On The Road

Rating:
Summary: Excellent work!!!
Review: This is trully a terrific book/story about a guy (and his friends) in search of their identity and meaning... I would (and have been) recommending this book to everyone who's looking to understand "what the world is all about" and our place in it...

Rating:
Summary: Very good book.
Review: First kerouac i ever read, but not the last. Definitely deserves to be a classic, but not in the sense that it should be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere like all those books by 19th century authors about heroes and their magificent feats that noone ever gets around to reading anyway. No, this book is much more modern and easy to relate to; a couple of guys (at times, more than a couple, at times, less,) who go off trotting around the country, doing drugs, getting drunk, and having all sorts of adventures (not one of which involves swashbuckling, which i imagine is much funner to see than to read about.) And for every event that makes you laugh, there's another that wil make you think, or damn near cry ( i remember a particular passage where sal is in denver after all his friends have gone away, wandering the streets, alone, and a girl thinks she recognizes him and yells out "hey, joe!", and, upon realizing that he is not joe, apologizes and walks off, leaving him alone again, about which he comments "i wished i were joe". at least, i think the name was joe, but that doesnt matter- it was a very striking passage, and probably some of the greatest out-of-context lines i could ever think of.) On the road is a deep, funny, passionate book about a bunch of beatniks living their lives as they please, and it has inspired generation after generation with it's strong message of freedom and it's in depth look at the life and times of kerouac and crew, and it can continue to do so if you'll just read the damned book and tell everyone you know to read it too.

Rating:
Summary: Vastly Overrated
Review: Knowing the high regard that so many people held this book in, I thought for sure I would be in for a real treat. I was truly disappointed in the lack of story and the overall writing quality of this so-called classic. Not only is the "story" uninteresting, but it's told in a very amateur way that uses poor description and sequence to describe an otherwise entertaining series of trips. I may have outgrown the novelty of the "beat" lifestyle since I am a little older now, but I think "On the Road" would have bored me even in the more nomadic years of my early to mid 20's.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite pieces of writing of all time.
Review: Though not truly indicative of the literary voice Kerouac developed in later writings, On the Road (along with John Clellon Holmes's overlooked GO) is a wonderful base for anyone wishing to address the lifestyle of the beat movement. Kerouac is frank and honest here. On the Road is the second version of a novel that he wrote three times (the first became nothing, the third became Visions of Cody). Recognizing the weight that had sank earlier versions of Road, Kerouac proclaimed, "To hell with this phony architecture! I'm just going to write it out all at once, as it happened." He did, and the Benzedrine and Johnny Walker Red spree that resulted became Road. This book should be required reading for any American--nay, any human--who feels young and exciting. One of my favorites of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Its O.K.
Review: When I bought this book, I was expecting to read the "magnificent book that defined a generation". But what I got was a book that was just....ok. Not all that great.

Rating:
Summary: Kerouac: The Anti-Caulfield
Review: I apologize to all the Holden Caulfield wannabes who read Jack Kerouac and think that he's a phony and anyone who reads him is a phony, but you can bite me. Reading On the Road in the midst of a national crisis and a time of complete American unity, Kerouac's poetry about the great continent that is America seems all the more appropriate, over fifty years later. Kerouac's voice is fresh and modern, ringing across the decades to remind one disillusioned reader after another that America the beautiful didn't die after Vietnam. Read it and learn, Holden.

Rating:
Summary: road to nowhere
Review: This book is pretty cool, I have to admit. I don't have a lot of patience for those who try to say it is one of the important books of the century though. The reason it is cool is because it doesn't pretend to know anything or have anything to offer. It's just a cross country ramble, a cool book long song with some real beauty in it, I love the Mexico part. This kind of writing turns on people who don't really normally like literature and that is fine with me. I like literature though, not because it pretends to be important but because it is a forum where people make sense of life and a novel is important for what useful insight it offers. On the Road doesn't really offer insight, it offers a momentary journeying away from the task of living and coping. That's why it's kind of a summer song, a great book for those taking a break from things. The road doesn't lead anywhere though, except away. This book is picked up by almost every American kid and maybe every European kid too but what people remember most fondly about it is not what was in the book but who they were and what time of life they were in when they read it. Jack is the perfect companion for that moment in life when it feels like there is nowhere to go and nothing to become but that moment passes. People find things that they value and begin to make a life around them, Jack never made a life for himself, he never got past the wandering restless and aimless phase. His moments of beauty are perhaps all the more powerful because we know and maybe he knew there wasn't going to be a next phase for him. Four stars because as a rite of passage book it has no equal.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant novel
Review: Yeah, I suppose I'll say this is a great book, cause it is. It just bothers me how many phony's think that if they read this it makes them a rebel and a free spirit.
Anyway, great book, completely different from anything you've read in the past. It's origanal and it's alive. But I'm not gonna waste my time plastering adjectives onto this site.
I'll simply say that it's a book that must be read to understand the 20 th century. It's a book that must be read if you're trying to improve your knowlege of literature. And it's a book that must be read if you want to change your life.
Neal is Dean and Jack is Sal. Not vise versa.

Rating:
Summary: Aimless drivel...........
Review: .........I apologize to Kerouac fans, but this book (what I could read of it) was just awful. If you haven't read it, know ahead of time that the "story" is PLOTLESS (i.e., pointless). Read it, I suppose, if you find yourself with nothing better to do than hear the lame tale of a bunch of guys taking a cross-country road trip in which little of any interest to most anyone happens. Deathly BORING, utterly puerile, complete nonsense!

Rating:
Summary: Not Really About Anything
Review: "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac is a thinly veiled autobiography of his days roaming around America in the late 1940s. It's an excellent example of a travel story, with all the inherent positives and negatives of the genre. Kerouac is disguised as Sal Paradise, a once divorced writer from New Jersey who spends most of his time bumming around with his friends in New York. Sal got the taste of traveling around while in the army during World War II, but doesn't take it up in earnest after the war until he meets Dean Moriarity. Dean is younger than Sal and meets him because he wants to learn how to be a writer. Like most things Dean wants to do, he quickly forgets about being a writer; but, his friendship with Sal is a lasting effect of that fling. "On the Road" is mostly about how Dean manages to seduce Sal with his constant energy and amazement at the world to undertake roadtrips all over the country whenever the wanderlust hits him. Sal is eager for these adventures, but only seems intent upon going when Dean is involved. "On the Road" is a perfect example of the best traits of a travel story. It contains many interesting exploits of Sal and Dean and the people who travel around with them. However, it also suffers the typical defect of these types of stories too: it is not about anything. There is no purpose or reason to "On the Road" other than entertainment. While good in what it does, this is the type of novel that Thomas Jefferson would have warned us all about because it imparts very little useful knowledge or information. "On the Road" can best be seen as a little slice of life in late 40s/early 50s America's youth. Those types that Kerouac writes about in this book were members of the beat generation. There have always been wanderers and travelers in the world. However, these particular ones were defined by their use of light and heavy drugs along the way. The drugs were intended to give the user a greater understanding of life much like western Indians belief in peyote. "On the Road" is not much of a thought provoking book. It's good entertainment; but, you won't be missing out on much if you don't read it.