I was in school at the Merchant Marine Academy. I was nineteen years old; a Georgia boy. I had no business being there. The deal at the academy is that you do six months of your Sophomore year and six months of your Junior years at sea. At least that’s how it used to be. I hear they are on trimesters now. Who knows? Anyway, it was this sea year that attracted me to the school in the first place.

So I’m nineteen, heavy boozer, balls to the walls so to speak. I was coming unhinged having to deal with the life of being me all hemmed up in Navy uniform and creating little or no art. I didn’t realize the importance of the art thing until later in life. I was just running a muck really, with no balance whatsoever.

It was time for me to leave for sea. Shiny black FBI shoes walking down military barrack hallway. Hair tucked under garrison cover, hands full, I walked passed Devon Ryan’s room. His room was like a diorama. You would walk by, and what was going on inside went on totally and completely without any regards to the rules outside. It was as if it were a neat and tidy exhibit of some other time and place. He and his roommate Greg Harper were a perfect match.

Greg’s favorite workout included one hour of hard weight lifting followed by a shot of scotch. Run three miles whilst smoking one cigarette per mile, without stopping mind you, and then back to his room for a quick one two alone in his room just before Devon got back from machine shop. All this toped off with scotch of course, and all the while smoking non filtered cigarettes, all the while smiling under curly brown locks, leaning back and making off handed remarks about how Harper is a black name. Greg was the kind of guy I always wanted to learn to be. He seemed bulletproof to the ill effects of society or labels or whatever. Greg always seemed wise beyond his years to me.

Then there was Devon. He was Irish. Long Island Irish, which if you ask me is a different kind of Irish altogether, meaning that there is a culture of Irish people living on Long Island and it is their separation from Ireland that binds them together over here. When I first moved up to New York from Georgia, people would ask, “Where are you from?” and I would respond “Georgia.” “No, I mean what are you?” “I don’t know, a RedNeck maybe.” What they were looking for was Welsh, I am welsh, but then again, my being welsh isn’t nearly as important to me as Devon’s being Irish is important to him. He was Irish, and you could tell just by looking at him. Right down to Cheshire grin on round face, Devon was as Irish as any guy I have ever met.

Devon stopped me as I walked past with bags in my hands. “Hey man,” he nodded me over. Smoke filled the room. Greg and Devon each smoked unfiltered cigarettes and just ashed on the floor. They weren’t dirty, in fact their room was as consistently clean a room as you would ever see. They just smoked, ashed, and swept it up. Greg sat in his khaki uniform pants, imitation leather shoes with white socks, and white tee-shirt, smoking a butt and whittleing two dogs fucking out of a piece of balsa or something. Devon, clad in full sweats, and smoking a butt as well, brought me over to his desk. He opened the top drawer, and as usual there was little more than a single pencil and a couple pieces of paper, but this time there was also a book. Oh what a book. He picked it up and studied it for a second. He absorbed it, as if he had to say goodbye. Put his cigarette in his mouth and handed it right over. “Here, this is a book you gotta read. But you have to promise me something, you have to give it to someone else when your done. This is one book that needs to keep moving and touch as many lives as possible.” He made me promise, and he was serious about it. I took him seriously.

I didn’t read it until I was on my second ship. The S/S “Louise” Lykes. I read it during the ocean crossing; I read it three times in a row. It was as much a revelation for me as it was for anyone else in orbit around the philosophy it represents. It didn’t bring me balance though. Oh no, in fact I would say that it threw me more off balance than I already was at that time in my life. Oh well. I didn’t like Devon asked and gave the book to someone else, never reading a word past the three times I read it crossing the Atlantic.

I wanted to be Dean. Who wouldn’t? Dean Moriarty. No limits, no curfew. Bullet proof and on the run, Dean was that guy who was always aware of what went on late at night after I had already cashed in my chips, and somehow by virtue of that had a handle on everything all the time. He’s always cool, no reason not to be when the bases are loaded and Dean’s at bat. We all know he’s gonna knock it out of the park, and don’t bother hitting on the prettiest girl cause he’s gonna knock that out of the park as well. I didn’t have a good idea of what Neal Cassidy looked like at the time, so to me Dean looked like Greg Harper; rough, but with an inner beauty that outshines his scars and imperfections.

Years later, about eleven years, I was working on this pre-positioning ship parked near Ascension Island. For those who are unaware, a pre-positioning ship is one that sits with military cargo loaded and ready to go to wherever it might be needed. I had been used to working on ships on the move, so getting used to the sedentary lifestyle aboard a “pre-po” took some getting used to. I had a habit of going up and talking to the third mate Brett Smith while he was on watch. I sent my emails up on the bridge at the same time every day, and so after a short time I became friends with him and the AB who was on watch with him. They were both good guys, and as luck would have it we each had similar music tastes.

Eventually we got into books we liked. Of course I had to talk all about Salinger. I probably went on and on about Hemmingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson, and so on and so forth in that fashion. Bret was right there with me though. See, I don’t just go on like that when I feel like the person I’m talking to has no clue what I am saying. When I meet someone like him who has read many of the same books like that though, it’s like a burst of conversation, because I mainly enjoy and appreciate these books alone. Finally it came up, “On the Road, there’s a book I need to read. I haven’t read that in so many years.” I don’t think we even talked that much about it. Brett just looked at me and knew my dilemma.

Brett went home not long after that. A week later a package showed up at my door. He had sent me two books. One I wanted to read, and one he wanted me to read. The other book was “Confederacy of Dunces” and I liked it. The other book a vintage paperback copy of “On the Road.” It was Yellow. It smelled like old book. On the cover is a guy making out with a girl on top of an old Chevy with a flat tire and a jug of wine. I was afraid of it at first. I had been on a Tom Robbins kick and just kept avoiding it. Finally I read it. Again. It was entirely different this time. This time I saw something different. This time I knew that I was different.

I’ve since been working my way through the Legend of Duluoz.

This is probably the worst book I have ever finished, and I'm forever indebted to the deeply personality-disordered college professor who assigned it, because if it hadn't been for that class I never would've gotten through, and I gotta tell you, this is the book I love to hate.

I deeply cherish but don't know that I fully agree with Truman Capote's assessment: that _On the Road_ "is not writing at all -- it's typing."

Lovely, Turman, but let's be clear: typing by itself is fairly innocuous -- this book is so awful it's actually offensive, and even incredibly damaging.

I'd be lying if I said there aren't parts of this book that're so bad they're good -- good as in morbidly fascinating, in the manner of advanced-stage syphilis slides from seventh-grade health class. Keroac's ode to the sad-eyed Negro is actually an incredible, incredible example of.... something I'm glad has been typed. For the record. So we can all see it clearly, and KNOW.

Please don't get me wrong! My disproportionately massive loathing for Jack Kerouac has zero to do with his unenlightened racial views. I mean, it was written in the fifties, and anyway, it's great that he was able to articulate these ideas so honestly. No, the real reason I hate this book so much is that it established a deeply retarded model of European-American male coolness that continues to plague our culture today.

I could go into a lot more depth on this topic, but it's come to my attention that I've been using my horrible addiction to Bookster to avoid the many obligations and responsiblities of my daily life, to which I should now return. So, in closing: this book SUCKS. This book is UNBELIEVABLY TERRIBLE. And for that very reason, especially considering its serious and detrimental impact on western civilization, I definitely recommend that you read it, if you have not suffered that grave misfortune already.

This may be the most diffucult book to write a review for that I have ever read. On one hand I feel like it will take several pages to describe, and on the other I think where can I find a handful of words to describe how I feel. Twenty seven of my Goodreads friends have read this book and their ratings range from 1 to 5 stars. While reading this my opinion ran through the entire range as well. But somewhere late in the book I realized that I would give it 4 or 5 stars. It's uniqueness demands it, it's boldness demands it. Kerouac's novel gives us a snapshot of a generation, of a segment of American life, of a certain group of people that are depicted nowhere else in literature, as they are in this novel. And what connects Kerouac to the reader so well is knowing that he is not just writing, not just observing, he is participating, he is living this crazy life with these crazy people, because crazy is what they were. But Kerouac captures it perfectly and leaves it for us to read, to feel, and to enjoy or not.

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، در داستانِ "در جاده" یا "در راه" .. شخصیتِ اصلیِ داستان، <سالواتوره پارادایز> هم راویِ داستان است و هم همزادِ نویسنده یعنی "جک کرواک" به شمار می آید... سال پارادایز، از زنش جدا شده و افسرده و منزوی شده است و به یکباره تصمیم میگیرد دل به جاده زده و راهیِ مقصدی نامشخص شود.... در راه با جوانی به نامِ <دین موریارتی> آشنا میشود... رفتارِ پارادایز، زمین تا آسمان با موریارتی تفاوت دارد.. موریارتی جوانی پُر شر و شور و سرکش است و به هیچ عنوان زیرِ بارِ پند و اندرز نمیرود و اخلاق مداری در وجودش خاموش گشته است.. ولی عجیب است که پارادایز، با آنکه از موریارتی بزرگتر است، ولی از گفتار و کردارِ این جوانِ سرکش، تأثیر میپذیرد
‎این دو، به این نتیجه میرسند که زندگی میتواند در جایِ دیگری باشد.. بنابراین بی هدف، از این شهر به آن شهر رفته و بسیاری از شهرهایِ کوچک و بزرگِ آمریکا را سپری کرده و میگردند... به نوعی، بدونِ هیچگونه هدفی، تسلیمِ حوادث شده و به هرکاری دست میزنند تا اصالتِ وجودِ خویش را بشناسند... سال پارادایز در پیِ اصالتِ خویشتن است و موریارتی جز این خواسته، در پیِ اصالتِ خانوادگی و پدرِ گمشدهٔ خویش... ولی مسیرِ هردو به یکدیگر گره خورده است
‎هردو، بی مسئولیتیِ کودکانه را میپسندند و لذتهایِ زودگذر و جنسی را ستایش میکنند... نوشیدنِ مشروب و کشیدنِ ماری جوانا، دزدیِ خودرو، رانندگی با سرعتِ بالا در جاده ها، همه و همه برایِ آنها زندگیِ پُرهیجان و بی قید و بندی را ساخته است
‎سال پارادایز و دین موریارتی، بابتِ لذت بردن و بی مسئولیتی، هیچگونه احساسِ پشیمانی و عذاب را در وجودشان حس نمیکنند و همین موضوع، داستان را از تکرار و کلیشه، رها ساخته است... نویسنده، بیشتر تلاش کرده تا زندگی به روشِ مصرفی و بی مسئولیتی و البته هیجانِ زندگی را به خواننده نشان دهد
‎عزیزانم، بهتر است خودتان این داستان را خوانده و از سرانجامِ آن آگاه شوید
----------------------------------------------
‎امیدوارم این ریویو، در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

This was just okay for me. I liked the idea of the novel more than actually reading it. The characters came across pretty entitled and selfish. I wanted to see a story of self discovery and growth, instead it was lacking either.

Kerouac's masterpiece breathes youth and vigor for the duration and created the American bohemian "beat" lifestyle which has been the subject of innumerable subsequent books, songs, and movies. I have read this at least two or three times and always feel a bit breathless and invigorated because of the restlessness of the text and the vibrance of the characters. There was an extraordinary exhibit at the Pompidou Center earlier this year where the original draft in Kerouac's handwriting was laid out end to end in a glass case. It was like seeing the original copy of Don Quixote in the royal palace in Madrid - very moving. In any case, there is no excuse not to read this wonderful high point of mid-20th century American literature.

Re-read and found both beauty and sadness in this work. The sadness stems from the sexism, racism, and homophobia expressed throughout the book. Sign of the times, I know, but it is still painful to see that these Beat visionaries - for all their open-mindedness towards other religions and sex and drugs - still expressed such backwards views and attitudes sometimes

As for the beauty, the story of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty crossing the US again and again with a last trip down to Mexico City is epic.

"I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night, with all the gang, and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was "Wow!" (P. 37)

I have driven from Florida to San Francisco by myself and back again when I was in college and felt that Kerouac captured the enthusiasm that the memory still evokes in me:

"I thought, and looked every, as I had looked everywhere in the little world below. And before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent" (P. 79)

The descriptions of bebop jazz are absolutely astounding throughout as they listen to Prez, Bird, Dizzy...
"The pianist was only pounding the keys with spread-eagled fingers, chords, or at intervals when the great tenorman was drawing breath for another blast--Chinese chords, shuddering the piano in every timber, chink, and wire, boing!" (P. 197)

The writing makes you feel the musics energy pulsating and driving - that is one of my favorite aspects of On the Road:

"Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired forms in the dawn of Jazz America." (P. 204)

Other moments are surreal and yet moments I have known many times:

"Just about that time a strange thing began to haunt me. It was this: I had forgotten something. There was a decision that I was about to make before Dean showed up, and now it was driven clear out of my mind but still hung on the tip of my mind's tongue." (P. 124)

Or the feeling of mystery:

"This was a manuscript of the night that we couldn't read." (P. 158) and those that do not share their trip on the road "they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned." (P. 167)

I perhaps just ignored it in my previous readings, but this time I was struck by the heroin references. Old Bill was off in the bathroom tying up and yet taking care of his kids (alarming!)

Perhaps the predominant mood and attitude of the book and Kerouac's view of the period is summarized on Sal's 3rd trip to San Francisco:

"I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it. I realized it was only because of the stability of the intrinsic Mind that these ripples of birth and death took place, like the action of wind on a sheet of pure, serene, mirror-like water. I felt a sweet, swinging bliss like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein; like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes you shudder; my feet tingled." (P. 173)

Kerouac captured the spirit of the Beats who would later become the hippies of the 60's (but without the Vietnam War) in both its glory and its squalor. The book is both beautiful and uplifting and desperate and depressing. Regardless of how one reacts to it, it is truly one of the great works of the expression of the American spirit in the post-WWII period.

I told my friend and the co-owner of a bookstore I frequent that I am planning on doing a Kerouac binge just to do it, and we both agreed that I’m a psycho. I told him it’s because I don’t know if I’ll ever be in my late 20s again. He said you never know, anything is possible. I don’t know man… I’m sceptical. Either way, after finishing this one, the binge might be something to delay for a while, but we will pick at it slowly.

By god there is a lot here, and I struggled with the final rating, but I think that there are just enough gratuitous chunks in here that would warrant knocking off a star, so we’ll settle for 4. So there I was, plodding along and reading this, not doing any external research on the book. I was tired of being asked if I had read On the Road. The answer was always going to be no until it was yes, okay? Either way, I finish it and look it up just to see that Dean Moriarty is not Dean Moriarty at all! Why, it’s Neal Cassady. Old Bull Lee is William S. Burroughs and Carlo Marx is the legend that is Allen Ginsberg. And of course Kerouac (Sal Paradise) had gone and used all of their real names in the first draft and had then been told to stop being stupid and change it all up. Some of the shit that’s in there, my god. How could you use their real names? I guess he didn’t care. And I guess that embodies the whole movement.

The real touching moments here that stick with you, the ones that make you get a lump in your throat, are the ones that simultaneously showcase the power of the abandon of youth and the passage of time. There is a fulcrum somewhere in the time we spend with friends and lovers (of youth, anyway), and the scale is finely balanced. It’s not tilted too far back into immaturity, but it’s sure as hell not tilted into boring adult maturity. The characters like Dean Moriarity, they have a way of exerting their influence on you and riding that fulcrum until kingdom come. They’re so charming and represent everything that we want to see in ourselves. We project, we imbue their living beings with what we feel we lack in ourselves, and to us, their lives are everything we wish ours could be. Until it shifts. And then, suddenly, you don’t invite them out anymore. You don’t want them around you and the boys and their partners. They always seem to bring the mood down by trying to inject some faux energy that no one is about anymore. It’s just sad. They’re the ones insisting that the gang gets together again, one last time, for ole times, and then they take it way too far by drinking too much and playing Queen before you’ve even left the house. Makes me feel all blue, if I’m being honest.

Why? I never took a liking to the Dean Moriaritys of my group, though there were a few of them. The rest of my pals? They did, for sure. The guys would hang around them and be enamoured by their charm, and the girls would love the easygoing nature. There is beauty in there. But then there would be a sudden realization that these Moriaritys were rampant alcoholics, nicotine junkies, borderline sociopaths (I’m talking real sociopaths – I’m talking get drunk and try to fuck a friend’s girlfriend sociopath). This realization ended it all, alongside all the reminiscences that came along with their name. And I guess… I don’t know, I guess I just feel like I’m one of the few ones in my group that still remembers a few of them from time to time, knowing that they are still struggling with whatever they struggled with, with the only difference being that we don’t find that cool anymore. Or maybe that’s too self-serving. Maybe we all remember the Deans and all simultaneously feed into this group-wide moratorium that has been placed on speaking about them. Either way, maybe the only thing that is wrong in their lives is that we don’t deem their antics worthy of putting on a pedestal anymore. Is that really their fault?

And you thought nowadays hipsters were strange

Why don´t just drivel about everything that comes to mind
Without much caring about second thoughts in an autobiographical stream of consciousness overkill? Well, because hipster gods like Kerouac and William S Burroughs aren´t just too freaking cool to listen to the music of the day. But also believe that they´re ingenious literary prodigies that don´t need anything taming their rhetoric diarrhea. Heck, if anyone today would just write whatever comes to mind, with an added political and philosophical undertone, the person would be trolled to pieces within hours. But in the good, old days

This was the hottest, new batshit crazy progressive hit
Don´t get me wrong, sociocultural evolution is important, but it should be somewhat substantial too. It´s hilarious that Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and old Greek and Roman satire real life theater screenwriters created well charactered, fine plotted, and smartly built works that have been copied and refined over the centuries and millennia. And then hipster Beatnik authors come along, think that they´re better than everyone and everything, and instead of using the treasure troves of old classics of social criticism, are too lazy and megalomaniac to just create a modern interpretation of these concepts?

It´s not their fault, but Beatnik authors ruined the image of postmodernism by the way too
With great, good works they could have done the same as the cynical and dark satires of the late 20th and 21st century, combining giggles with deep insights about what´s wrong with society. So, they rebelled too hard to understand that protests against social norms and governments aren´t the same as the art of writing. By ignoring and rejecting the millennia old storytelling rules, what audiences expect from literature, and being so egoistic as to not even consider the immense work of plotting, editing, and rewriting, they not just ridiculed the concept of satirical writing, but of postmodern art too. By that they

Fuel the argumentation of the conservatives
Because dark satire and sarcasm have the potential of transforming whole societies by enlightening much more people than just boring them by criticizing and telling the sad truth. Comedians, comedies, and adult animation like South Park and Rick and Morty go full frontal in your face because they are smart and deep. Ignorant backlashers use the bad stuff like the Beatniks to show how unsubstantial and irrelevant the extremely important messages of progressive thinkers are, they Jordan Peterson things like critical race theory, cancel culture, and woke movement. Thanks for all of that, you freaking high hippie hipsters.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

I honestly had trouble finishing this. Not because I hated it but I just didn't feel very into it. While I was reading it I was somewhat engaged but I never felt like I needed to know what happened next. I think the stream of conscious style of writing in this book actually made it harder to forget I was reading. The book isn't that old but it still felt like it was speaking an older dialect that I could recognize but not easily understand. The way it ended also felt unsatisfactory but I can't really put my finger on why. I thought I would enjoy this a lot more but maybe I've outgrown the phase in which a book like this feels impactful.

The Birth of Modern America
11 December 2016

tOne of the main reasons that I decided to read this book, other than the fact that it happens to be a modern classic, is because I was reading an article in a Christian magazine that was complaining about how this book, and the motor car in general, is responsible for the promiscuous, permissive, and licentious society in which we now live. Mind you, this particular magazine pretty much made me want to puke, especially when you came across an article by some guy (and it was usually a guy, never a girl) who carried on about how bad he was, and he got so bad that he landed up in a huge amount of trouble, but then he found Christ and all of a sudden his life was turned around. Okay, some might be asking why, if I happen to be a Christian, am I trashing this particular magazine – well, because it happens to be a complete load of rubbish.

tAnyway, enough of the reason as to why I ended up reading the book (and the other reason was because I wandered into a bookshop in Paris looking for a copy of Hemmingway's A Moveable Feast, and upon discovering that there wasn't a copy of that particular book, or in fact any book by Hemmingway, I decided to get this one instead, particularly since upon seeing it I was reminded of that incredibly annoying article that I read) and onto the book itself. Well, as it turned out the person that wrote the article probably didn't read the book at all because firstly it isn't about a single roadtrip, but about four, and also the main character (which happens to be Kerouac) doesn't own a car but rather relies either on buses, on his friends, or simply hitchhikes to get form point A to point B.

tHowever, what this book does happen to be is a road trip – in fact it happens to be the original road trip. Sure, Willy Nelson might have written a song about a road trip, however the theory is that if it wasn't for this book the multitude of road trip movies (such as Thelma and Louise, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and of course Easy Rider) would never have come about. Mind you, I personally believe that is rubbish namely because if Kerouac didn't write this book then somebody else would have come along and written something similar, it is just that Kerouac managed to beat all of the other authors to the punch with his classic story of how he travelled from New York to Los Angeles and back again, from New York to San Francisco, and from New York to Mexico City where he landed up with the Mexican version of Dehli Belly, and was deserted by his friend (though this particular friend didn't seem to be the most honourable of people, especially since he seemed to have multiple wives and girlfriends).

tOn the Road is apparently the book that thrust the Beat Generation into the lime light, though interestingly enough the Beat actually refers to a group of writers as opposed to a generation as a whole (such as the Baby Boomers, or my generation, that being Generation X). I also suspect that the Lost Generation, that is the Generation of Hemmingway and his cohorts, was also a literary generation as opposed to a generation as whole. However it is interesting how people of an older Generation do tend to have an influence on those of a younger generation – Kerouac was influenced by Hemmingway, who in turn had an influence on the Baby Boomers despite the fact that he was of an older generation. Mind you, when I was young it was the Baby Boomers that had an influence on me, though more the celebrities than my parents. However, we should also remember that writers such as Lewis and Tolkien were from the 'Lost' generation as opposed to the 'Beat' or even the Baby Boomers (of which artists such as David Bowie were members).

tOne thing that stands out from this book happens to be how it seems that it was the beginning of the America that we now know, that is the America of the automobile and of the sprawling suburbs. In a way what the car did, or more specifically the cheap car that could be bought by the average punter (though it sounds as if Kerouac and his friends bought the 1940s equivalent of the old bomb and used it to travel about America). The interesting thing is that this is an America before the interstate highways, an America that is still developing and trying to find its feet and its identity. Sure, it had just emerged victorious from the Second World War, and had also emerged as the superpower after Britain was effectively bankrupted (and also saw its colonies, bit by bit, claiming independence), but it still hadn't really developed the identity that it eventually developed by the sixties and the seventies. However, what it also did was effectively became a car culture, which is a culture of individualism – having a car meant one have freedom, freedom to do, and go, wherever one wants to go, however there was a problem, namely that this place never seemed to exist – Kerouac travels from New York to California a number of times, spends his days in Denver, which seems to be the centre of the United States, and then frees himself further by going South of the Border and dreaming of going even further beyond – having the ultimate freedom to travel as far as the tip of South America.

tHowever these dreams seem to be stunted – he ends up with Dehli Belly, and is deserted by his friend, Dean, a number of times. However it also seems that Dean seems to drift from woman to woman, from place to place, and from friend to friend, not having any real roots. We see the same with Kerouac as well, especially when he begins to settle down with the Mexican woman in Los Angeles, but then decides to dump her and return to New York. This is a new time, a time where people can pull out their roots and travel where-ever. Before then people rarely, if ever, travelled too far beyond their home. Yet, the interesting thing is that when one travels, when one pulls out their roots, it is very hard to put them back down again. I discovered that when I moved cities, that the roots that I pulled up had a lot of difficulty being planted again – sure, I have made new friends, but there are times and elements that I do not understand because I have not been around. There is a Website – Adelaide Remember When – that sits in my heart because I grew up in Adelaide, yet a similar website for Melbourne, Sydney, or even London and Paris, wouldn't have the same effect on me. Well, okay, London and Paris might be a little different, but I never grew up there so I don't have a personal connection with the past of any of those cities.

tIn a way what Kerouac is exploring, even if he it being intentional, which I suspect he isn't, is how we are beginning to become disconnected from place. Sure, he lived in New York, but in reality he come from abroad. However, what the car has done is that it has made it even easier from him to pull up his roots and to travel about. I have been on road trips myself, the longest going from Adelaide to Brisbane via Melbourne and Sydney, and back again. There is something liberating about letting go of life and jumping into a car and simply driving, even if one doesn't even have a destination in mind. In fact piling your friends into a car and going on a roadtrip is a bonding experience, as I have discovered on numerous trips to Melbourne and back again. However, things have even gone further with the advent of the commercial airline – now we can simply jump on a plane and simply anywhere we wish (though of course there are some restrictions, particularly when it comes to obtain a visa to enter certain countries, particularly if you happen to be from a country where the passport really has little, if no, power whatsoever).

tAnyway, what better way to finish off this post than with a picture of a place where Kerouac seemed to finish off his journies: Times Square.



The Real Hipsters
12 December 2016

tThe funny thing is that after I had posted this review I suddenly realised that there was something that I forgot – the hipster. In a way it is really amusing reading about hipsters in a book written over fifty years ago. Well, that probably shouldn't be as odd as I think it to be namely because hipsters seem to be very retro in character to the point that retro is the new cool. Mind you, the hipsters of Kerouac’s generation weren't the retro lovers that the millenials are namely because the scene itself simply didn’t exist. In a way what the hipsters in Kerouac’s day were doing were setting the trends for the future – they were the members of the Beat Generation that laid the foundations for the sexual revolution and the era of flower power.

tI have to admit that this whole retro hipster move is interesting in and of itself, and there are a lot of aspects about it that I really enjoy – the second hand clothes, in fact the second hand everything, which probably has a lot to do with them living in ridiculously overpriced innercity housing. However, it isn’t just the second-hand fascination that drives it, but also the coffee and craft beer craze and the smashed avocados and eggs benedict (which is my breakfast indulgence of choice, though I can't stand avocado). Oh, there are sliders as well, but I think there was a time when you wouldn’t get anything like that on a breakfast menu, and people were happy with instant coffee (if you wanted good coffee you would get plunger coffee) – now you can buy your own coffee machine.

tYet this wasn’t the hipster movement of Kerouac’s age – they were bohemian, which is a sophisticated way of saying poor. Okay, not every poor person is bohemian since bohemians also tended to be artists, or wanted to be artists but never actually got a break. Even though Kerouac did get a break it wasn’t until at least ten years after he finished his book, and eventually died of alcohol poisoning pretty shortly after. However, the bohemian artist seemed to be driven by their art, but not only that, they also lived the poor lifestyle, as we encounter in this novel. Here Kerouac basically scabs lifts and when he runs out of money panhandles (otherwise known as begging) to get some more, even if only to get home. Mind you, it isn’t as if he is destitute, he still earns a stipend from the government for his military service, so it is enough for him to be able to live the artist’s lifestyle (which certainly isn’t the case today – if you try that you would be labeled with the term dole bludger and the like).

tWhile Kerouac may not have introduced the hipster, or more precisely ‘Ned Kelly' beard, there is one thing that this book has taught me – how to wear a tie and still look cool (not professional, cool):

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Two American Wanderers

Kerouac's "On The Road" Is an outstanding work to think about on America's Fourth of July. The following review dates from 2007 and would undoubtedly be different if I rewrote it today.

In the fifty years since its publication in 1957, Kerouac's "On the Road" has become an American classic. The book will bear a variety of interpretations: different readers have found and will continue to find many ways or reading and understanding "On the Road." Some readers see the mad journeys of the characters in the book as a seeking, religious in character. Other readers, see the protagonists as out for "kicks", "gurls", and wild times. Some see Dean Moriarty as the hero of the book -- as the protagonist of a new way of life which became known as 'beat'. (The term "beatnik" is not used in "On the Road".) But it is also possible to read "On the Road" as a rejection of Dean Moriarty and the life he represents. I have read this book several times, and with each reading have got something new from it. It is a passionately written work with a tone of poetry, bop, and movement. Oddly, the book didn't impress me when I first read it as an adolescent many years ago, but it has become one of my favorite novels.

"On the Road" is an autobiographical novel. The two major characters are Dean Moriarty who is based on a figure named Neal Cassady (1926 -- 1968) and Sal Paradise, the first-person narrator who is based on Kerouac (1922 -- 1969) himself. (Some early readers believed that Moriarty was the Kerouac figure, resulting in a serious misunderstanding of the book.) The action of the story takes place between 1947 and 1950. When the novel opens the reader hears Paradise's/Kerouac's inimitable voice: "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead." Moriarty was born in Salt Lake City and had spent much of his youth in pool halls, reform school, and in prison, from which he had escaped. He came to New York City with his 16 year old wife, Marylou and met Kerouac and his friends. In following Moriarty with his energy, restlessness, endless movement, and sexual libido, Paradise thinks he might find his way out of his sadness and purposelessness.

The book tells of the friendship between Paradise and Moriarty and of their many reckless journeys back and forth through the United States. Paradise first travels alone, by bus and by hitchiking, to catch up with Moriarty in Denver and in San Francisco. Throughout their trips, Moriarty looks for his elderly father who, as did his son, lived a life of vagrancy and criminality, and was thought to be wandering as a hobo or in jail. The two, in the company of others, travel back to the East coast, to New Orleans, to meet "Old Bull Lee" (William Burroughs -- the author of "The Naked Lunch"), to San Francisco and Denver again, through Chicago and Detroit, back to New York City, to the West coast, and to Mexico City, where Moriarty, for the second time in the book abandons Paradise who has become ill with dysentery. In the final scenes of the book, the two wanderers have a reunion of sorts in New York City before Moriarty heads back to San Francisco to resume living with his second wife whom he has just divorced.

The book proceeds at a frenetic pace as Moriarty drives recklessly from coast to coast, usually in cars he has borrowed. The book shows the breadth of America as well as the questing of rootless, troubled individuals with no particular place to go. "Whee, Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there," says Moriarty at one point. "Where we going man?" Sal asks. Moriarty responds, "I don't know but we gotta go."

Besides the broad, travel scenes, "On the Road", includes detailed descriptive passages of many individuated scenes -- jazz clubs in San Francisco and New York, seedy all-night theatres, small hotels and road side stands, cold water flats in New York, a brothel in Mexico, and much else. There are strong characterizations of several characters in addition to Moriarty and Paradise, including Moriarty's three wives, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Ed Dunkel and his wife Galatea -- who delivers a stunning rebuke late in the novel to Moriarty and his way of life. One of the finest extended passages in the book is the story in Part 1 of Paradise's brief affair with a young Mexican girl named Terry, which begins as the two are passengers on a bus to Los Angeles.

But the focus of this book is on Paradise and Moriarty and on how Moriarty changes Sal Paradise's life. Paradise is a writer who has just published his first novel. (Kerouac's first book, "The Town and the City".) Paradise is torn between the fast-paced, romantic, woman-filled life he sees in Moriarty and his own feelings for a more conventional, settled life with a purpose -- as represented in "On the Road" by the character of his aunt. Paradise admires Moriarty deeply for his energy and attempts to maximize experience and optimism, while he is also troubled by Moriarty's violence, criminality and irresponsibility and by his treatment of his three wives. Galatea Dunkel's lengthy tirade against Moriarty, which I mentioned above, seems to me one of the key passages of "On the Road."

After Moriarty abandons Sal in Mexico, Sal eventually makes his way back to New York City where he meets the woman who will become his second wife and makes what will prove to be an unsuccessful attempt at a domestic, settled life. Moriarty is sent packing alone into a cold night back to San Francisco. The book ends with an ambiguity in the relationship between Paradise and Moriarty which mirrors the ambiguity of the entire story and which is at the heart of the divergent interpretations of "On the Road." Many current readers are inclined, contrary to the way many of the book's earliest readers understood "On the Road" to see Kerouac as rejecting, in large part, the life of protagonists of "On the Road", rather than celebrating it. Much can be said for this reading. But Moriarty has a tight hold on Paradise, who gives him up, if he does so, only with difficulty. As the book concludes, Paradise writes: "... nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old. I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty, the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Robin Friedman

Postoji osnovana sumnja da mi nikad ranije nije trebalo OVOLIKO vremena da pročitam knjigu, i moja čitalačka kriza nije jedini razlog za to. Najviše me je nerviralo to što je neko bio u stanju da tako lepo, živopisno i entuzijastično piše o nečemu što me nimalo ne dotiče. Dakle, moje preovlađujuće raspoloženje tokom čitanja je bilo: ok boomer (da, znam da Keruak nije bumer, ali je opštepoznato da su se bumeri najviše ložili i btw i dalje se lože na bitnike).

Tu dolazimo do toga zašto je ipak važno čitati ovaj roman, ako već niste: 1) zato što je Na putu jedan od najuticajnijih romana svetske književnosti i njegov uticaj je, naročito na našim prostorima, i dalje vrlo prisutan, nažalost ne samo na žanrovskom već i na poetičkom planu; 2) zato što sam, koliko god da sam se nervirala i kolutala očima MESECIMA čitajući o tome kako se dva konja od 30 i kusur godina ponašaju kao neodgovorna dečurlija koju nije briga ni za koga osim za sopstvenu guzicu, i pritom se žešće tripuju da su posebni i romantizuju svašta nešto što se romantizovati ne da, kada sam konačno završila bila tužna, i bilo mi je jasno koliko je konstantna prisutnost ove vrste nartiva u popularnoj kulturi i tzv malim književnostima poput naše ustvari simptom, i koliko je priča koju sam pročitala, iako naivna i na više nivoa pregažena vremenom, i dalje univerzalna.

Možda da sledeće čitam Izgubljene iluzije, ne znam...

I najsmešnije od svega, u nekom trenutku sam bila odustala od čitanja, a onda sam zaboravila da sam odustala i nastavila. Toliko o mojim trenutnim čitalačkim kapacitetima.