An unfocused Peter Pan expresses his confused discontent with the purposelessness of his life by drifting back and forth across the country in the company of similarly addle-pated losers. His bone-deep narcissism allows him to remain convinced (despite all evidence to the contrary) that flitting from one city to another while sleeping on a succession of borrowed couches is a glorious life. To his mind, a string of starvation-wage menial jobs, casual petty theft, abusive sexual relationships and escapist substance abuse is noble, heroic and illustrative of something profound... although, sadly, the narrator has no clue as to what that might be.

Some of the turns of phrase are inventive and almost poetic (and kept this from being a one star review), but they don't save this book from being a meaningless jumble of vignettes. First we went here, then we went there, then we went someplace else.

This was an interesting description of a lifestyle but it was not a story. Because I live in Denver, the book has many aspects that hit close to home and I still could not care less.

This was a 4 star book based on what it represents, the history of the genre, and my enjoyment of travel.

From the get go, this is a stream of consciousness romp through North America. It seems like almost every city in the United States is mentioned at least once as Sal Paradise tells of his travels, the people he meets, those who join him, and his wild vagabond companion Dean Moriarity. I don't feel like the style of this book will appeal to everyone and I can easily see many losing interest part way in. But, if you are a fan of travelling in America, a scholar of literary genres, a hipster, and/or grew up in the 50s travelling the great American highways before interstates, you will find something in here for you.

There is also a lot of jazz influence in the writing. Several times the writing comes to a stop for an onomatopoedic side trip to a jazz club. This was especially interesting as I was listening to the audio.

Dean Moriarity - if nothing else, this book is worth it for Dean. The fact that Dean was based on a real person (Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady) makes his hijinks and destructive personality even more interesting. I am sure that he is a character that is idolized by some who read this, which is a bit scary! (Reminds me of those who idolize Alexander Supertramp from Into the Wild)

An interesting thing that happened while listening to this is twice I thought "this is reminding me of Hemingway" and less than a minute later, Hemingway is mentioned. It really reminded me of The Sun Also Rises and Wkipedia mentions that Kerouac did intentionally use the style of that book for On The Road.

Finally, as mentioned above, Kerouac based this on his life While listed as fiction, up until the final draft, the main characters had real names. The draft the Kerouac used was on long scroll without formatting or paragraph breaks. I mentioned the jazz influence and Kerouac apparently used the scroll in this way to mimic improvisational jazz. Sometimes the scroll can be seen on display - see photo below:



All in all a very interesting book with very interesting characters and a very interesting history.

I read this book at the perfect time in my life, as though it had been written for me to read at that exact moment. It changed my ideas about traveling and really living life. It made me rethink my concept of what it means to be free. But most of all, it made me excited for all the adventures I had yet to experience.

এই বইটা আমার জীবনে একটা বিশাল পরিবর্তন এনেছে। পড়ার পর বুঝতে পেরেছি ঠিক কোন ধরনের মানুষের প্রতি আমি আকৃষ্ট হই, তা বন্ধুত্বের জন্য হোক বা প্রেমের জন্য। সে ধরনের মানুষের নিখুঁত বর্ণনা কেরুয়্যাক দিয়েছেন এভাবে:

"...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

Yikes, where to begin. As the film was released to such an iconic novel it seemed important to read the novel first (iconic enough to consider seeing a movie with Kristen Stewart in). Not only that, but the novel also appears on the 1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die list. So, Amazon Marketplace to the rescue and a near-mint copy of the novel arrived in my pigeon-hole at work the next day. If only I'd known what it was going to be like – I joined the library the same week and should have saved myself the money by borrowing it from there – luckily, the book I did borrow from the library, Diaspora City: The London New Writing Anthology (recommended so far), provided a fantastic respite in the shape of some excellent short stories to read between sections of On the Road. In fact, I can't quite believe it took me two weeks to read this. I guess that's an indication of how painful a process it was, and that I kept taking breaks to read other short-stories.

Allegedly, On the Road is the American story of the search for self; the defining novel of the beat generation; or some such crap like that. In five parts, it's the tale of four different road-trips from 1947 through to 1950. In reality it's the irritating tale of Salvatore 'Sal' Paradise and his equally moronically named friends (Dean Moriaty and Carlos Marx anybody?) bumming their way across America – driving, busing, stealing, shagging, taking drugs, partying and generally competing to be the most self-obsessed, pompous, selfish, annoying, fuck-wit in the world (I think ultimately Dean Moriaty just edges it in this competition). Man (everyone's man), I did not 'dig' this book. It really annoyed me, or whatever the opposite of dig is.

خب خب خب!
کتاب در راه از جک کرواک از اون مدل کتاب‌هایی هستش که یا دوستش خواهی داشت یا ازش بدت میاد. این کتاب برای کسانی که علاقه‌مند به سفر هستند، اونم از نوع بی‌خیالیش، بدون هدف، مثل اون وقتایی که همینجوری میزنی به جاده و پول زیاد و برنامه‌ریزی نداری و با هیچ‌هایک خودت رو برسونی به هرجایی که ممکن هستش، این کتاب برای این دسته آدم‌ها میتونه یه کتاب مقدس باشه. مخصوصا ساعت‌های اولیه‌ی اولین سفر که مشخصه نویسنده تجربه این کار رو نداره و چند کیلومتر اول ممکنه ناامید شه و برگرده سر خونه و زندگی ثابت و بدون هیجان خودش. همینطور برای کسانی که از زندگی روزمره خسته شدن و فقط دنبال یه بهانه یا جرقه می‌گردن که کار و زندگی رو تعطیل کنن و بزنن به جاده، میتونه همون جرقه رو بزنه.
شاید خیلی‌ها این مدل از سبک زندگی و سفرکردن و اتفاق‌هایی که همراهش هست رو نپسندن و یه بخش‌هایی از کتاب براشون بی‌بندوباری و لاابالی‌گری و بی‌مسئولیتی رو القا بکنه ولی به نظرم هرکدوم از ما توی یه دوره از جوونی‌مون وسوسه شدیم که بزنیم به جاده و بی‌خیال هر اصول و قید و بند باشیم (فقط میزان شدت‌ این بی‌قید و بندی هست که توی آدم‌ها متفاوته)
در کل کتاب رو دوست داشتم البته یه جاهاییش از اون وسط‌ها برام خسته‌کننده بود و تکراری و اوایل و اواخر کتاب رو بیشتر دوست داشتم.
قلم جک کرواک خیلی قدرتمند و جادویی هستش، خیلی خوب حال و شرایط رو توصیف میکنه. من خودم چند جا واقعا از این حجم از دقت و باریک‌بینی توی توصیفاتش لذت بردم. مثلا جایی بود که چند صفحه تمام یه قطعه موسیقی رو از شروع کار نوازنده و فاز گرفتن مردم و عرق ریختن و بالا پایین پریدن رو جوری توصیف میکنه که حس میکنی خودت هم داری اونجا بالا پایین می‌پری. یا یه جای دیگه توی یه شب گرم و شرجی که پشه‌ها پدر آدم رو در میارن میره روی سقف ماشین دراز میکشه تا بدنش خنک بشه و همه اینا رو کاملا ملموس به قلم میاره.
دست آقای نوروزی هم بابت ترجمه‌ش درد نکنه، به نظرم یه کار بسیار سخت و بزرگ رو به خوبی انجام داده. با اینکه مشخصه کتاب خوراک دوستان سانسورچی هست، تونسته با یه سری بازی با کلمات و عبارت‌ها، جوری متن رو دربیاره که خیلی آسیب نبینه.

Sorry I feel a bit embarrassed, in some ways, but okay with my decision to DNF. I know this is a classic but.....I had no connection to the people, absolutely none, nor the places. I know it's a special book....but this one isn't for me. A bunch of hoons running around America.

What better time to read Jack Kerouac's timeless classic On the Road than during a pandemic when all my travel plans are on hold indefinitely. This is a delightful book written about Kerouac's travels, primarily with his friend Dean Moriarty, but with many other friends and acquaintances along the way as they traversed America at least twice and Mexico as well from New York to New Jersey to Denver to San Francisco to New Orleans to Houston to Tucson in their search for freedom and individuality. The prose was descriptive and captivating integrating regional music including jazz from the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans to Kansas City as well as local foods into the narrative. This is a story of young people of the Beat Generation trying to find themselves and their way in the world post World War II and during the presidency of Harry Truman. I enjoyed Kerouac's writing. This may have been the perfect time to read this as I was able to vicariously travel throughout America.

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that I went outside. And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath. I had to get to Denver at once."

"It was a wonderful night. Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then you get tired, and there's a fever in your soul. We approached the lights around the opera house down the dark narrow street; then we took a sharp right and hit some old saloons with swinging doors. Most of the tourists were in the opera."

"It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time."

A proposito di romanzi che debbono tutto al momento in cui sono letti

09/05/94 Bellissimo!
QUI C'E' LA VITA CHE TRASUDA DA OGNI FRENETICA PAGINA. QUESTO ROMANZO VA LETTO E GODUTO TUTTO, DA CIMA A FONDO, SOPRATTUTTO QUANDO CI SI TROVI ALLA LINEA DIVISORIA TRA L'EST DELLA PROPRIA GIOVINEZZA E L'OVEST DEL PROPRIO FUTURO.

Kerouac mi spinse fino in Messico, fu un viaggio indimenticabile.
(oggi mi viene un dubbio... ma lo stampatello era il mio o l'avevo preso a nolo?)
Kerouac è un autore che letto a vent’anni può non piacere e che a quaranta quasi sicuramente non piacerà.
“Aveva idee musicali semplicissime. Quel che gli piaceva era
sorprendere con una nuova semplice variazione di un chorus. Andava da
un "ta-tap-tadir-rara... ta-tap-tadir-rara", ripetendolo e saltellando a ritmo e
lanciando baci e sorridendo nello strumento, fino a "ta-tap-ii-da-di-dirarap!
ta-tap-ii-da-di-dira-rap!" e sempre provocava gran momenti di risa e
di comprensione per lui e per tutti gli altri che stavano a sentire. ..”
(Come)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mq4U...

- Dobbiamo andare e non fermarci finché non siamo arrivati.
- Dove andiamo?
- Non lo so, ma dobbiamo andare.

Sono ad ovest, dove il sole tramonta.

I haven't actually written a review for any of my misnamed 2017 Reading Challenges yet. For some reason, I guess I still thought it was 2016 when I made the shelves. Opps.

Reading challenge 1 is to re-read books that generally other people really like but which I disliked. Will I like these books more now that I'm older?

I didn't like On The Road when I read it as a 19 year old. This is the kind of book that I probably would have enjoyed more at 19 than at 42. I probably liked this book less than my original 3 star rating I gave it in 2007 when I tried to add everything I ever read to Goodreads during my honeymoon period with this site.

I left the rating at 3 stars for this read. It's probably a 2.5. I'm not actually sure what these numbers mean to me anymore.

I hope that you aren't reading this review because you want to find out about the book. I don't want that kind of responsibility of being the first exposure to a 'classic' book. If you are though, here is the plot synopsis... it's about some dudes who travel around the country. It's sort of a true life Peter Pan story of a couple of dudes in search of authenticity by basically acting like tourist frat boys.

Around the time I first read this book I was friends with a 'Dean Moriarity' type. He was an overly excitable 'free-spirit', he lived off of people, did too many drugs, slept with lots of impressionable high school girls (he was only about 18 or 19, so it's not as creepy as it sounds), travelled around a lot, happened to be married to one of my best friends and had a small group of people who thought he was the greatest thing ever. There were also people I knew who couldn't fucking stand him. For some reason, the two of us got along fairly well as friends even though personality wise we were nothing alike and I couldn't stand the hero-worship and schtick that surrounded him when there were more than a couple of people around.

I'm not sure why I wrote that. I hadn't even thought of him for quite a while until I was reading this book. I happened to find that he is on Facebook, when I thought to look him up. It's bizarre to think of a homeless punk/hippie from the early 90's is now on Facebook... he's not a person I can even picture living in the modern world. Times change. At the time I read this book the first time, I had a Neal Cassady type lurking around in my life. I was also around a lot of people saying fuck being normal, and telling me that travelling around the country, going to hippie shit like Rainbow Festival (and I want to say Burning Man, but maybe that came later... in my head Rainbow Festival and Burning Man are sort of one in the same thing) and finding the 'real' world. The enlightenment that these people seemed to bring was smoking way too much pot, sitting around being bored downtown and then smoking more pot. It didn't seem like these people who were telling me that I wasn't really 'living life' because I was going to college and not all that interested in travelling anywhere and meeting other 'weird' people bored in their own little corners of the world were onto any kind of secret I was missing out on.

That's what this book I think felt like to me back then. Another thing telling me that there was something true and real 'out-there' when I can remember thinking traveling was generally a bullshit solution to problems because it's all inside of you... and it's not the place your living at which is the problem. To paraphrase a book that might not have even existed then, but which I can remember thinking, wherever you fucking go you are still stuck with yourself.

That's what my problem with this book was on this reading of it. It's a fucking superficial tourist guide to 50's hipster authenticity. In all of the 'searching' that they are doing, they don't actually see anything. Passing an old African-American on the road during on of their trips, Cassady gets really excited (he always does, I picture him as the human equivalent of a criminally inclined Golden Retriever) about how 'authentic' the old man is, and how what what the old man has seen is so much purer than anything Cassady could have ever seen. Blah, blah, blah.... he's not seeing a human being, he's seeing an idealized stereotype. And this is what they find and get excited about over and over and over again, an idealized Other pigeon-holed into a mythical purity. That purity doesn't exist, people live their lives. They have amazing things about them and flaws. They eat and shit and fight with each other. They do boring ass shit like everyone else. They are good and bad and have their worries and problems and loves... and there is nothing authentic about being some cultural tourist.

I grew up in a tourist town, same town I was friends with my very own Neal Cassady type. I was very familiar with the feeling of being the backdrop for some bullshit image and being around lots of people physically being in a place, but being there as a make believe location filled with some quaint Victorian nonsense. Being from a tourist town I have always been suspicious traveling, especially when you fool yourself into thinking you are experiencing the place and people itself, and not just what you want the place and people to represent.

This is probably only making sense in my head, wheeee!

I feel like the America found by the characters in On The Road is about as authentic as going to Las Vegas and experiencing the locales of the world and history through the casinos and hotels. But Vegas at least is being honest that it's all just a fake, it's window dressing for adults to basically act like Frat Boys... to drink too much, screw too much, and gamble too much. People who go to Vegas at least have the decency to not claim they have discovered any truth and blab on about their decadent tourism as anything more than going off to get their kicks.

On the plus side, I did find a few of the passages about Kerouac's sadness to be quite good, and I got a chuckle every time another character exposed Cassady as an asshole. I probably would have liked this book more if the last paragraph was taken out, it wouldn't have felt ultimately like a love letter to Cassady.

I have no idea what May's book will be. Since I haven't actually reviewed the other ones I read here is a short overview of the project so far....

January: Slaughterhouse Five: Bored by it when I was 19 or 20. Liked it quite a bit this time.

February: New York Trilogy: Didn't get the point of it when I was 27. I liked this one more this time, but I'm still not sure why French people love Paul Auster so much.

March: Walden: For some reason, I had no interest in this book whenever it was I read it in either college or grad school. This time I was torn between totally agreeing with Thoreau and wanting to reach back through history and punching him in the face.

n  EDIT: 26/03/2018n
I just learnt that Sam and Dean from Supernatural were named after Sal and Dean, and I don't know what to believe in anymore.

--

n  ORIGINAL REVIEW:n

ALTERNATE TITLE: White People Problems
ALTERNATE ALTERNATE TITLE: How Many Girls is Too Many Girls?
ALTERNATE ALTERNATE ALTERNATE TITLE: Do I Sound Smart Yet?

Why is this a beloved book? I read it for the second time because I thought I was too young to have understood it when I read it the first time. It turns out the book is still not good, and Jack Kerouac is still an asshole. For the past three days, I've been opening this edit box and closing it. Because honestly, I couldn't bear the thought of going through my notes, my notes filled with Kerouac's insipid, yet simultaneously aggravating thoughts. I mean, I did read this twice! Two whole times. That's a lot of hours I'll never get back. Nevertheless, I stopped procrastinating, and decided that like ripping a band aid, it's best I get done with this as quickly as possible. Because after this, I'm never touching this book again. Fuck this book.

There are books that I dislike because of the language. There are books that I dislike because they're too cheesy. There's books that I think are too good or too bad to be true and so I dislike them too. Then there are books like this that I dislike, because seriously, what the fuck was the writer thinking? It reads like nothing more than an ode to his superior intelligence, his friends' superior intelligence, and their collective "intellectual and sexual prowess". Fuck this book.

I really don't like stereotypes. I try consciously to not stereotype. But this book could only and only have been written by a White, heterosexual male. Actually, make that American, White, heterosexual male. I mean, anyone who says that the millennial generation is self-obsessed should be asked to read this book. Never have I read a book so complacent, so self-centered. Honestly, no one thinks Sal (Jack) and his friends are the pinnacle of intellectual evolution more than Sal and his friends. What makes it worse is Sal's constant undermining of his own intelligence, which very plainly looks like he's trying to talk about how smart he is without sounding like an idiot. Emphasis on "trying", because by god, does he fail miserably at it. Fuck this book.

It could've been funny, maybe even a little charming. But Kerouac all spends his time trying to build up this aura of intellect, only for it collapse on itself inelegantly. How anyone could idolise Dean Moriarty is beyond me. He is nothing more than a self-serving egomaniac (and nymphomaniac) who would probably pimp out his mother for a bottle of whiskey and a pack of Parliaments. The problem is, I've actually met people who're as bad, and the end result is nowhere as literarily perfect as it is in this book. Fuck this book.

Don't even get me started on the portrayal of the female characters in this book. Because there is no "portrayal", really. Despite his claims of having been with more women than I can count on my fingers, Sal's understanding of women is painfully pedestrian. On reading the description of the women in this book, I can only conclude that these characters were written by an alien ghostwriter who had a very vague idea of what women actually were. They are reduced to caricatures of what someone else must have described as "women". They're either whores or prudes. Easy or difficult. Hot or fat. In Sal, and in fact, his friends' eyes, women exist to satisfy their sexual needs. Worse still, women are okay with being reduced to mere sexual objects. Never have I seen a man so tone-deaf about what women are since Henry VIII created a new religion to satisfy his sexual appetite. Fuck this book.

I say in many books that it is me, and not the book. Here, it is the book. The combination of smug intellectual superiority, and utter and total disregard for anyone who isn't white, heterosexual, or male makes this book truly one of the worst I've read. There is the unnecessary glorification of criminal acts, of ruffians, of drugs, of addiction, of sex; gratuitous idolisation of people one really shouldn't be idolsing. Kerouac perhaps pulled off perhaps the world's greatest literary scam in getting this book published. It isn't great in any way. I don't even think it is truly representative of Beat Culture. Kerouac should've just stuck to naming the Beat Generation and left the writing to his friends. That is truly a better contribution to literature than this awful book. Considering this book a Great American Novel would be trivialising the contribution of America to the world of literature. FUCK. THIS. BOOK.