On the Road

by Jack Kerouac

book data

32,867 ratings, 3.67 average rating, 2,904 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		26%
4		33%
3		24%
2		10%
1		4%

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published

January 1st 1976 (first published 1957) by Penguin Books

binding

Paperback, 310 pages

isbn

0140042598 (isbn13: 9780140042597)

description

On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels o...more

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09/29/07

Jessica rated it:

bookshelves: bad-reads

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: fourteen-year-old assholes

This is probably the worst book I have ever finished, and I'm forever indebted to the deeply personality-disordered college professor who assigned it, because if it hadn't been for that class I never would've gotten through, and I gotta tell you, this is the book I love to hate.

I deeply cherish but don't know that I fully agree with Truman Capote's assessment: that _On the Road_ "is not writing at all -- it's typing."

Lovely, Turman, but let's be clear: typing by...more

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06/09/07

Jahn Sood rated it:

Read in August, 2005

I've been thinking about this book a lot lately, so I figured that I'd go back and write something about it.

When I first read this book, I loved it as a piece of art, but its effect on me was different than I expected. So many people hail Kerouac as the artist who made them quit their jobs and go to the road, become a hippie or a beat and give up the rest. When I read it though, I had been completely obsessed with hippie culture for a long time, and it caused me to steer away fro...more I've been thinking about this book a lot lately, so I figured that I'd go back and write something about it.

When I first read this book, I loved it as a piece of art, but its effect on me was different than I expected. So many people hail Kerouac as the artist who made them quit their jobs and go to the road, become a hippie or a beat and give up the rest. When I read it though, I had been completely obsessed with hippie culture for a long time, and it caused me to steer away from it for a while. While I thought that it would be a rollicking tale of freedom and glory, I found that all of Dean's conquests were tainted by the fact that he had to take advantage of other people every step of the way. He was a hugely entertaining character, but would have been a terrible friend, lover, or even acquaintance. From the women he married to gas station attendents, right down to Sal Paradise himself, Dean drained everything that he was right out of other people, and it eventually ruined him. It left him beat...not heart beating exhilarated, but beat up, dead beat and alone. Once I stepped back a little from the awe at Dean's greatness, this book was really sad, and it caused me to put away that romanticism for a while.

Now, 2 years later, though, On the Road is coming back to me full on. I didn't escape the total wonder at the Beats and the road. I have been on the road myself for the last 2 months and have a long way to go before I get back home, and I am constantly aware that the the way was paved by Kerouac and the rest of the crazy geniuses of his generation. The road is every bit as romantic as Sal Paradise made it out to be, and its glory far out weighs the short comings of Dean as a friend. I mean, the road is a lot like Dean, it takes a lot out of you, but you get addicted to it and obsessed with it and can't let it go, and I don't think there's any other way about it. I am in love with America for the first time. Now that I've seen it, driven across and up and down, around and over America, I find it sublime and incredible. I think that Kerouac and his friends might've been the first to see that. Maybe not. Maybe they are just part of all of American history...they translated the world of Western expansion and canvas covered wagons into the way of the modern world. America is something to dream about. It is worthy every exuberant and formerly offensive "I'm proud" sticker that's plastered on the back of a pick up truck. And Kerouac saw that first hand. So, it seems, that there is a certain tragedy in this book, but that it is less important than the unavoidable glory that you come to associate with the road and freedom after following these guys on their crazy adventure. I think this book should be read by everyone who wants to know about America.(less)

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08/03/08

Katherine rated it:

Things I liked about On the Road.
-It's a hymn to wild rides, all-night conversations with strangers, lunacy, letting life happen, and getting out of your life and experiencing the world.

-The energetic, random, bursting-with-possibility, jazz-inspired prose. I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator affected an "oh wowwww maaaan" hippie accent that really added to it as well.

-The way it seems to invite you in, calling to your sense of adventure ...more

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04/08/08

Kevin rated it:

bookshelves: avoid-like-aids

Read in June, 2008

A few months back I read Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage", a harrowing account of cross-country exploration made poignant by the character studies of adventurers Lewis & Clark. Undeterred in their mission to map the uncharted territories, the account of their expedition reminds readers of the vast wonders encompassed within America's borders. Equally awe-inspiring from the scope of their accomplishment and the natural beauty encountered, I felt compelled to perhaps make my own pil...more A few months back I read Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage", a harrowing account of cross-country exploration made poignant by the character studies of adventurers Lewis & Clark. Undeterred in their mission to map the uncharted territories, the account of their expedition reminds readers of the vast wonders encompassed within America's borders. Equally awe-inspiring from the scope of their accomplishment and the natural beauty encountered, I felt compelled to perhaps make my own pilgrimage west, alas any eventual voyage will lack the thrilling sense of discovery (of course also safe from the considerable threats) evoked in the Ambrose text. Unfortunately, after reading Kerouac's book, depicting a relatively worthless industrial landscape, I am reminded of the very real human egotism driving behavior and far less enthusiastic for far-flung ventures.

The book's common thread seems to be characters who will travel thousands of miles in search of a hamburger. Traveling to major urban cities leaves these restless souls unsatisfied until the climatic trip to Mexico, treated reverentially in a sharp contrast from the detachment associated with America. F'n Mexico?! An orgiastic trip to a Mexican brothel where the narrator leers at a teenager is the novel's spiritual apex, a stirring reminder of the potential for human depravity but a complete disappointment for readers attempting to understand Kerouac's considerable legacy. The narrator bizarrely swoons over companion Dean Mortiary epitomize unbridled living but whose M.O. depends on leeching from others and fathering children out of wedlock. References to Dean's own loser father permit sympathy for the man, but as an iconic figure he was shockingly repellent, just one in the litany of uninteresting characters peppering the novel.

Readers desiring a truly fresh perspective should just buy some psyclobin mushrooms and avoid the time you would otherwise waste reading this book. Far from understanding the genesis of the beat generation, I read Kerouac craft a self-indulgent justification for aimless wandering and its pitiable virtues. (less)

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05/06/08

Lostinanovel rated it:

Read in March, 1995

I personally can't stand the characters. They cover up irresponsibility and real hurt to people in the guise of being artists. However, I do think there is more to this story.

Sure, they are jerks and they are bums and they are full of a lot of BS but as the book progresses, it becomes clear that they know it. These guys are also WW2 vets, and very dissimilar to the hippies who follow them, they do not have any anti-American or anti-establishment feelings. Also, they show a deep r...more

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04/24/07

Adam rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in October, 1996

I'm supposed to like On the Road, right? Well, I don't. I hate it and I always have. There are a lot of reasons why I hate it. I find Kerouac's attitude toward the world pathetically limited and paternalistic. In On the Road he actually muses about how much he wishes that he could have been born "a Negro in the antebellum South," living a simple life free from worry, and does so seemingly without any sense of irony. On every page, the book is about how Kerouac (a young, white, middle-c...more

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12/21/07

Jacob rated it:

I read On The Road when I was 16. When I was 16, I was so depressed. I went to a high school that had a moat around it and a seige mentality. On The Road made me not depressed. In fact ... it made me want to hitchhike, hop freight trains, and more importantly to write. If I were still 16 I would give On The Road 5 stars. I would say, go! Go! Read this book and be mad for life, delirious, exploding outward into the big uncovered road! Consume vanilla ice cream and apple pie. Drink black coffee. F...more

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07/31/07

Derek rated it:

(review of isbn 0140185216)

The author William Kirn, in a piece for Slate magazine debating the merits of On The Road, wrote, "It's hard for me to summon any more 'critical distance' toward On the Road than I can toward the shape of my own face or the smell of my own sweat." I feel much the same way. For me, On the Road is inextricable from the time and place that I read it. I was, literally, on the road, looking at colleges in New England during my junior year of high school. I'd borrowed the book from my brand-...more The author William Kirn, in a piece for Slate magazine debating the merits of On The Road, wrote, "It's hard for me to summon any more 'critical distance' toward On the Road than I can toward the shape of my own face or the smell of my own sweat." I feel much the same way. For me, On the Road is inextricable from the time and place that I read it. I was, literally, on the road, looking at colleges in New England during my junior year of high school. I'd borrowed the book from my brand-new-girlfriend Dina upon her insistence that it was nothing short of amazing. This was also the first time I'd heard Neil Young's Harvest in its entirety. I'd prefer not to downplay any of this in terms of shaping who I became over the next few years, and for that matter, who I am now.

All of this ancillary detail and admitted nostalgia probably shouldn't have anything to do with my assessment of the book. I did, after all, read it at the absolute "perfect" time: away from home, "discovering myself," blah blah blah. But you know what? I don't care how trite it was, and maybe still is. This book knocked it out of the fucking park for me. And so what if millions of kids the same age with the same sort of background enjoyed the same sort of "spiritual" experience with the book? I didn't know that at the time. All I knew of Jack Kerouac was his picture on the cover of the book.

How much did On the Road have to do with deciding not to go to school in New England but rather staying in Pittsburgh and going to a "city school"? How much did it have to do with writing becoming my immediate, absolute focus? How much did it have to do with that girl who lent it to me, who I am still in love with today? I don't know. What I do know is that it's all part of that same package, and I couldn't remove it if I tried. And why would I want to? To portray some ill-advised disaffected post-college stance that the book just ain't that good? I don't have time for that.

If this seems defensive, or even off topic, it's because I've had to defend this book so many times. What's the point in discussing narrative structure or character development when my reaction to this book was so much more than a mere academic appreciation, when it was downright visceral? To wit, Kerouac was the wild west gunslinger staring down a group of bad guys, his finger lightly tapping his pistol; I was the little boy at home, watching him on TV with a plastic cowboy hat on my head. Do you think I'm going to waste time talking about the cinematography?

That's not to say I think the book is without substance or can't be appreciated academically. In fact, it would make for an even longer review trying to describe these. My point is that they seem too after-the-fact. It's a wonderful novel, brimming with brilliance, and deserving of the hype.
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02/01/08

Maclain Rigdon rated it:

I was in school at the Merchant Marine Academy. I was nineteen years old; a Georgia boy. I had no business being there. The deal at the academy is that you do six months of your Sophomore year and six months of your Junior years at sea. At least that’s how it used to be. I hear they are on trimesters now. Who knows? Anyway, it was this sea year that attracted me to the school in the first place.

So I’m nineteen, heavy boozer, balls to the walls so to speak. I was coming un...more

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11/06/07

Michael Sevigny rated it:

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road doesn’t seem like a particularly easy novel to identify with. On one hand, it has themes that everyone can relate to: escapism, self-discovery, and personal growth. On the other hand, Kerouac wrote something very reactionary to what his surroundings were at the time; this novel is seen as a representation of the Beat Generation, an era where youths yearned for a non-conformist counterculture and an escape from the oppression of authority. Yet, in the end, it is th...more Jack Kerouac’s On the Road doesn’t seem like a particularly easy novel to identify with. On one hand, it has themes that everyone can relate to: escapism, self-discovery, and personal growth. On the other hand, Kerouac wrote something very reactionary to what his surroundings were at the time; this novel is seen as a representation of the Beat Generation, an era where youths yearned for a non-conformist counterculture and an escape from the oppression of authority. Yet, in the end, it is those underlying themes that resonate through to the reader, easily identifiable no matter what generation they are from.

The book is an autobiographical account of the road trips that Kerouac and his friends took around the late forties. Spontaneously, his fictional doppelganger Sal Paradise decides to experience the world, inspired by his cultured friend Dean Moriarty. While Dean is intelligent, he doesn’t appreciate school for its installation of boring tediousness in students. Sal realizes that school can only teach you so much, and so he embarks on a journey to fulfill himself and to discover the world.

What makes the novel so great is the inperfectness and relatibility of its characters. Sal is intelligent, thoughtful and a good person, but he is lazy, unfocused, and rejects commitment. He is so much more relatable to readers with his flaws intact, and in turn it is much easier to believe his desire to break free from the binds of society.

Dean is much less relatable, but his strength as a character lies in his rejection of the commonplace. He strives constantly for adventure, not so much to find himself like Sal, but just for the sake if having one. Dean actually works better as a cariacture of the eccentric, rebellious travler, because his entire essence is built upon his opposoiton to reality. As Kerouac wrote, his type of person is “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 common place thing, but burn burn burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars”.

The Beat Generation was a time in American history that was chaotic, revolutionary, and influential. Of course, the novel captures that well. But what defines On the Road is not its cultural commentary, but its timeless themes of escape and discovery, its fantastic yet relatable characters, and its honesty. While I may never have experiences like the ones in this novel, I connect with it moreso than any other book I have ever read.

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08/02/07

Jeff rated it:

Read in January, 2002

recommends it for: people with long hair.

"Oh, yeah man, On the Road. Dude, that's a good story man. So good. Yeah man... so... dude, yeah, man... dude, bro..." I had been stuck with concessions, AGAIN! My friend was producing a play, and me not being an actor, or a director, or a sound or lighting technician, but wanting to help out, got stuck with selling tickets and concessions. So I brought my book to read, and the book was ON THE ROAD. I was halfway through the book. And I sort of liked it.
I was kind of getti...more "Oh, yeah man, On the Road. Dude, that's a good story man. So good. Yeah man... so... dude, yeah, man... dude, bro..." I had been stuck with concessions, AGAIN! My friend was producing a play, and me not being an actor, or a director, or a sound or lighting technician, but wanting to help out, got stuck with selling tickets and concessions. So I brought my book to read, and the book was ON THE ROAD. I was halfway through the book. And I sort of liked it.
I was kind of getting into it. I could see it happening. I wanted to see myself driving back and forth across the country in the late 40s, early 50s (Is that when it took place? It's been awhile since I read it... and I can't say it all stuck with me). Then this happened.
There I was, minding my own business, reading my book, selling Sprites to anyone that wanted one, and this tiny, scrawny, long-haired, belt studded, black wearing hippie/cool/emo/rocker dude walks up to me and starts to talk to me about how he LOVED ON THE ROAD.
Really? Is this the target audience? Is it that cool to read Kerouac? Snap, snap daddio.
I guess so. I did like it while reading it. But since then, time has passed for me. And honestly, as more stuff goes into the brain, more and more of On The Road has been forgotten. Thus I guess it doesn't stand the test of time. Then again... I've never driven across the country, so maybe one needs that experience in order to... no wait, wait, I have driven across the country. Hmm... I've never listened to jazz in San Francisco? Listen: let me put it like this, reading On The Road is sort of like being a year into college, and you're having fun, and you're meeting new people, but you miss your old friends, and you miss the easy school assignments, and how little responsibility you had to deal with. You had this faux sense of happy nostolgia. Then you get a few years older, and then you're thinking, "No way in hell would I ever go back to high school, I don't care how hot Sunny Crane was, she's definately not worth going back for, especially if I have to sit through another damn calculus class."
On The Road: Sure Sunny Crane was hot in high school, but is she hot now? Don't know, don't really care to find out, cause there are other things on my mind.(less)

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07/27/07

Julie rated it:

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Richard Silberman, Sean Chiki, Courtney Miller

I don't wish to be hyperbolic, but Jack Kerouac may be (unwittingly) responsible for the national standard "The Ugly American." Believe me, I SO want to drink in the carpe diem, exploratory life-lust, but his rampant, self-indulgent Id-fest left many women, friends, and strangers in its wounded wake. His women are two-dimensional, holy-whore fan-bots; his friends are so much hog twaddle compared to his idol Dean; and his pursuit of adventure required much theft to fund it (even though...more

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02/23/08

Jessica rated it:

I read this book at the perfect time in my life, as though it had been written for me to read at that exact moment. It changed my ideas about traveling and really living life. It made me rethink my concept of what it means to be free. But most of all, it made me excited for all the adventures I had yet to experience.

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07/17/08

Schmacko rated it:

Read in July, 2008

They're like conquerors without a wilderness to claim, cowboys with no cattle to brand.

So much has been written about Jack Kerouac's On the Road, that I am not really going to write a review. I will pose my thoughts.

I think that for that half-dozen of people who know nothing about On the Road, I will say this. It's Jack Kerouac's most famous novel – Kerouac being the "King of the Beats" and the author who gave impetus to the Beat Generation along with the ...more They're like conquerors without a wilderness to claim, cowboys with no cattle to brand.

So much has been written about Jack Kerouac's On the Road, that I am not really going to write a review. I will pose my thoughts.

I think that for that half-dozen of people who know nothing about On the Road, I will say this. It's Jack Kerouac's most famous novel – Kerouac being the "King of the Beats" and the author who gave impetus to the Beat Generation along with the careers of Allan Ginsburg and William Burroughs. Kerouac's own muse was a sexy, reputedly well-hung man named Neal Cassady. (Kerouac was no slouch either – they made a handsome duo.) Kerouac and Ginsburg met Cassady while they attended Columbia University – Cassady didn't attend - in the late 1940s.

On the Road is a stream-of-conscious accounting of Kerouac's several aimless wanderings with Cassady. It's listed as fiction, but most people agree it's thinly veiled fact. Jack Kerouac wrote on a single long scroll of paper a rambling account of their infidelities, meanderings, drug use, bigamy, drinking, and general lawlessness. It is am interesting novel about post-WWII men lacking a frontier to conquer. It is about ennui, aimlessness, and the destructive ends that seeking adventure and ansers can lead you to. It is also about men making their own odyssey, and it has inspired generations of people to take to travel, to trust the kindness of the road without any destination in mind.

In short, it's a self-destructive tome that many people love for its freewheeling spirit, ignoring its self-destructiveness. I am not dismissing the fun Kerouac and Cassady, but I am making sure I also acknowledge their consequences, both of them dying before they reached the age of fifty. Cassady died at 42 from an apparent overdose of Seconal, and Kerouac died at 47 of cirrosis from heavy drinking.

I think the fascination for me is how people let themselves come to such ends. Some might say it is the sexy, dangerous devil in Cassady that somehow tempts others like Kerouac into ablative behavior. I think that the seeds of self-obliteration lie dormant in the person waiting for a Cassady or a bottle or a drug to come along and start the process. It's going to happen; the cause is unimportant. It happened with Verlaine and Rimbaud, it happened with Shelley and Byron. But it's also happened with Garland and studio-supplied drugs, Belushi and cocaine, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and a belt around the neck...

But this reductive, highwire lifestyle also encouraged Kerouac to invent a new way of writing, a voice that captured a new way of looking at the world and redefined a generation. His monologue of adventure across America several times and down into Mexico is hypnotic in its power to bring you along for the ride. It inspired so many others, not the least of which were Hunter S. Thompson and Jim Morrison – self-destructive people in their own right , but also, people who have created some incredible art.

And it all starts with a sexy devil who steals a car and says, "Hey, let's go to San Francisco."
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09/22/07

Bret rated it:

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: high school + college grads

Crammed into the seat of a college lecture hall, I daydreamed about 'Semester at Sea', a floating college campus that carries students from different schools to places like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Africa etc. etc. I begged and pleaded for enrollment but my penny-pinching father forbid me and refused to fund the trip. I swore that I would break loose the very instant I bubbled in the letter 'C' on my last final exam at Penn State.

At the end of the summer of '97, I roadtr...more Crammed into the seat of a college lecture hall, I daydreamed about 'Semester at Sea', a floating college campus that carries students from different schools to places like Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Africa etc. etc. I begged and pleaded for enrollment but my penny-pinching father forbid me and refused to fund the trip. I swore that I would break loose the very instant I bubbled in the letter 'C' on my last final exam at Penn State.

At the end of the summer of '97, I roadtripped from Connecticut to the West Coast in an '89 Ford Escort Wagon. My travelling partner was 'Styles'(I honestly can't remember his real name), a breakdancer from the British Channel islands who worked with me as a summer camp counselor after my college graduation in May. He wanted to see the country after being cooped up in a swampy, mosquito infested summer camp in the middle of the woods in Connecticut--basically a dump for neglected rich kids on ritalin. We had just been fired from the camp for drinking booze on our overnight (the first and only time we drank on the premises), with our campers deep-sleeping in a cabin nearby our celebratory, raging bonfire. Some ultra-conservative counselor snitched on us after I stumbled into the girls quarters to invite them to our little party. With my fraternity bonds still intact apparantly, my pecker did all the talking.

Anyway, we woke up the next morning without jobs and fled the director's meeting room for the Wild West. Styles brought a videorecorder so he could showcase his American adventure to friends and family back home, to all the 'blokes' and 'birds'. Our first stop was the Grand Canyon. Hours away from our destination, dark skies crept in so we slept for a couple hours in the car, too broke to afford a hotel room. We woke up to the Arizona sunrise, glowing beet red against a foreground marked by shadows of scattered boulders. I never felt so awake on two hours sleep. We drove onward toward the Canyon.

When I first gazed over the Grand Canyon, I felt strangly aware, for the first time in my life, of the presence of the native tribes who still live among us and consider the earth more of a home than we ever will: pure, raw, undisturbed and wild, yet accomodating. That night, we pitched tent in the Grand Canyon's state park campground and survived an extremely windy ice storm that nearly tore the stakes of my Coleman 3-man tent clear out of the sandy floor. The gusts roared through the vinyl fabric and burrowed into our ears, but we snored like babies, exhausted from seemingly endless hours of driving without sleep.

On to the beaches of Los Angeles, starting with Venice and then Malibu and Laguna. 'Styles' was sure to take plenty of footage of all the American 'birds' on the beach. Every few seconds he'd turn to me with his jaw dropped, as if he suspected that I knew of this paradise all along but preferred to stay trapped in a musty cabin, nagging 8 year olds to brush their teeth before 'lights out'.

"On The Road" brings me back to a time when I wanted to do everything before I was sure what I really want to do. I just took off and stopped when I couldn't go any longer but continued as soon as I could not bear to sit still another moment. Jack Kerouac captures the spirit of youth in "On The Road" and reminds me how incredible life can feel when I'm not busy making plans.

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07/05/07

Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0142437255)

Read in June, 2006

This novel was quite a change of pace from the last few books I’ve read. For one thing, it has no discernable plot. Sal Paradise, the main character, basically just romps around America with his buddy Dean Moriarty searching for fun and adventure. This book is great for three reasons. Firstly, Dean is one of the most interesting characters in literature, always seemingly high on something or another, digging everything and conning everyone. Second, it may be the only book I’ve ever read...more

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03/06/07

Cody rated it:

(review of isbn 0140283293)

bookshelves: americana, the-beats

Matt Weiland, in the NYTimes Sunday Book Review (19 August 2007), sums up my sentiments toward *OtR* precisely:

"Twenty years ago, like so many slack 17-year-olds before and since, I devoured “On the Road” and it devoured me. The pages of my copy were dog-eared, -nosed and -throated, and I was beholden to the book in ways I can’t quite believe now. Did I really go for midnight drives down by the ruined flour mills with the tape deck blaring Dexter Gordon? Did I really atten...more

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06/29/07

sarafem rated it:

bookshelves: novels, royally-sucked

I could try to review this better than Jessica, but I don't think I could rant so poetically. Let me sum it up in my own abrupt way: This book is a travesty. This book wasted approximately four hours of my life. The entire Beat movement is awful, and I tried really hard to like it, back when I smoked pot and clove cigarettes and thought Jerry Garcia and Jim Morrison were God and wore hemp necklaces and patchouli. I gave this book a more-than-fair shot, and it shot me back, right in the ass. A co...more

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04/14/09

Elle rated it:

(review of isbn 0670063266)

Read in April, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

The danger of dreams and ideals become clear in this book. What I mean is, if you believe you know what something is, if you believe the myth of it, whether it's a country, romance, another person, who you're supposed to be or even a book, you may spend all your time looking for reinforcement of your ideas and none actually seeing what is.

This book does that, it reinforces and sees in a strange lopsided mix. The main character Salvatore/ Paradise [Save Paradise?:] begins a quest in ...more The danger of dreams and ideals become clear in this book. What I mean is, if you believe you know what something is, if you believe the myth of it, whether it's a country, romance, another person, who you're supposed to be or even a book, you may spend all your time looking for reinforcement of your ideas and none actually seeing what is.

This book does that, it reinforces and sees in a strange lopsided mix. The main character Salvatore/ Paradise [Save Paradise?:] begins a quest in the great American tradition--by road trip, many of them. There's a longing in him for some deeper meaning or connection or understanding of life, American life, the country, a father, a home, the people sharing the same place and time, for love, to really experience life, to find himself. He often goes with or to be with his friend Dean Moriarty [Sherlock Holmes' nemesis/alterego?:]. He seems to seek a geographical solution to a metaphysical emptiness. He finds that the myth is hollow. When the white-haired prophet he has long awaited arrives, walking to him in the dark, the prophet says only, "Go moan for man." This book is the Ecclesiastes of a generation.

There is so much abandonment in this book. Neither of the main characters, Sal or Dean, have parents. None of the women Dean marries and has children with he manages to stay with, for long. They know lots of people but none of them well. They are constantly alienating people. using or being used by them, using everything up, including their lives. Everything breaks down--cars, relationships, bodies. They travel through so many places, drinking, listening to jazz, talking, talking, yet see so little of them. They pay attention to how they feel about each person, each moment, and that changes, is lost.

"I realized these were the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered l, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly n the sidewalks of life never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. All of it inside endless and beginningless emptiness. Pitiful forms of ignorance.... I gaped into the bleakness of my own days. I had an awful long way to go too."

Snapshots:

Sal talks to a girl on a bus, and asks her, "'What do you want out of life?' I wanted to take it and wring it out of her. She didn't have the slightest idea what she wanted.... 'What are we all aching to do? What do we want?' She didn't know. She yawned. She was sleepy. It was too much. Nobody could tell. Nobody would ever tell. It was all over. She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost."

"'It's not my fault! It's not my fault!' I told him, 'Nothing in this lousy world is my fault, don't you see that? I don't want it to be and it can't be and it won't be."

Before I read it, I thought this book was about the 60s, but the narrative finishes before then. I hope I saw this book for what it was. It seems the hunger for meaningful lives runs deep through the literature we call classics, a human hunger embodied culturally. It's good to know how others have perceived and expressed the trap of cultural expectations. I think I understand a little why it spoke to so many people, and still does.

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08/12/07

Fogus rated it:

(review of isbn 0140185216)

bookshelves: 2times, at-library, to-read-again

Read in September, 1997

As I grow older, I find this book to be 150 pages too long.
-m

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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""And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven."" More quotes...