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Summary: Being a younger fan it gave a well rounded view of life...
Review: This book is one of the greatest books i have ever read and will remain one of my favorites for as long as I live because it depicted the life and times of a wanderer... John Jensen
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Summary: sparks and sparks of imagination
Review: Reading "On the Road" took me to another time, another generation where money was not the singular most important thing in life, but it was life itself that was worth living. Kerouac and his hero venture into the land of freedom, the great outdoors, the enchanted hallways of sin and passion. What they uncover is the need to live every moment as if it were their last. As if nothing mattered but the answer to the question being asked. What beauty this story has to offer the person who wonders about the edge of sanity and the end of youthfullness. Imagination and realism is the true gift that Jack Kerouac offers us the reader, and asks only one favor from us in return, read without fear and judgement, and continue to question what does not appear to be evident.
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Summary: Unique classic novel of 20th Century American fiction.
Review: As a junior in college, I was hesitant to read a Kerouac novel because of the negative connentations associated with the "Beats". While contemplating reading "On the Road", a friend nakedly asked me, "isn't that book about drugs?" My reply "I don't think so", couldn't mask my nervousness about the content of "On the Road". Was I about to read another dated novel about a scene whose time has passed? Well let me assure the quisical reader that this novel is the complete opposite of tired and dated. Kerouac is an amazing, inventive, and charismatic writer who entertains with every word. I assure you this novel is as entertaining as advertised. The plot revolves around the adventures of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity(thinly veiled altered egos of Kerouac and Neal Cassidy) as they cross the country in search of an illusive yet ever present freedom. Enjoyable scenes1. Paradise's first trip from the East Coast to the West Coast. The descriptions are joyously vivid and intensely enjoyable. Wow! 2. Kerouac's descriptions of a jazz show in San Francisco. His enthusiasm for jazz is well-documented but this scene conveys the love for jazz like no other author has done before or after. Enjoy this novel with an open mind and a love for powerful writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Losers Without A Clue
Review: Okay, I tried. I figured I better read this Great American classic or suffer the consequences of being totally uncool and unhip for the rest of my life. I tried. I REALLY tried. I was 3/4 of the way down the road when I finally got sick of these losers whose inability to create any true meaning for their lives kept getting hidden under a romantic haze of just living free, going wherever your passions lead, and thumbing your nose at everything. I wanted to scream "Grab a life, any life, that has anything or anyone beyond your spoiled rotten little selves at the middle of it!" If this book reveals the soul of a generation, no wonder everything's so screwed up! Maybe it's worth reading just for that little revelation, but otherwise a total waste of time with totally irritating people.
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Summary: Greatest road novel of the modern era
Review: Jack Kerouac, particularly in "On The Road", is able to capture perfectly the rambling thoughts of a mind at ease, travelling with no particular destination. The first time I read "On The Road", I was in the middle of a two month cross-country-and-back journey, and though some 40 years had passed between his time on the road and mine, I still could look out the van's window and see the images he describes. Perhaps it was just the right place and time for his message to sink in, but I have to say that "On The Road" affected me more than any other book I've read, including "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", another of my all time favorite road books. All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the road, and who longs for the freedom that it represents. For an interesting look at "On The Road", read "Desolation Angels", in which Kerouac looks back at the time leading up to, and following the release and success of "On The Road".
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Summary: Still a Classic
Review: This is yet another example of a great book, that stuffy academics would prefer you don't read, due to it's free association like content. However, the experiences of the beats are both prophetic and bohemian. Rest all yee tired souls, and plop back into yee easy chairs with your Limbaugh letter, I'll take ON THE ROAD."The most boring people i encountered in America were professors, no, even more boring were their wives" Henry Miller
Rating: 
Summary: will always appeal to the adolescent male-no matter how old
Review: A much over rated book which, despite the rhapsodizing of its fervant accolytes, is destined to remain what it has always been a : a cult classic. Still, I enjoyed it after rereading it for the first time in 30 years. Kerouac and Cassady, Ginsberg et. al. had a certain juvenile, nihilistic, contempt for the dull, mindnumbing routine of modern life that will resonate 100 years from now. After rereading OTR, I got interested in Cassady and the Beats and read some memoirs about them, one by Cassady's wife. A not very admirable group - pathetic really. Ginsberg told Gore Vidal (read Palimpsest by Vidal) that Kerouac spent his last years drunkenly raging against "Jews and fags". Cassady died nothing more than a strung out butt-of- jokes for Ken kesey's younger and hipper Pranksters. Both Jack and Neal were bi sexual, a fact which Kerouac didn't dare mention despite his anti establishmant pose. This type of book will always have an audience like the early Jack London books, Melville's pre Moby Dick work and Robert Lewis Stevenson's adventure novels. But it is not great literature. If you like Kerouac, why not read the works of a similar but vastly more gifted writer, Frederick Exley. Start with A Fan's Notes.
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Summary: I lost interest in these people.
Review: Why this book is considered a revelation is beyond me. I tried to pay attention and wanted so much to care, but I could not. Kerouac and his friends put me to sleep. There is no substance here, merely some lame observations . I have even been to Kerouac's hometown in Lowell, Mass. and still cannot figure out what all the hoopla is about. I think this book is highly overated.
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Summary: Tomorrow Never Knows
Review: If you don't allow yourself to enjoy this brilliant narrative, then you are unable to, as another great narrator John Lennon put it, "turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream." This story is about living for the moment; not three-and-a-half minutes from the present, but this EXACT moment. Most of us are entirely uncapable of this. I am. Much as I try, I cannot inhale eternity in a single breath, and then repeat this with every breath I take. As innovative as his spontaneous prose was, I'm tremendously glad that he couldn't shrug off the immensely major, earlier influence of Thomas Wolfe (my other favorite writer), though he tried to work away from this comparison.
Rating: 
Summary: Hit the road Jack and don't come back no more!
Review: Being into music and movies of the late 60's and early 70's I ofcourse had to read "On the road". I don't no why (too young, too old, too european, too single minded, not easy to please,...) but I didn't find what is supposed to be so good, great, fantastic about this book. It just bored me.
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