Forum Book-Discussion On the Road

What makes the great books great? This forum is meant to explore that question. So what is it that makes this book great?

On the Road (Penguin 20th Century Classics)

List Price:	$14.00
Used Price:	$4.40

    

Product Description
On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.



Next Week's Book- 1984

I've never had the chance to read this book - I know in high school, some of the "more advanced" classes had to read it, but I never did; not only was it not assigned, but had it been, I wouldn't have read it: on the basis that it was a book required to be read in school. (I was never really any good at reading those books.)

Nevertheless, I've heard some interesting things about this book; but the neat thing about this book is its way it reminds me of that episode of Quantum Leap, where Sam Leaps into a biker to save this girl from, of course, doing something stupid - in the course of the episode "Jack Kerouac" makes an appearance.

I'm a little frightened of what will be written about this book, since it is one of my most passionate favorites. Its effect on me is not subtle (hell, I've got a line from the book tattooed on my chest).

What I will say on the book is simply, there are two wrong ways to read this book: Like a naive optimist, and like an experienced pessimist.

Too many people read the book and exalt Kerouac to the level of Beat God. The truth is, Kerouac was pretty reclusive himself (read Big Sur) and was probably one of the least adventurous of his group. He was more the scribe than anything. Give credit where credit is due, Kerouac did some amazing things, but he didn't have some Beat Gene that made him superior than anyone else.
The other mistake, to read it like a hardened old man, is the far extreme, and another huge misreading of it. Sure, some of what is in the book is made up, though the truth of it is, a lot of it is true, or at least a congealed version of the truth. But the book is published as fiction, and so, whether it's true or not shouldn't hinder the effect it has.
The book influenced a portion of a generation (and more) to live differently, to see that the American Dream has nothing to do with hording money and being safe. It's about taking risks. It's about moving forward in your own life. In whatever way that may take.

If you haven't read it, do. If it has no effect on you, that's a shame. Life is meant to be traveled, not just driven through.

I got the chance to read this book in one of my writing classes. What can be said about this book? It's a Kerouac classic. I really enjoy all of Kerouac though.

what do you think characterizes the book as Kerouac's? What is it that make his style his?

I mean, man, whither goest thou?
Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

Kerouac was poetic without being alienating. He sought truth and found that it was just "simple s**t" (the dharma bums) and not something to hide in big words with no meaning.

His style was analogous to bop jazz; frantic and masterful with great timing, and little thinking.

I can't say enough and if I could it wouldn't mean anything. The tao that can be spoken is not the true tao and the same goes for jack's writing as far as I'm concerned.

I've been meaning to reread this book again. I read it nearly ten years ago, and while there were parts of it that I enjoyed, for the most part, I just didn't get it. I know people for whom the book was a revelation. For me, it was just a way to kill some time. I think it's indicative of the problem I've had with many who were considred Beat writers: For some reason, I just can't get into them, despite knowing people who love and revere them. I guess it's just a style that you either get into or you don't and I didn't.

But that could change. I really do mean to reread it, since I felt I might've read it too fast or had other stuff going on that kept distracting me from it. And like I said, there were parts that I liked, so I didn't lump this in with the works of Steinbeck and Hemingway, writers hailed as American artists but whose writings I loath. Then again, "On the Road" also wasn't the revelation that it was for others or that, say, "Cather in the Rye" or "To Kill A Mockingbird" or even "The Great Gatsby" were for me. But I've read a few shorter Kerouac works here and there and I did like them, so maybe giving it another shot will yield different results.

i think this forum should feature more books like this, more-literature oriented books (though pulp fiction can always be a cheap thrill as well).
when i first read this i was 18 and on the road myself. the line about his old lady and him splitting was something i related to immediately...and i was depressed through most of the book and my time traveling. what i was looking for was not on the road; i think through the years, Kerouac discovered that the path to enlightenment was internal, not on the road. being on the road for me was very unpleasant and i never understood how romantic a thing Kerouac made it out to be. once i discovered William Burroughs my curiosity for all things beat ended. and then something else began...
it wasn't until years later that i found an old beat up copy of Dharma Bums that i reread On the Road and appreciated it from a more comfortable perspective. although i think that Dharma Bums is a more fun and superior book, On the Road plays like a modern day (well, for the time it was written) Oddyssey or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in its scope and representation of the traveling, wondering human spirit. it is almost a cliche now, the influence of this book. and for some, it is biblical in proportion. part of it is the liberation of the american mind and spirit. it helped to break the mold of the novel, the further deconstruction of what the 20th century novel became in the same sense as James Joyce's Ulysses and later, Naked Lunch.

let there be no doubt, this is a great book and as cliche as it sounds, every generation should read it.

other books i'd like to see in this forum:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Naked Lunch
Fahrenheit 451
Dhalgren
Gravity's Rainbow
Delta of Venus
Great Expectations (Kathy Acker)

i agree that Dharma Bums is kinda a more story-ish book. it probably has more knowledge in it too if you really want to get into j.k's head. he was really thinkin around that time, becoming less a scribe and more a participant/adventurer into what he thought was right.
both are awesome in writing ANd story and will change your life every time your read them. kerouac has a talking, you're-his-great-friend kinda feel that pulls you into whatever he's saying. he felt small things in big ways. he's just like that.
.d

A large part that grabs me about Kerouac isn't his overall style of writing, but how he makes it interesting through the ideas of what he is doing, which I can't say for too many other authors.
More people should read his other book The Town and the City - it's also really good.

I figured I should post this as well, just because the last post went off before this news article:


http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=entertainment&id=4405186

Caption: "Uncensored "On the Road" to be Published"

i wont critique on the road from a literary standpoint cause i cant but also cause thats wrong, it would miss the point. the book is just meant to be part of life, thats why it has affected so many peoples lives. so many of my friends and their friends gave me their Testimonial when they read it, i finally became like the last one of our extended group to read it when i was 20, and i got to admit that while i liked it... well it just didnt hit me like it did everyone else. it wasnt a Revelation to me at the time.
then 4 years later i pick up dharma bums one day and it changes my life, for good. it all depends on the timing.
though i did not have that life-changing experience while reading on the road, i did come to love it like only a reader can love a book, with all my heart. but i guess i will always have a higher place for dharma bums. and also visions of cody which if you read it is actually the un-edited version of on the road, which really was a compromise book just so that he could finally get published again after like 8 years of struggling.
so i guess my opinion is that as far as his style, he has better books than on the road, but on the road is clearly the best Introduction work to kerouac, and maybe even the beats as well, sort of the flagship. also, the period he wrote about in on the road was so perfect, so young and beautiful, and doomed to old age and death, and he knew it, which was the crazy thing.
his little moments to himself of prophesy and mysticism and playfulness are what i remember the most. it seemed very honest and very brave of him, to share that with us. like he's winking at us from way back when.

maybe you'll think this is balony, but maybe you'll dig it because it just is, but i was part of that scene, like, the littlest beatnik, and i saw it at the end of the scene, from '58 on, and i just wanna say in this here toodly-ooh that this is kind of how we talked and kerouac learnt to talk this way too and he was coming from half french canadian talk, so it's not like he didn't know that english was EVERYBODY's second language. and here he was, and the one thing that made us beat is that we didn't fit in, we were non-conformists and existentialists and time magazine called us beatniks and we called time magazine late for the bus, and we all were beat down shaped into looking like the farmer and his cow, we peeked out at the supermarket world of fine stuff and said fuckit, if i can't shoplift it, it's not worth having. we had friends and no money and some of us had stuff sometimes and we very much shared. kerouac had good friends and he couldn't have made it without cassidy, and when that friendship went down, blew each other and then didn't make that scene, jack went to find a neighborhood bar and drink in the quite strangers who don't know. jack's buddah was jack daniels, but he had a lot of very high literary friends and, too, maybe he did write that one little teeny book subterranians which does finally say bop.

think of the skummiest punk skum street kids and subtract acid and most pot and leave a little codine cough syrup, and heroin for some, and mostly cheap wine and candles and that notebook of thought-it-cidal madness and the explosion to want to just be alive even though you're too beat down to become professor and presidentoony of muggamoo university or even janitor, do nothing for more than a pack of camels and a joyride to frisco with your buddy.

[quote=Charles Konsor]

What makes the great books great?This forum is meant to explore that question.So what is it that makes this book great?

On the Road (Penguin 20th Century Classics)

List Price:	$14.00
Used Price:	$4.40

Product Description
On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.

Next Week's Book- 1984[/quote]

wow, thats cool.
the Subterranians was good, too...