On The Road...again. This is my second read through of Kerouac’s classic. First time through I was mid twenties and on the road myself. That was thirty years ago. My experience this time was radically different, but just as striking.

What remained constant was Kerouac's prose. While it has long been fashionable to disrespect Kerouac's writing ability and style, I find his prose powerful, full of amazing imagery and surprisingly erudite allusions. This second time through I listened to it on Blackstone Audiobook, read by Tom Parker. Listening, it struck me that Kerouac wrote as Bebop jazz musicians played. On The Road is prose Bebop. Not everyone appreciates jazz, but if you dig Charlie Parker, you've gotta love these Kerouac riffs.

It was my reaction to the story itself that radically changed. Thirty years ago I read it as the story of cool, disaffected young men searching for freedom from a stifling American culture. But three decades later, having out lived both Kerouac and his muse Cassady, knowing how they died, knowing what happened to their children, more fully appreciating the perspective of the women they left over and over again, I read it differently. This time I read it as a tragedy of sad, lost and lonely young men, racing about, running from demons and adulthood, and breaking the lives of others while never coming close to catching that allusive freedom that they sought. It was in there all along - the sadness, loneliness, and brokenness - I just didn't highlight it my first time through.

This reading I especially noted the recurring theme of searching for Dean's derelict, missing father, never found. The longing for some connection with even this, the most pathetic of drunken father figures, stood out to me as a key to the entire novel, and was made doubly tragic as Dean continued to sow and abandon children all along the American road himself.

Both my original reading and my take this time through are in the book, but what I gleaned from it this time was far sadder and far more powerful than the simple tale of cool cats on the road. On The Road is where Bebop meets the Blues.

There is a apparent cult-following to On The Road which I believe consists primarily of college undergraduates, yearning for freedoms and ignorant of responsibilities, in fact ignorant still of their own human horrible-ness and vices, to which they bow before and in fact place on a pedestal as virtues: their egoism, their love of life, their uninformed feelings of uniqueness, and their likewise uniformed feelings of latent genius. These qualities are unbounded in the pages of On The Road, everywhere is something humanely horrible: selfishness, unconcern for others, privilege, lack of regard for the future, or rather fear of it. The story (if such a roving and episodic hodgepodge can be called such) follows the narrator, Sal Paradise, across and back the country twice or thrice over, either by himself or accompanied by the assorted members of his "mad" and "beat" entourage: Dean, Mary-lou, and some others (since no character in this novel has any depth of character, no defining characteristics, they are all interchangeable if not completely ignorable). It is a book wherein nothing happens, no one matters. It is the fawning portrait of Dean Moriarty and his laissez les bons temps rouler attidude (in which the good times of Dean often steamroll over the peace and happiness of everyone else). It is a paean of selfishness and self-indulgence, and unbridled privilege. There is something disturbing about the apotheosis of a homeless life by otherwise well-to-do white Americans - it is like Marie Antoinette commissioning for herself a little peasant village wherein she can pretend the role of servant. And that is the sojourn of On The Road: a disparate group of privileged white young people pretending the roles of the homeless and rootless, before returning to their gilded Versailles of American middle-class privilege; pretending the revolutionary before returning to the kingdom of convention (wives, houses, salaries).

While at times florally and ornately written, the book's content is appallingly paltry and self-aggrandizing. For a book so ostensibly the epithalalium of freedom and experience, what one actually discovers is the cloying ethers of vanity and voyeurism. The journey on the road is not a journey of self-discovery, but rather of losing oneself, of escaping. And the means to those ends are the cultural appropriations of vagabonds and Mexicans: which are likewise generalized and idealized for their candid primacy of instant-gratification (if not to say disgusting disregard for others), and recklessness. For Sal and many of the other peripheral sock-puppets which fill out the cast of On The Road, "life on the road" (a phrase repeated ad nauseum) is a vacation from ethical and personal responsibility: a place between: a moral limbo, where sin and suffering are concepts disavowed and put on-hold. It does not promote a culture of sexual freedom, but rather two separate cultures whose balance rely on a double standard: the home and the road, the law and the road, the future and the road.

And yet, there is no fulfillment in this paradisal limbo. It is a world which banishes consequences, but therefore cheapens rewards. Rather than championing experience, it depreciates it. Rather than gratifying their desires, it feeds the voids and requires of them more and more to sate their supposed and misguided desires. Dean, so often appraised as a saint, is neither that, nor truly a devil (he lacks the cleverness and intent to be credited even a fallen angel), he is simply the concretion of moral greyness, of disregard; not of good intent or bad intent, but of no intent at all. He is the incarnation of the Catholic view of original sin: he is born awful, it is his natural state, the unavoidable zero of humanity. The philosophy of this book is the philosophy of human horribleness, of human baseness, as the natural and unbridled state of humanity. It promotes the idea that ambition, goodness, generosity, fidelity, are not only unnatural to us, but that they are vices which keep us from the true virtue of our own destruction and the likewise destruction of the horrible company we keep.

I read this book as a teenager and fell in love with the descriptive imagery and likable, flawed characters traveling across the country. I am currently reading Lincoln Highway by Amor Towels and seeing the parallels between plot and adventure.

Taking place in the early 1950s, two friends hit the road across the country, stopping by and narrating their experiences. While not autobiographical, the story is based on Kerouac's actual experiences.

Many people found this book to be one-dimensional and lacking in depth. However, I found his observations to be honest and beautiful.

As a teen, I took to the road a few times, traveling from Iowa to Oregon with my family. I would journal my experiences only after being drawn to Kerouac's words.

Kerouac's prose takes you on the road with him, enjoying the sights, sounds, and experiences while simultaneously paying heed to the author's emotional vices, values, and sometimes staggering virtues.

n  I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future...And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great and snowy tops of the Rocky Mountainsn

I personally can't stand the characters. They cover up irresponsibility and real hurt to people in the guise of being artists. However, I do think there is more to this story.

Sure, they are jerks and they are bums and they are full of a lot of BS but as the book progresses, it becomes clear that they know it. These guys are also WW2 vets, and very dissimilar to the hippies who follow them, they do not have any anti-American or anti-establishment feelings. Also, they show a deep remorse and guilt over their actions. There is a shame, because they recognize what jerks they are. After several weeks of living with the mexican girl and her son, the narrator deserts her and he knows that he'll never live up to his promise to come back. He hates himself for this but it doesn't stop him. While he so desperately seeks to squeeze the wonder out of life, he lets everything really beautiful-such as love with a woman or any real human relationships slip from his careless grasp. The narrator as more of a terribly sad man, not just a happy-go-lucky thrill seker.

I do wonder about the real life Dean Moriarty. Did you realize that he was the bus driver in Wolfe's Electric Kool-aid Acid Test as well as mentioned in several Grateful Dead songs? Something about that guy really insprired the artisits around him.

As for the writing, it is beautiful and I think some of the best writing ever done about America. Googgle "On the Road Quotes" and reread a few of those. Its beautiful stuff.

I discovered Kerouac in tenth grade, right when all the kicks seem most dazzling, and I thought yes! This is the crazy bohemian life! And I spent the next ten years trying to be a Beatnik. I hitchhiked from Atlanta to Philadelphia just because according to this book that's the sort of thing one does. No one really hitchhiked, already, in those days; old hippies would pick me up looking bewildered. Well, and racist truckers, too, so some things never change. I would have given my left nut for some benzedrine, or barring that for someone at least to explain to me what the fuck it was. (Just as well that I failed on this front, because it turns out that it is meth.) I even replayed Dean Moriarty's shoplifting scene note-for-note. That's how seriously I took this book.

So you can understand that, as a pushing-40 guy who says things like "Man, it's 11, I'm beat," and means "tired," I was not at all keen to revisit this. It's a young man's book. "That's not writing," Truman Capote said, "it's typing." Oh God, getting drunk and talking about the snake of the world...remember when that felt dangerous?

But it's not totally silly, actually - I mean, it is, but not all silly things are pointless and there's nothing wrong with a snake of the world, intrinsically.

I see it now as a warning. Kerouac was hitting 30 when he wrote it, and you sense a desperation: "Where is my story?" You sense some manipulation, too. Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) is a mentally unstable man, and I think the Beats used him for stories. I was inspired by him when I was young; now I feel bad for him. I see that filthy bandaged thumb. Neither Kerouac nor Cassady lived to 50. (Although Cassady, astonishingly, had one more story in him.) I had a good time when I was young; I'm glad I've graduated to different kinds of good times now.

But this is a young man's book. All you beatniks, go out and hitchhike and be broke and desperate on the snake of the world. It's a kick.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac was one of the books that shaped my worldview in my early twenties. As a cornerstone of the Beat Generation, it resonated deeply with my own sense of restlessness and desire for something beyond the conventional. The novel follows Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty on their wild, unpredictable journey across America, fueled by a longing for freedom, raw experiences, and a deeper sense of self. Kerouac’s flowing, spontaneous prose perfectly captures the spirit of this search, making the book more than just a road trip — it’s a rebellion, a quest for authenticity, and a reflection on life’s possibilities.

Μερικά βιβλία τα εκτιμάς στην κατάλληλη ηλικία και αυτό είναι το πιο χαρακτηριστικό. Νομίζω πως αν το είχα διαβάσει στα 18 μου, θα το έβρισκα υπέροχο. Τώρα το βρήκα απλά καλό και μετά από ένα σημείο βαρετό. Το πιο θετικό ήταν ότι μου μπήκε η ιδέα - στόχος ζωής, ένα roadtrip στις Η.Π.Α.

MIO DIO CHE PALLE!
Avete presente quando eravate giovani e i vostri amici uscivano e passavano una serata molto divertente e voi non potevate, allora poi vi vedevate tutti insieme e loro cominciavano a raccontare storie e aneddoti della serata e voi, non avendole vissute in prima persona, non le trovavate ne divertente ne interessanti?
Ecco questo libro mi ha dato questa sensazione.

Oltretutto non succede niente di niente, è sempre la stessa storia. Ho dei soldi, chiamo Dean vado a fare il giro dell'America con lui, ci divertiamo ci droghiamo balliamo fino al mattino, Dean si stufa e mi lascia da solo, torno a casa poi ricompare Dean e si ricomincia tutto da capo.

They're just good ol' boys never meaning no harm, making their way the only way they know how, but that's just a bit more than the law will allow...

The characters of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On the Road are 20th Century equivalents of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer: boys having joyous American adventures. Sal and Dean trip (in more ways than one) back and forth from the east coast to the west, and down south even as far as Mexico, always looking to get their kicks. It's a free-flowing good time perfectly delivered in Kerouac's jazzy beat style.

Most of the book follows their ultimate liberation, psycho-philosophical, free-wheeling adventures bumming rides, seeing the country, scoring weed and drink, making it with real gone girls, and getting meaningless jobs along the way to further their desire to go farther, always farther. Only problem is, Sal and Dean are based on real boys. Oh sure, On the Road is called a fiction, but it is absolutely based on real occurrences and people, so much so that Kerouac had to be dissuaded by his publisher to print their real names. Sal is Kerouac himself and Dean is his friend Neal Cassady, an essentially motherless delinquent "raised" by an alcoholic and mostly absent father. Dean/Neal, a hyper lover of life, seemed to be a manic prophet, the words and ways of which Sal/Jack was happy to follow. So when these boys steal all manner of things (including cars) or shack up and knock up women only to inevitably leave them time and again for the road, one can't help but marvel at their unconscionable irresponsibility. It smacks heavily of nothing more that having fun at the expense of others. There's only so much hedonism you can take before you have to step back and ask, what's the point?

You couldn't pay me enough to re-read this baby now. Well, okay, I'd probably do it for £200. Alright, £100. Cash.

Kerouac took over from Steinbeck as the guy I had to read everything by when I was a young person. Steinbeck himself took over from Ray Bradbury. All three American males with a sentimental streak as wide as the Rio Grande.

Whole thing nearly turned me into a weepy hitchhiker who plays saxophone while he waits for a ride, then gets abducted by aliens who are these very kind blue globes, I know it sounds crazy, blue globes, right, & who take him back to 1922 where he persuades the boss of the local fruit farm syndicate to double the workers' wages and build a school.

They're like conquerors without a wilderness to claim, cowboys with no cattle to brand.

So much has been written about Jack Kerouac's On the Road, that I am not really going to write a review. I will pose my thoughts.

I think that for that half-dozen of people who know nothing about On the Road, I will say this. It's Jack Kerouac's most famous novel – Kerouac being the "King of the Beats" and the author who gave impetus to the Beat Generation along with the careers of Allan Ginsburg and William Burroughs. Kerouac's own muse was a sexy, reputedly well-hung man named Neal Cassady. (Kerouac was no slouch either – they made a handsome duo.) Kerouac and Ginsburg met Cassady while they attended Columbia University – Cassady didn't attend - in the late 1940s.

On the Road is a stream-of-conscious accounting of Kerouac's several aimless wanderings with Cassady. It's listed as fiction, but most people agree it's thinly veiled fact. Jack Kerouac wrote on a single long scroll of paper a rambling account of their infidelities, meanderings, drug use, bigamy, drinking, and general lawlessness. It is am interesting novel about post-WWII men lacking a frontier to conquer. It is about ennui, aimlessness, and the destructive ends that seeking adventure and answers can lead you to. It is also about men making their own odyssey, and it has inspired generations of people to take to travel, to trust the kindness of the road without any destination in mind.

In short, it's a self-destructive tome that many people love for its freewheeling spirit, ignoring its self-destructiveness. I am not dismissing the fun Kerouac and Cassady, but I am making sure I also acknowledge their consequences, both of them dying before they reached the age of fifty. Cassady died at 42 from an apparent overdose of Seconal, and Kerouac died at 47 of cirrosis from heavy drinking.

I think the fascination for me is how people let themselves come to such ends. Some might say it is the sexy, dangerous devil in Cassady that somehow tempts others like Kerouac into ablative behavior. I think that the seeds of self-obliteration lie dormant in the person waiting for a Cassady or a bottle or a drug to come along and start the process. It's going to happen; the cause is unimportant. It happened with Verlaine and Rimbaud, it happened with Shelley and Byron. But it's also happened with Garland and studio-supplied drugs, Belushi and cocaine, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and a belt around the neck...

But this reductive, highwire lifestyle also encouraged Kerouac to invent a new way of writing, a voice that captured a new way of looking at the world and redefined a generation. His monologue of adventure across America several times and down into Mexico is hypnotic in its power to bring you along for the ride. It inspired so many others, not the least of which were Hunter S. Thompson and Jim Morrison – self-destructive people in their own right , but also, people who have created some incredible art.

And it all starts with a sexy devil who steals a car and says, "Hey, let's go to San Francisco."

By a complete coincidence, a friend and I both read On the Road at the same time. Our literary tastes are usually pretty similar; so it was a surprise for me to find that he absolutely hated this book, while I quite enjoyed it.
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But it got me thinking: is On the Road a ‘good’ book? It’s certainly not a ‘good’ novel. There is very little character development; a monotonous plot; erratic pacing; hardly any dialogue. The story has no moral, no drama, and presents no interesting ideas. A tone is established on the first page, and it is carried on until the last. Simply put: if you like the style, you’ll like the book. If you aren’t interested by the third sentence, spare yourself and put it down.
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Perhaps On the Road is more profitably viewed as a kind of literary exercise or experiment; I think that’s what Kerouac was going for. This makes it rather difficult to evaluate aesthetically, since what are the aesthetic criteria by which one evaluates an experiment? The only criteria left to a reader is enjoyability. So is On the Road enjoyable?
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I think it is; my friend thinks it isn’t. You won’t know till you try. That’s almost all there is to it. But I’ll try to explain why I did enjoy it.
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For me, Kerouac’s sentences are refreshing and lively. The language just pops. But what really makes the language interesting is the contradiction between the style and the content. Kerouac uses very naïve and sentimental language to describe things that are far from naïve and sentimental. At times it seems like Kerouac is trying to romanticize the hedonism and depravity of his cronies. But nobody is convinced—not even himself. It’s too obvious that there’s something badly wrong. To pick just one example, Dean Moriarty—the hero of this book—steals cars and picks up 15-year-olds from high school, to take them into the mountains and take advantage of them. There’s nothing naïve or sentimental about that.
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On the Road is often held up as epitomizing the Beat generation. But all claims about books ‘epitomizing’ any historical period or generation or country or city sound dubious to me. Did everyone take a vote? And what gave Kerouac this marvelous insight into the lives and thoughts of thousands of people? Was he a sociologist? The idea that any book—however profound it might be—could summarize a generation is obviously the product of a bookworm. But it strikes me as mildly insulting to think that one novelist somewhere, sitting at a desk, could somehow capture the essence of Bob, the car mechanic 1,000 miles away, who just wants to make a living and drink beer on Saturdays with his neighbors. Point is: the world is a big place.
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But let’s just take it on faith, for a moment, and assume that On the Road did capture something essential about the Beat Generation. What, then, is this mysterious ether in which they dwelled? Maybe this question will be easier if we compare On the Road with another book commonly held up as summarizing a generation: The Sun Also Rises.
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There are similarities between the two. The most striking one is the hedonism in the two works. The characters in both novels drink a lot. A lot.
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There is also a sense of ultimate meaninglessness that pervades both works. But this nihilism is much more crushing in Hemingway. The Lost Generation were like survivors of a nuclear war, just drinking and waiting to die so the human race would finally end. But the Beats tried to take nihilism in stride. They take their hedonism seriously; they aren’t waiting to die, but trying to enjoy being alive. They’re always looking for new drugs, new girls, new friends, new cities, new music. This restless hedonism is what drive them across the country; it’s why they’re on the road.
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I can’t find anything really admirable in Kerouac’s worldview. It’s just too selfish. He and his friends mooch off every kindness showed them by strangers. They give nothing back; they are hardly even loyal to each other. They just want to get their kicks, get laid, and move on. Kerouac tries to justify this selfishness by showing us how ‘lost’ or ‘confused’ or ‘restless’ the characters are. This is not an excuse for being a bad person.
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So On the Road may not be a great guide to life. It may not even be ‘great’ art. But it’s a fun read.