Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet Kerouac
Review: Reviews on this book and its author tends to be polarized; some see it as a hedonistic travelogue on the road to hell while others see it as secular scripture depicting their idea of utopia. The irony is that both think On the Road is an attempt to glorify the nomadic, hedonistic adventures of Dean Moriarty, Sal Paradise & Co. And they're both wrong. There's no doubt the man could write. His knack for awakening the fantasy in all of us of the life of the romanticized drifter is uncanny and his ability to recall obscure, ephemeral thoughts and emotions that we all thought we were alone with, especially from childhood, is just this side of scary. But Kerouac clearly never meant to tell us with a straight face that the ideal life could be found in adopting the lifestyle of the shady drifter, shoplifting, drinking, drugs, romping with under-age prostitutes, peppered with endless acts of betrayal to stranger and friend alike. If anything, Kerouac is saying he doesn't have the answer either, though he drops hints of a desire for some kind of structure and loyalty in Dean's periodic efforts to find his father. But there is something out there, something better than this mundane, everyday life and both Dean and Sal are chasing "IT", by which Dean means those fleeting moments of nirvana life teases us with before tossing us back into the grind. What cosmic code do we have to crack to transform these moments into a permanent state of existence? Can it even be done? To Dean a life free of all distractions and responsibilities, the life he was born into, is the only way to find out. For Sal, the only way is to follow and catch the madness of mad-for-everything Dean. And this is the genius of On the Road, in capturing this tension, the exhilarating, bittersweet spontaneity of life on the road, which for some remains irresistible no matter how it ultimately and inevitably disappoints.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: Anybody who has even a passing interest in the beat generations, the hippie movement, or any sort of social counter-culture has to read this book. One warning: this book will make you feel like you've wasted your life if you've bought into the system.
Rating: 
Summary: Suck Fest
Review: Sorry, but I just didn't dig it. Reads like Jewel lyrics: pointless, amazingly unprofound, and overrated. This book doesn't do the beat generation justice - you bummed me out, Jack.
Rating:
Summary: A story about real life in a troubled world
Review: Kerouac gives us life "on the road" during a time of discontent in America. The Beats were the precursors to the Hippies, and had (I believe), a better direction and purpose. This book shows how there are those who grasp life and try to live it to its fullest, and then there are those in the establishment who want the status quo. This book is a real life account of a time where young people were starting to fear their surroundings, and some, chose to defy authority and do their own thing. An excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: forget the traditional novel!
Review: If you want the traditional novel with heroes and happy endings, then don't read On the Road. A book about people and their adventures across the country, On the Road describes Sal and Dean's search for their inner persona, while they listen to jazz and smoke up. I enjoyed reading the book, but I must say that the main characters only worried about having fun and forgot their responsibilities. No wonder why so many of us generation X-ers find this book great.
Rating:
Summary: Go thou and be little beneath my sight
Review: To appreciate this book you have to catch it at the right time in your life. I'm not talking age(though for most it's around eighteen), I'm talking about the limbo between responsibility and childhood. The ether-peak where you can see the world in all it's glory but have yet to figure out how to touch it. Kerouac was quite capable of putting things down conventially, The Town and the City, but he decided to go out and "roll is bones". For that he deserves more credit than he got. This book is great in its portrayal of The Beats' years before the maelstrom of fame hit them. It is the perfect romantic youth handbook. Read it before you take that summer off before college. Read it again before you go to Europe after college.(While you're in France read Henry Miller.) Read it, learn it, then throw it away and forget about it and live with a razor on your tongue and roman candles on your heels. P.S. The title and the "roll your bones" line are from a reading Kerouac did on the Tonight Show of the last page of THE book, with some improv thrown in. Much better than just ink and paper. Check it out in the box set.
Rating:
Summary: On The Road
Review: I found this novel one of the best novels I have ever read. I have always been a person that has thrived for experience and change. This novel brought out the best in me. It inspires me in so many ways I do not know where or when to start. Reading the novel makes me want to live a modified life of the one told in it.
Rating:
Summary: Listen Here, Please
Review: I do not understand those people who would judge works like this based on the writing style and plot and characterization etc. etc. etc... The meaning of works like this transcends anything that can be put down in any form, let alone the written English language. Do not read this book like you are reading a novel. Drop all the pretenses you have managed to build up around your precious intellect, and read this as a part of humanity. If you happen to read this before you get a chance to build any pretenses, then enjoy, because I know you will
Rating:
Summary: Art lives beyond its creator
Review: Okay, so the Beats were jerks. I know I wouldn`t have gotten along with them. I find their parasitic lifestyles disgusting. They are spiritual godfathers to all the droves of pasty-faced teens lounging and panhandling in places like Boulder and Seattle. I lead a rootless life myself and I don`t enjoy having to deal with the negative image of travellers that people like Kerouac have created. But that doesn`t matter. Because whatever I think of Kerouac personally, he created a novel of such energy and wild honesty that I always emerge from it with a freshness of spirit and passion. I have read no one, NO ONE, who better communicates the pain and joy of being a modern American nomad. Reading "On the Road" is like injecting Kerouac`s mind straight into my veins. And what an intense, confused, powerful, repugnant, wonderful mind it was. May he (finally) rest in peace.
Rating:
Summary: Not Out-dated At All
Review: Of course, I never have been the sort of person to think that something is less worthy of greatness because it's from the past. Even though I am 18. I'm having trouble thinking of words to describe this book, but every time I set it down I had a huge smile on my face. The flow of images across the whole country is incredible. Yet it didn't make me want to travel anywhere, just to experience my own everyday adventures with something like the wide-eyed wonder of Dean. To meet every person assuming they'll be interesting, and decide every single day that something interesting is going to happen. I've got a smile on my face right now in fact.
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