Rating:  Summary: Excellent Junk, But Junk Review: You won't be able to put this book down. It's hot, intense and exhilarating, like when you're hungry and are wolfing down a slice of great pizza. When you're done, however, the book leaves you with very little, other than the vaguely depressing impression that all of the characters in the book are criminally selfish, and all of their frantic endeavors amount to nothing.
Rating:  Summary: music of road Review: Some reviewers have criticised this book for having no real novelistic structure, others for its veneration of pointless wandering. Kerouak's real life certainly, outwardly, reflected a lack of structure, neurotic wandering and finally a self destructive self absorbtion. But this book opens the deeply imaginative and empathetic character of Kerouak. It is an in depth search for meaning in life in activity, observation and friendship without ulterior motive. His inner life projected into the Beat search for artistic expression and social relevance in a society with decidedly more normative and practical aspirations. Its poetic narration is seemless, almost flow of consciousness, but built on Kerouaks intense social and philosophical speculation. It requires a certain abandonment of traditional expectations of idiom, after which it flows like the wail of a frenzied sax over the radiating heat of the country's hiways.
Rating:  Summary: On the Road Review Review: "On the Road," illustrates the fact that American is greatly diversified by culture, geographical aspects, and other factors, which makes each area of the country pleasingly unique, thus satisfying the "typical" American youth's thirst for adventure and desire to intake all the great nation has to offer. It is this thirst for adventure, aided by the expansivness of the American transportation system, that leads any diversity-seeking traveller, to find just this, but to also find, that by common ideals, dreams, and hopes, all Americans are strangely unified and much alike. Yet this search for adventure and diversity, burns constant in the souls of some "bearded travellers" (much like the one mentioned by Kerouac, and which is symbolic of Dean), who live on the road, always embersed and driven by the hope of satisfying an eternal desire for more of absolutely everything, and for finding some sort of internal peace.
Rating:  Summary: across the land on a whim, with empty pockets Review: Fast paced observations by a hyper acute poet, a man of a physical nature who is not afraid to venture somewhere just because he feels like it-and for no other reason. Jack really paints a picture of a bygone America just as she was embracing the open highways, an America beginning to look like today's, culturally speaking. Really good and just melancholy enough.
Rating:  Summary: I guess I dig it Review: I read this book because of its outstanding reputation, and the amazingly cool guy Kerouac is supposed to be. the characters in the story have a lot of fun, they get drunk, they have "green tea" and they are all psychotic (not a bad thing in this case) but they have no direction...and I guess thats the point of the story--to have no worries, but its too unreal. by the end of the story I was getting angry at all the characters fer their lack of any regard for their actions (i. e. one was like twenty and had zillions of kids across the country). One very good thing about it is its accurate and rich portrayal of the Beat generation. The coolest thing about this book is the inspiration it gives to leave everything grab ten bucks and go to New York to get a job as a parking lot attendant :)
Rating:  Summary: I can't begin to explain how great this book is Review: I am reading this book for the third time. (So much to absorb) I can't begin to tell you how much I love this book. It is so far THE best book I've ever read. Very inspiring. If you have a soul and an open mind this book will knock your socks off! If you are a conservative or a conformist don't read this book, you probably won't enjoy it because it is so far past your level of understanding.Kerouac finds beauty in ALL people, bums, drug addicts, field workers...people that upper society spits on. A beautiful, adventurous and real story written by a true artist! I strongly recommend reading this book.
Rating:  Summary: Wow. Review: It has its own breathtaking and insane rationale, and carries the reader across the country and a generation at an absolutely scorching pace. A marvel.
Rating:  Summary: Jack is the best repesentation of American Literature Review: The war was over and the sixties hadn't happened yet. This meant that a generation of Americans was left asking, "what's next" how do we behave in this simplistic post war country. The fresh voice that would come into play was that of Jack Kerouac. He taught us to live for the moment, enjoy every facet of life and come to respect that long lonely road that connects the way off points of this great country. He spoke of a new fondness for nature, a love for jazz and a life riddled with booze and women. He lived it up with no regard for the contemporary norms or popular societal morays. Moreover, he taught us that there is more to life than the rudementary 9 to 5 lifestyles that we are bound to. I think that this book can easily change or save a life, much in the same way that it changed mine.
Rating:  Summary: The longest poem I've ever seen Review: Many people will read this book and say that it is an overrated story where nothing of real consequence happens. When you look at plot alone, that is exactly what it is. But, I think it is a book about writing. The writing is so flawless, so tight, so...right there that I couldn't help but be enthralled. I think everyone should read it once and see for themselves. There really are two ways of looking at this book, and readers should figure it out for themselves.
Rating:  Summary: Has a lot of power, but I wouldnt call it enjoyable Review: This is a novel that does not have any kind of plot you could describe, or a real narrative drive. It mostly deals with the theme of the pointlessness of life set against the context of cross country travel. The characters are all running from "Real life" and any kind of obligation or responsibility. It is depressing because nobody in this book seems to have a purpose to their life. I still appreciate it, because we all feel like that sometimes, and I think it is important to have documents like this that chronicle the way people feel and behave.
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