I read a lot, but mostly non-fiction and a few biographies. When going for fiction, I tend to avoid recent popular fiction and go for something classic but modern. Thus, I recently started Kerouac’s “On the Road.” I’m about 1/4 of the way through.
I ain’t feeling it. Word on the street is that Kerouac hammered it out in 3 weeks on a solid diet of Benzedrine (which was legal then). It shows. The protagonist’s stream of consciousness style of expression is wearing thin. There seems to be a lot of rushing about and mad urgency, but not much really happens (at least not yet). Sal makes mention of things like all-night conversations and how their depth affected him, but doesn’t elaborate on the content, or is maddeningly vague. I am loathe to give up on a book. Truth be told, I’ll probably hang in there since the book’s no doorstop. Help me out.
I didn’t feel it either. And I’m crazy for the whole Beat thing, in general. I just don’t get it. I really, REALLY tried to love this book, but it was a snore-fest to me. I join you in your plea for enlightment. Teeming millions…help!
I will own up to having read it (as well as a couple other Kerouac longer works) many years ago as I was approaching adulthood. I was into the idea of the Beatnik and thought that was a cool way to be, but I didn’t have the right attitudes and experiences to make me relate to the underlying issues that drove them, especially the writers. Jazz and playing bongos and an interest in Zen are about all I actually took from the era, but the desire to fit in with the “culture” just didn’t take.
My age is such that I was too young to be a successful Beatnik, and too old to get into the Hippie thing, too. I guess you could say that I’m “a man without a culture” in the sense of fitting in with the major movements of the 40’s-70’s. On the other hand, there are components of all those social forces that I do appreciate and which I have carried with me ever since I was a teenager. But being able to get into On The Road just isn’t one of them.
I really enjoyed Kerouac’s book “The Dharma Bums” but could barely stay awake through “On the Road”.
Irrelevancy - As a young woman reading “On the Road” I kept thinking - Dang! why do guys get to do the fun things! I couldn’t imagine women safely taking off, having adventures. This was quite a while ago, of course, but still true in most parts of the world.
I read it about 30 years ago, and got absolutely nothing out of it. I assumed I must be missing something, so I read it again. Same result.
One would have to assume that Allen Ginsberg was at least somewhat interesting, and one is continually beaten over the head with the assertion that Neal Cassady was interesting, and it would seem that crossing the country with little or no money in pre-interstate, pre-McDonaldization times would have to entail some degree of adventure, but I got no such sense out of the book. Kerouac keeps insisting that there are all these “mad” things going on, but it just looks like a feckless bore to me.
I tried reading it during my own “on-the-road” point in my life. I completely went into it expecting to like it. Couldn’t get through more than an eighth of the book and, after a few more false starts, just put it away for good. Boring. Perhaps it was because I was having more real-life traveling and philosophical adventures at the time than the book. I don’t know, but I failed to find anything redeeming or inspiring about that book.
First read through left me a bit flat and I was on a bus to Denver at the time! But some of the scenes did get stuck in my head. The wide open spaces, traveling in the night, the crazy Dean. More of a feeling, like a need to travel, than any hard memories. If the last page doesn’t haunt you then you are dead inside; I’ll say no more. I think that one scene caps the whole story perfectly and could form the foundation for a hundred term papers and doctoral theses - “Compare and contrast the themes of On the Road with post war malaise in the USA.”
Recently I listened to it on CD and found it much more enjoyable. I have to say, at one point, I went “hell, not another trip across the country” but he made it worth my while.
I think the book also introduces a new style of writing and so gets a lot of attention for that.
I felt they were narcissistic selfish idiots. They didn’t care about anybody else, just getting on to the next “adventure” and bumming money off others.
Well, I didn’t exactly think that. I was 23 at the time and I just kept thinking that they didn’t care about anybody else. Moriarty seemed especially oblivious to everybody else as long as he had fun. (It has been 20 years so my memories are not perfect). It just didn’t appeal to me. A long road trip, meeting people and experiencing bizarre and unusual…experiences always appeals to me, but not living like a homeless person or a sociopath.
I sure did like that book from the first time I picked it up, but at the same time I can understand why some people don’t like it so much, or become impatient or annoyed with the author. S I won’t say much about On The Road itself.
What I will say is: If you don’t like** OTR**, try reading Tristessa or The Subterraneans, two of Kerouac’s later works which are a lot better IMNAAHO–and I likedOn The Road.. By the time he wrote them his style had ripened somewhat (it’s still that inimitable voice and flow, though),and Jack K had become a somewhat sadder, deeper and more compassionate individual by the time action in the later novels takes place. Plus, the latter works’ storylines are more developed, and more interesting to follow. They made a gawd-awful movie out of The Subterraneans in 1964 or ‘5; it’s fun in a gobble-gobble way, but if you manage to track that down and see it, for badness’ sake don’t judge the book by it!
From AHoosierMama:
Indeed it was, and somebody should’ve slapped the waspy, bitchy, jealous little twit crosseyed for it, too. Capote was a talented writer himself, true, but I lost a lot of respect for him the first time I read his famous slag on Jack Kerouac His writing never showed half the poetry or innovation or daring or heart that Kerouac’s did, and he knew it – because for all his faults, JK was basically a goodhearted man, while Capote was just the kind of superficial, malicious snob who’d think a mean and dismissive one-liner was brilliant,.
I thought it was just me. As a graduate of a liberal arts college, I thought it *de rigueur * to love On The Road and I felt pretty inadequate that I hated it. Now I know that I am not alone! I definitely enjoyed **The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ** much better - same set of characters but much better writing.
Get the book-on-CD, read by Matt Dillon, and take it for a long, long drive. I listened to it on a road trip around the desert southwest. I enjoyed it immensely.
I took a Beat writers class a year or so ago which concentrated most heavily on Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg. I discovered I cannot stand Kerouac, in general (I’m fine with the other two). I read The Dharma Bums in high school and liked it ok, but everything else by him I’ve read has left me cold. I suppose it doesn’t help that I now know a little too much about his personal life - an alcoholic mamma’s boy who balked at taking any kind of adult responsibility. For some reason, that bothers me more than Burrough’s penchant for young boys. (In the spirit of full disclosure, at the time I was dating someone who was a big Kerouac fan and who, incidentally, had many similarities as far as his inability to form committed adult relationships.) As someone I know said, “Kerouac is great if you’re a 14-year-old boy.” (Not meaning to insult his fans here; this is how I and some others feel.)
For a really good look at the Beats by someone who was there, may I recommend Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir by Joyce Johnson, who was Kerouac’s lover for a while and knew many of the other players. She’s a very entertaining writer, with a good eye.
