self-indulgent scenes removed. O' how naive was I! To begin with it was so much easier with all the names referring to actual people (i.e. Allen Ginsberg instead of Carlo Marx). When I first read the version that was published in '57 I knew that all the names were references to actual people in that "...more

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Dec 22, 2010

Carrie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: commuter-rail, widget

I became a fan of the 'original' version around my second year of high school. I remember idolizing these crazy characters - to the point of writing a paper for English class on 'The Beats'. When I heard that this minimally edited version was available, I looked forward to reliving my love of this wild bunch of friends...jumping madly across the continent. Free of conformist society, traditional writing methods, and the mindless responsibilities of the new modern life.

At first I was ...more I became a fan of the 'original' version around my second year of high school. I remember idolizing these crazy characters - to the point of writing a paper for English class on 'The Beats'. When I heard that this minimally edited version was available, I looked forward to reliving my love of this wild bunch of friends...jumping madly across the continent. Free of conformist society, traditional writing methods, and the mindless responsibilities of the new modern life.

At first I was intimidated by the visually dense pages of text - unbroken by paragraphs or chapters (except for the BOOK 2, BOOK 3, BOOK 4 titles within the lines of text), but Kerouac's energetic and often humorous storytelling made the book's 400 pages zoom by - like the cows and telephone poles along the Mid-Western highway.

Overall, this version wasn't as different as I thought it might be. It was a little raunchier - there were a few more detailed sex scenes and some homosexual moments were left in the manuscript, but it wasn't shocking reading it from the perspective of someone living in 2010. The extra material also didn't change much of the tone or path of the story. Most of the now uncut bits just provided another scene of something crazy.

I didn't read it concurrently with the established version, but I felt that the 'scroll' version was more descriptive - especially near the end of the book while the group was driving through Mexico. I enjoyed seeing the 'real' names of the characters like Allen, Neal, and Bill. I also thought that showing Jack as a guy living with his mother in the scroll was much more straightforward than placing him with some mysterious aunt in the mainstream version. It brought one of the less savory aspects of the beat lifestyle into focus. It was harder to be awestruck with the 'king of the beats' when he's a man living with his mother...in her apartment in Queens...constantly bumming money off of her.

I don't know if it's because of the decade that's passed since I first read On The Road or if this version of the book just presents the characters in a more dejected light...but I found myself feeling more saddened by the characters' lifestyles than inspired by them. Sure they were free of the daily grind, but they were also free of a way to support themselves (for the most part), free of a stable home, free of solid romantic relationships, and free of self-esteem. The fact that these characters had either failed at their relationships and jobs, or (most of the time) failed to even try at anything other than running away really struck me this time. They even reached a point where they didn't know what they were running from anymore...just go go go road is life...

Maybe I've just become a bit of a square, and I'll balance out in the next decade. As a book I still do recommend giving it a try. It's a piece of cultural history, and it's written like a letter from a close friend - who brings me into his inside jokes and trys to enlighten me with societal observations....unfortunately Jack's a friend that I used to look up to more when I was 15.(less)

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Mar 22, 2010

Jonathan rated it

Shelves: 20th-century-america, academic-reading-and-research, us-intellectual-history

A fantastic edition. This paperback reproduces the text of Kerouac's first draft, typed without paragraph breaks on a continuous roll of paper over a period of three weeks in April 1951.

In a helpful introductory essay, Howard Cunnell corrects several legends about the composition, stressing that this novel-autobiography was the result of years of crafting on Kerouac's part. On the Road is not the bowdlerized result of a single writing binge, purged by editors afraid of obscenity;...more

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Mar 31, 2010

Hollowspine rated it

· review of another edition

A true tale of the road and of an age that is past. I enjoyed reading some aspects of the novel, but in the end it was a bit melancholy to me. I kept feeling Jack's relationship to Neal and Allen was kind of pathetic in a way. His following them around and viewing them as somehow better than himself, more energetic, more alive. Although the events and conversations of the story are real (as real as a memory can be) every interaction had a sense of fakery to me. Everyone was a con man (or wo...more

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Oct 24, 2009

Doug rated it

· review of another edition

Where would Kerouac have been without Ginsberg? Kerouac's novels based on his early life in Lowell Massachusetts were evocative stories sprung from intense memory, often atmospheric and psychologically interesting. Those who want to search for clues to the unhappy later life of the writer can probably find them, but I prefer just to tag along through his fictionalized adventures and their ups and downs.

As for On The Road... I can't get over the feeling that Ginsberg was the puppet ma...more

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Oct 01, 2009

Mona rated it

· review of another edition

EDIT: So I thought I didn't do it justice by listening to it so am now reading it.

Kinda skipped the discussion of the scroll.

Kerouac has a lovely sense of description and is a good storyteller. That said, I enjoyed reading and listening to his first journey to and from California.

I'm slugging through the second trip right now. I think I don't enjoy it because they are stealing from everyone, freeloading and dirty. It most definitely feels like I'm listenin...more

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May 24, 2009

Joe rated it

· review of another edition

Having read "On the Road" years ago and briefly fallen in love with it like everybody else before realizing how unrewarding its claims are, I finally made my way through the entanglements of the original scroll, which is much better than the published book insofar as we get the real names and no censorship (I believe the scene where Neil bangs their male driver in a hotel room was left out of the original book, for instance). But the unedited scroll is a rough and tumble bramble bush ...moreHaving read "On the Road" years ago and briefly fallen in love with it like everybody else before realizing how unrewarding its claims are, I finally made my way through the entanglements of the original scroll, which is much better than the published book insofar as we get the real names and no censorship (I believe the scene where Neil bangs their male driver in a hotel room was left out of the original book, for instance). But the unedited scroll is a rough and tumble bramble bush of repetitive ideas and imaginative wanderings-kind of like the original, you might interrupt, only it's easier to see in this version. I stopped counting how many times I read the word "sorrow" or "awful", or a related derivative. The scroll seemed, after all these years, like a collection of sorrowful awful experiences that we are to believe were, in their time, quite beautiful. I'm not sure what it was that prompted this, after all I loved the book the first time I read it, and Kerouac dazzles now and then in the scroll, but not before petering out into a stream of mystical exhaust. The best parts of this book make themselves known clearly and mostly early on. Kerouac's descriptive prose is bar none, the book literally smells like Chinese food in the San Francisco portion. I can taste the beer in the jazz clubs. However drunk I became there was a mounting and sobering sense that these guys had no idea what was going on around them. It came to a head in Mexico. They cruise through small "dobe" towns with Neal annoyingly telling Jack how cool poverty is. Summations are made about the Mexican people and their ancient civilization of wonder and awe, but they arrive at this theory after talking to a grand total of three Mexicans. Not exactly Tocqueville in the reporting.

Still, it's difficult to not feel cozy about Kerouac. As the book winds to an end, and that last famous paragraph begins "In America when the sun goes down" you let out a sigh for all the miles traveled and the long lands traversed. In the end, you might not be in love with it anymore, but you'll think about it from time to time.(less)

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May 21, 2009

Joseph rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I'll give Kerouac credit: On the Road has a propulsive, relentless movement. Bereft of paragraphs or chapter breaks, it just keeps churning along, dragging the reader along for the ride.

On the other hand, I was more than a little surprised at how small it made everything seem. Where I was expecting something exploring the epic grandeur of America (something more along the line of Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie), Kerouac delivers a story so obsessed with such a small fraction of t...more

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Dec 21, 2011

Liza H rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, couldntfinish

I tried, I really did! Perhaps it was reading it from the "original scroll" (which means no paragraphs or chapter breaks, or anything) or maybe it was just because I was reading it on my Kindle, but this book just seemed to be going ON and ON without end. I left it when Jack and his friend are tooling around in Mexico - which I'm sure is somewhere near the end, but at that point of the book, there really didn't seem to be anything new going on, so I gave up.

My initial und...more

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Oct 25, 2008

Trish Colacicco rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who likes to read Kerouac

Recommended to Trish by: My sister recommended the published version, but I learned about

Reading the scroll was a completely different experience from reading the published edition. That could be partly due to the fact that I am now over ten years older than when I first read On the Road. When I first read it, it felt like a fun, largely unbelievable story, the kind of experience I would love to have for myself. However, reading this version at this stage in my life, it seemed...not sad...but something I can't find the word for somewhere between "mild longing" and "...more

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Aug 08, 2008

Wordwizard rated it

· review of another edition

This was interesting, as far as the sheer long-sentence, stream-of-consciousness, pouring-it-all-out writing style went. Parts were intriguing or engaging. Others seem like an inside joke, though, to a certain set of people or a certain time. Keeping track of all the people they know is tough. I must also confess that Jack and Co occasionally annoy me. Sure, the freedom of their roving is exhilarating sometimes, and their impressions of the world of the road and their attempts to discuss th...more

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About Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was an American novelist, writer, poet, and artist. He is perhaps the best known of a group of writers and friends who came to be known as the Beat Generation, a term he himself created.

Kerouac's work was popular, but received little critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, he is considered an important and influential writer who inspired others, including Tom Robbins,...more

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“All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers.” — 2 people liked it

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title link	preview: On the Road: The Original Scroll
avg rating	preview: On the Road: The Original Scroll Goodreads rating: 4.13 (1839 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2636730-on-the-road?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1242261498m/2636730.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2636730-on-the-road?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac[/url]

On the Road: The Original Scroll (Duluoz Legend)

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