Rating: 
Summary: Mad to live, mad to talk. But worth reading?
Review: "...and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, made to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"" This is a sentence you do not read. You drink. You gulp and you lust for more. Unforunately in this nihilist anthem of the Beat generation, On the Road, there are few other pearls like this one. The madness turns out be commonplace and Sal and Dean's travels more pitiful, youthful folly than poetry. On the Road highlights a time when Sal is searching for definitions and a place, and where radical experiences with our friends often determine who we are. As Sal and his friend Dean pinball America as beat Bedouins, tilting for jazz, sex, and IT we hear Kerouac finding a rhythm that he would pound on his drum in the decades to follow. For many he defined freedom, and for a few a quasi-sustainable subculture called Beat. Kerouac's style is stream of consciousness, which sometimes works in the hands of master novelists (To the Lighthouse, Sound and Fury) but through others often doesn't. Here the results are mixed. Ginsberg and his crew largely built the mystique of this book on scattered gems like the one quoted here and misty extrapolations. And yet that is perhaps the beauty of it to so many people, for it is a flawed chronicle of travel and seeking but a magnificent dream. If you are searching for a book on the Beat era then this is one of the seminal works. However, if you are searching for a novel that reflects an authentic life journey I would recommend Siddhartha or Narcissus and Goldmund (currently OP) by Herman Hesse, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig, or Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.. They are all finer pieces than On the Road by Jack Kerouac. (Please Note: I, in principal, believe that the rating of reviewers seriously affects the altruism of the review process...
Rating:
Summary: A statement of life
Review: A few have been critical of On the Road for the absence of a point. Devotees have responded by saying that that criticism misses the point precisely. My advice would be to look for the cumulative effect. Compared with great literature On the Road is lacking, but it was not intended to be. Rather, examine On the Road as a slice of life. Ideally, your experience reading On the Road would be life-changing, but each of us is at different stages of life and therefore, we cannot experience it uniformly. Everyone should read Kerouac, to get a glimpse of history and maybe to understand a generation, another time. Recommended for anyone high school and up.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't Beat this Beatnik
Review: As many reviewers wrote when this book first appeared, On The Road defined the Beat Generation. This it certainly does, but it also does a wonderful job of showing the romance and tragedy of the people who were disillusioned after the Second World War and who constantly uprooted themselves and refused to settle down, hoping to find some purpose and to constanly learn about people and life. Kerouac's descriptions of his aimless travels throughout the United States and all of the characters who wander in and out of his story are all colorful and certainly captivating. For someone who knew little of this lifestyle before reading this book, it was a facsinating lesson. I do agree with another reviewer, however, that it would be interesting to read the text in the free form style in which Kerouac wrote the book, but aside from that minor detail I could not recommend this book enough.
Rating: 
Summary: For the hell of it
Review: For all its self-conscious hipness, "On the Road" is an entertaining read, though probably more so for guys than for gals. As you might imagine, it tells the tale of a lonely guy who bums around the country with some crazy characters for no particular reason, getting drunk, trying to meet girls, and living completely in the moment. Kerouac's flippant style is amusing, often quite funny in waves of cumulative effect, and made more engaging is his apparent understanding of the sadness beneath the fun. One can see where Truman Capote's tart quip that "this isn't writing, it's typing" comes into play, but nevertheless this is surely the most coherent of all the beatnik books. It's probably inconsistent in many ways, but who's bothering to keep track of all these friends? Overall, it doesn't mean as much as most people would imagine, but it is entertaining for the hell of it.
Rating:
Summary: Give it a chance - before it's too late!
Review: I remember reading endless blurbs about On the Road : '...changed the life of millions...' bla bla bla, so I took the plunge and read it, expecting the joy ride of my life. At the time I felt the reading was rather slow going and patchy in places and turned the last page feeling distinctly unchanged. However it was not until weeks later that I realised the profound effect it had had on me. While the influence of most books finishes on that last page, 'On the Road' left something behind. There's something warm at the roots of my consciousness that's still growing now, a year on. It's the reason I take that extra step to stop life being just a routine. And so now I understand it's power. I read an interview with David Bowie the other day, it's the reason he left his old life behind too, before he really went for life. Maybe if you read this book too late, when you're too stuck in your ways, it can't find a way into you. But I know it's changed me.
Rating:
Summary: There's Better Kerouac Out There
Review: Probably the biggest mistake was made by the editor, who insisted that Kerouac have punctuation and paragraphs. This work shouldn't have either. It should come out just as it did originally from Jack's typewriter - as one long scream. But what gets this book only three stars is the fact that the main character, Dean Moriarty, is neither particularly likable nor particularly funny. To put up with that for the entire length of a book takes a lot of patience. Good luck. There is an interesting sidelight, and that is the juxtaposition of cool and hot, the characters of Sal Paradise (the narrator) and Dean. They are like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, an unsettling union indeed. The book IS a good journey into the Zeitgeist of the Beatnik Age. What's the better Kerouac referred to in my headline? Try "Dharma Bums" or "Big Sur."
Rating:
Summary: eh.
Review: i have mixed feelings about on the road. while immediately recognizable as a revolutionary work and a culturally redefining novel, the book itself is really not that good. it is at times engaging and always inspiring and provocative. however, in revolutionizing the novel, keroac seems to have changed it a little too much. he forgot to make characters that mattered. perhaps that is his intention. he is clearly trying to narrate and describe the lives of many young men in a new era of boundlessness in the mid-century united states. however, keroac seems to be trying harder to write a novel about just how interesting he thinks he is. that's really his purpose. to talk about how cool he is in his own eyes. i could not have cared less about any character in this book. for all i cared, they could have all dropped dead and it would have meant nothing to me. maybe that's keroac's point. that these were men with nothing to care about and no one who cared much about them. but simultaneously, he should have tried harder to make the reader care about them, as to provide some new insight into their lives. keroac just provides insight into his pretentiousness.
Rating: 
Summary: Rotten Eggs
Review: My aunt gave me Kerouac's On The Road for Christmas. She told me that it was her favorite book...and I love Felinghetti and Borroughs...so I started reading it right away. Since then, I have attempted, on five unsuccessful occasions, to finish this book. The most deterrent aspect of the book, in my opinion, is the writing itself. I enjoy reading which appeals to the senses...where I can actually feel as if I am in the novel due to lush description and clever verbage. I was not afforded this pleasure, however, by Kerouac's writing. Sal Paradise read like an either like an insouciant tour guide or a boring, eager adolescent, dogging after his cool older brother and friends. The sporadic nature of the text also made the reading close to unbearable. Also, I feel that the author, at least in this particular book, lacks the edge that many other Beat writers possess. The characters come across as boring or neurotic. This book does remind me that life is short, but for all the wrong reasons. It also makes me what to take a shower...
Rating:
Summary: Truth, Adventure, Life.
Review: On The Road by Jack Kerouac is one of the most profound stories I have ever read. It speaks of truth. There is no plot, no storyline, no depth as far as a novel is concerned but the points made and the knoweledge and wisdom contained within the pages make up for a lack of story. It's really an adventure with no set climax or set problem. The book climax's several times when Dean and Sal are at the hight of their exuberance towards life. The problem is a recurring problem throughout the book. The problem is life, and how you can percieve it. This book did change my life and made me come to the complete realization that I can do anything and be happy, given the right attitude and insights. All in all, you will benifit greatly from reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: how it is (the book)
Review: Gonna try and keep it short. I read most of the reviews here, and some were negative, and there seemed to be an obvious similarity to them all. They were either mindless resentment(no offense), Or it was a lack of fully understanding what happened. This book was not a journal made on a drunken whim, but a story that took seven years to develop. Now when anyone spends a span of time like that, you know that they are going to be able to accomplish a feat like using the one large roll of paper to complete the novel. Also, to some this story seemed like the people were unchanging and lacked any development as the story prgressed without any sort of concrete ending, thats the idea, the characters are on a quest for the unattainable, like the knights of the round table searching for the holy grail with no avail whatsoever. "Road" is more than an isolated novel, but an installment of an ongoing epic! Finally, the characters seem seedy and sort of bad cos they are, they are human beings, they wallow in the filth like pigs should, they have an uncontrolable urge not burn their tender flesh in the hot sun like the culture surrounding them. And Kerouac, to some seems like the loser tagging along with the hip crowd because he was, Kerouac was an insecure outsider that tried to fit into something that he could somewhat be a part of, not to impress others, but to feel love from mankind. I could cover more ground on this subject, and strike at all the condecending points people try to make at this masterpiece, but it would waste everybodys time, so just enjoy this book, not with any sort of trend, philosophy, or any literary clout surrounding it , but with the love and compassion that this man, like many urned to express in the cold, timid, time these characters lived in. So just read, enjoy, and if the writing style is not your taste, then try to look at it for what it is, a cry for freedom and a want for something that is non existent. OPEN YOUR MIND AND LOSE YOURSELF FOR A WHILE/ IF YOU CAN
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