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Summary: "Wild Goat Cries to the Moon"
Review: Kerouac wrote this poem in less than a month, sweating profusely in a dish of hot angst as he beat his typewriter with finger fever. I couldn't comprehend the skill nor discipline needed to do such a thing and I was beside myself, literally.I read "On the Road" with a miasma of nostalgia sweeping over me every time I met up with Dean. Before days, I may have been comparable to Dean's exuberant drinking of life, but before days changed soon enough. So I relished the thought that I could have somehow, even as a percentage of a fraction, end up like Dean, experiencing this mad world with my lips to its udder. Now, Sal reminds me of me: the quiet guy who strains to hear each note (played or not) of every single instrument that life plucks and blows. (Though, Dean's been popping up, riling to go, every now and again.) I apologize if I seem to being going on a tangent, but for each person out there, there's a book somewhere that speaks to them, for whatever reason, more than anything else they could have ever encountered, and this seems to be mine. But to the book. The book, O! the book is a slide into the mouth of what dreams are made of. And essentially, this is why Sal goes on the road, meeting up with old cats that banged the clackers of streets along the way, for the universal search for something greater, something that awaited at the end of the road. It's not Gatsby's American dream, but the crazy dream of life, the dream that makes you want to "Howl" as it made Allen Ginsberg, and keeps you crawling out of your skin for whatever is next. You don't care what it is, as long as it is IT. Jazz, freaks, drugs, places and women, so many women piled up to the moon. You look at the moon and its round, never ending, and you realize, you're standing in the middle of this mad world, and you look down at your feet and hope they take you EVERYWHERE.
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Summary: It's all a matter of perspective...
Review: Genius or ramblings? Read it for yourself and decide. When I got to the line "the only people for me are the mad ones...the ones...who burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars" (found in the early pages of the first chapter), I was hooked. BB King once said that it's not the notes that are played that are important, it's the ones that are NOT played. You'll either hear what Kerouac was saying and be moved by it or walk away thinking he was a semi-literate fool. If you're looking for a linear, consistently paced book with logically developed characterization and an "A plus B equals C" sense of structure, don't go anywhere near that book. If you think that Miles Davis was a genius, buy it RIGHT NOW...and read it.
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Summary: I'm Still Reassessing It -- 25 Years Later
Review: I remember reading "On The Road" for the first time when I was 19 years old. It was the summer of 1977 and I had stayed on at college that summer, slumming it in one of the great college towns in the midwest. I picked up the book (on the recommendation of a roommate) and read most of it all the way through (I actually never finished it). I remember being awestruck about the hypnotic quality to the prose, how it immediately took me in and lifted me off the earth with the whirlwind ramblings of the author. It seemed to follow a direction I had come by, leaving the New York area and traveling westward, west by midwest. And it had a great impact on me at the time, getting me into a series of road trips where I seemed to have magical adventures thumbing, bussing, and train-trekking around the eastern and midwestern parts of the U.S. What mostly struck me about the book was the celebration of the placenames, road numbers, and idle landmarks of ordinary America, transforming mere informational objects into ones of legend. Abel, Iowa, had been elevated to the stature of a place of Herodotus, a Thebes or a Mycenae. Because of this book, I took to memorizing road numbers and places they went through and imagined great journeys along U.S. 6 (which Kerouac mentions early in the book), U.S. 421, U.S. 41, and U.S. 20, a road which I ultimately drove 400 miles along and on which I wrote and published a piece in The Sunday Boston Globe. Recently, I began listening to music and reading books from the 1970s, trying to understand what they meant to me at the time, and if they still have the same impact. A recent read through "The Catcher in the Rye" took me back to forgotten days of hanging around the Biltmore Hotel bar in New York, trying to pass for 18. The book still seemed as fresh as ever. "On The Road" is mixed, however. On the curious side, what strikes me right away is the number of places that Kerouac describes that were mysterious and suddenly discovered for me while reading the book for the first time -- only to have become part of my intuitive understanding of America in my years of rambling and reading since. An example would be the approach to the Sand Hills of the Nebraska Panhandle which is alluded to in Chapter 4: "...the verdant farmfields of the Platte began to disappear and in their stead so far you couldn't see to the end, appeared long, flat wastelands of sand and sagebrush." I know this area (west of Grand Island) now and understand where it is. It is more an exercise of recognition rather than a magical awakening to something not known. Similar cognitive moments came with the reference to the Bear Mountain bridge over the Hudson River and the Piney Woods area of the Texas-Louisiana region. This brings a whole new perspective on the book and the great country that Kerouac writes about. On a less satisfying note, Kerouac's language seems forced, as if he is trying to assume the role of the ingenuous wayfarer rather than to actually journal the way he takes it in. While some of his writing is eloquent in its simplicity, it seems he is spending a lot of effort trying to become a wide-eyed, ineffable character like Big Jim in "Huckleberry Finn." And it does not seem genuine at this reading. He uses verbs like "whoop" too liberally, and repeats descriptions of characters and events several times, hoping to maximize their effect, only to render them jejune that so much effort had to be expended on them. So I don't know what to think of "On The Road" at this point. Having gone on to more mature authors, I see that Kerouac was an insipient part of my life reading journey, really only getting me started. I now understand a lot of the criticism "On The Road" has come in for over the years, although there can be no eluding the fact that it is a very, very important work, one that gave voice to modern minimalism in art, music, and fiction, and that memorializes the great diversity of people and places in the U.S., and, of course, to quote an earlier review of the book, one that celebrates "the poetry of being."
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Summary: I used to hate America....
Review: Well...perhaps I didn't HATE America. It's the land of the free, home of the brave, and of course, MY home. However, before I read this book, I had very little interest in travelling around my own country. I thought that we were a horribly plastic and boring culture. However, this book (though over half-a-century old) reminded me that America is made up of PEOPLE. All people have stories to tell, and Jack Kerouac makes that very clear and vibrant. I just wanted to jump in my car and race across the country after reading this book. I suddenly realized that were sights to see, things to do, a wonderful world out there that I was missing out on. Kerouac writes with an amazing amount of energy and speed, bringing the reader into the craziness that is "On the Road". What is even more wonderful is that Kerouac based this book on his own experiences. That means that in some sense this all has happened, and yes, in some sense, could happen again. I know of plenty of cross-country trips that Kerouac has inspired within my own little circle of friends and acquaintances. See what he does with your life!
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Summary: the definitive novel of the Beat generation
Review: What can you say about this classic novel that hasn't already been said? Kerouac's "On The Road" stands with Ginsberg's "Howl" and Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" to form the the trio of literary works that defined the generation that changed America and her writers forever.
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Summary: The High Life in the Simple Life
Review: The Dharma Bums, the book I would curl up to after having a bad day and read for relaxation, was an amazing book. This book, written by Jack Kerouac, eased tension and put me in a mood of utter happiness after putting the book down. Kerouac really wrote a masterpiece with this book. The book reflected how Kerouac lived his life: free of worries and nothing in his way but himself. The character that represents Kerouac is Ray Smith, the man in search of the Dharma, or the truth. His search for Dharma entails multiple stops at clubs where Kerouac's writing engulfs the reader and they are surrounded by a world of drunken poets who just ramble, almost incoherent poems that have messages so large the reader can't help but be enthralled by it. The descriptions of these poetry readings were just a few of the many scenes in the story that had imagery so powerful that I actually felt as if I was drinking with the poets or hiking through the mountains with Japhy, surviving on the bare minimum. Then came the Buddhism, the aspect that gave the book its purpose: an almost self-help type of novel, that after reading, makes you want to do something to make your life better than it was the day before and just keep on ascending. Kerouac showed that even in the simplest type of lifestyles, this type of happiness can be achieved through self-reflection and freedom from the drawbacks of mainstream society. This is a book that belongs the book shelf of anyone who enjoys books that make you want to get out and do something and even if that isn't the case, The Dharma Bums is just an all-around good book to read to get you in a good mood.
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Summary: Kerouac's 'On the Road'
Review: The strength of this book stems from it's authenticity. It tastes life rather then fiction. Some of the chapters are awfully long, and there are perhaps too many subplots. Embedded in this are glimpses of wonder.
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Summary: Great story told blandly
Review: After a split between he and his wife, writer, Sal Paradise works up the nerve to leave the mundane comforts of his aunt's house in New York for a new life of exploration on the great American highway and falls in love with it. Usually at his side is his soulmate of sorts, Dean Moriarty, a former reform school kid incapable to maintaining responsibilities and leaving his wild life. Jack Kerouac's On the Road recounts several adventures of Sal, loosely based on the author himself and Dean, loosely based on fellow beatnik author Neal Cassady, in five parts. On the Road is considered a third of the holy trinity of beatnik writings, along with William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch and Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems. It is the one that certainly portrays the world in which the beat generation lived the best. Kerouac presents a glorious America of unforgettable adventures, interesting living and traveling arrangements and memorable characters for anyone willing to shed their domestic responcibilities and experience it. My favorite scenes include an encounter with strange, drug-addicted deadpan philosopher Old Bull Lee, loosely based on William S. Burroughs; Sal working as a straight arrow among a bad-tempered, white bred police force; Sal and Dean, finally jaded with the American highway, entering Mexico and Dean finding himself at the scrutiny of the wives of the men he tutored to be wanderers. The catch is Kerouac's expressionless narration, free of any literary elements. The book is simply a recitation. It makes the book a difficult read and not in the challenging ways Howl and Naked Lunch are difficult reads. The book is usually interesting but never gripping. Kerouac may have an interesting story to tell but he is no gifted writer.
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Summary: An American masterpiece of energy & youthful mania
Review: Almost fifty years ago now, Jack Kerouac decided to tape together a bunch of sheets of paper to form an endless scroll he could feed through his typewriter, so that he would be able to keep writing his story without having to change sheets or even look up. The result is an American masterpiece of energy and youthful mania as Sal Paradise and his friends criss-cross the continent in search of kicks. It's very difficult for an author to capture a moment in time with precision, but Kerouac does more than that: he captures what it is to be young and striving for the open road, to see new things, to gather new experiences. That's why this book is still so appealing. The only comparable book for today's On the Road fan is Brauner's Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf. It's also a great book of youth, funnier than On the Road, but it remains to be seen whether it will also stand the test of time as On the Road has so well.
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Summary: Kerouac at his beatnik best
Review: I read this book on a whim, only because I had heard so much about it. I wasn't disappointed at all.. the story follows the narrator Sal Paradise through his journeys with his best friends across the country mainly in beat up convertibles. The only other thing that comes close to capturing the sense of desperation of the young was the movie "Swingers", which seems to reinvent this book in a slightly different manner. "On the Road" is truly brilliant, not to mention an inspiration to anyone looking to make a long road trip, and is a great read.
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