Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: It's amazing for one reason: I just didn't get it. The whole book, the whole point. The whole Beat movement apparently. It was a quick read but not really funny or deeply serious. The character moved a lot, had friends that were a tad seedy, and never grew up. He never concluded anything, never had anything solid to call a life. If the beat generation was that hollow...I guess I just don't get it.
Rating: 
Summary: Nobody is as honest as Jack Kerouac
Review: In High School, one of my teachers told me that I should be a writer. "But I don't know about characterization, plot development" and all of those other dry writer things I cried. Well, Kerouac changed all that for me. My perceptions of what writing is, what fiction is, what the purpose of writing is, and perhaps the meaning of life was completely changed. Obliterated by this one man. Beethoven wrote "there is nothing higher than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race." Kerouac approached the Godhead so closely, and distributed those rays so perfectly that even the laws of grammar bent themselves to his will. If you do not read this book, you will never understand why Bob Dylan said "I read On the Road... It changed my life like it changed everyone else's"
Rating: 
Summary: Irresistable Momentum
Review: I like this book because it has a compelling momentum. "On the Road" is the fictionalized account of the real adventures of Neil Cassidy (Dean Moriarty) and Jack Kerouac (Sal Paradise). Karouac's writing is as fast as the cars that Dean steals or the time that Dean remains faithful to any particular women. The adventures of the main characters are fascinating and hillarious, especially when one realizes that they took place in 1948.I felt that the book reached a pinacle of sadness when the roguish travelers drove deep into Mexico for a few nights of drinking and whore chasing. Not only were they having too much fun, but one senses that they actually realized it. It was only a matter of time before the party was over, frienships began to disentegrate and reality set it. Although this book has a sophamoric humor, it is important to realize that Kerouac was a serious writer who was deeply influenced by Thomas Woolfe. Like Woolfe, Kerouac was fascinated by his childhood impressions growing up in a small American city. And like Woolfe, he later came to worship the open road and its range of possibilities. Kerouac's first book, "The Town and the City" was a bold and serious chronicle like Woolfe's "Look Homeward Angel". On the road marked his departure from imitating his idol and his emergence as a creative force in his own right. Kerouac's themes and his language will not appeal to those with rigid cultural and academic standards. But they are compelling, genuine, and as real a reflection of the American experience as those of other great writers such as Melville, Hemmingway, and Woolfe.
Rating:
Summary: WAKE UP!
Review: Written in Kerouac's distinctive emotion driven writing, it exemplifies the attitude of the beat era and brings to life the adventures of the most realistic beat of all, Jack Kerouac. The writing stirs the soul with it's constant poetic flow and can be related to, by just about anyone. The writing in On the Road, as in most of his books, is put down on the page almost exactly like it is thought up. I have never, ever wanted to grab a rucksack and hit the country more than after reading this book. Not that many books evoke a rucksack romp...but this philosophic journey into the depths of the human soul, spills itself across the United States and drips slowly into your heart. The most moving book I've ever read, right there with Catcher In the Rye!
Rating:
Summary: F'in amazing.
Review: I'm not sure I can really attempt to convey how amazing this book is. So far, it is the only book that once I finished it, I immediately started reading it. And I have a lot of books.
Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: this book is a masterpiece.I read it years ago and really enjoyed rereading it.It's definitely Kerouac's best work, although "satori in Paris" and "dharma bums" are also very good.there is just so much to this book starting with his very unique writing style and then the characters and the situations they get into as they roam the land.I just can't beleive these reviewers that are knockng it. they're probably n'sync and wwf fans.This is just a very powerful intelligent fun book. The only modern author with as much raw talent is Asher Brauner whose "Love songs of the tone deaf" is also a great book about similar characters in the present day.
Rating:
Summary: Suffers from its own reputation
Review: Before you read this book you have heard about it. You know that Kerouac wrote it all in one sitting, that he used a typewriter with one long sheet so he didn't have to change pages, that Kerouac was a hip cat and a tragic figure all in once, that the guy he's writing about later traveled with Ken Kesey. You know that this book changed lives. You know that this book epitomized the beat movement along with Howl and (with qualifications) Naked Lunch. That's the problem. It's not a horrible book. In fact there are some great passages, but after all that hype it can't live up to its reputation. Mostly it's Kerouac trying to follow Cassidy around country and getting lost. Much of it is forgettable when you are reading it. While the book doesn't drag, it doesn't seem to go anywhere either. Try to read it with an open mind. You might enjoy it or you might hate it, but try to ignore the hype.
Rating:
Summary: It's The Beat To Keep !
Review: my shrink gave me a copy of this book when i was coming to terms with the rejection of a rah-rah girl i spent a whole year chasing, a father who couldn't understand what it meant for me to be a writer, and a society that had no love for free spirits...i read it when i was a junior in college, then i actually did some traveling; i went to san francisco, right after a rotten semsester, just so i could check out the north beach area that jack referred to so fondly...i saw it and chinatown, and washington square, and city lights bookstore, the ghost of bob kaufman and ate chinese food and met wild beautiful crazy unapologetic souls along the way who were just trying to find their niche in this life, just like sal and dean. last year, i came out to san francisco, with two bags carrying all my poessions,my savings and brass balls, beacuse i always wanted to be here, to chase a dream...people who trash kerouac will never get the gist of what he was getting at; that there had to be more to america than picket fences, 9 to fives,raising rugrats, and slaving for a paycheck...i'm not saying that being a free spirit is glamorous and romantic,when i came to sf, i didn't have enough to get a room, i stayed in a shelter a couple of months. eventually i found a place and a job, because i wanted to be here, to write in san francisco. this book didnt offer any easy solutions(it wasn't meant to !) but it did show me that there were people like me out there that wanted to be happy on their own terms...its not for everyone, but then again, neither is John Coltrane's sweet poetry pouring from a saxophone... trane wasn't crazy and neither was jack...they just had their own way of looking at the world... i wonder if the rah rah girl still thinks about me, of if she became a trophy wife? as for kim in chicago,stop reading excrement like camus and get a life!...Thank you Jack. whereever you are
Rating: 
Summary: nothing worse than naked hippie?
Review: Got this book for 1 buck in a 2nd hand - still regreting it. To be fair, I havn't finished it since 2 years as it just bored me - so maybe there are great parts at the end of the book. as far as I made it it sucked. Maybe it was nice in the old times but its lame now. Better off with Naked Lunch or Fear and Loathing if it comes to Beat literature.
Rating:
Summary: Art and Life
Review: It's easy to say that 'this book' or 'that record' have changed your life dramatically. Its my belief that art, however it may be represented, will change your life no matter what. The degrees of change vary depending on the art's honesty and integrity, but also how much time the viewer/reader/listener actually puts into understanding the art. 'On The Road' has yet to reveal itself to me completely. I love what Kerouac writes, and can relate on so many emotional levels to what he says, but this novel has partially eluded me, though I've read it a few times. It was written for and by a much different generation, one of which I have next to no association with; But somehow, the words are meaningful because they are the truth...Kerouac's truth. Reading this book puts you in another era, and allows you to experience the life and travels of his character with ease that only a poet like Kerouac could allow. His writing style is beautiful and relevant, even to a detatched twenty-something like myself. On The Road is one of my favorite books simply because every time i read it, i learn something new. I love it because at once, it is easy and hard to follow. my life will forever be different because of this great portrait of a life and a time.
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