Jack Kerouac?

sterculelum

Any good? I heard of On The Road... What's it about? It's supposed to be really influential or something...

cmcquaid

its nothing to write home about imo i can see how it might have been influencial when it was out but it seems america has changed so much since then that it wouldnt really inspire you to go hitch hiking.btw its about some fella hitch hiking across america

Sleepy

Aye, I wasn't overly impressed with it either though I can see how it would have been influential at the time...

Talliesin

You really have to read it when you're young. Once you're over about 16 it just won't have the same impact.

sterculelum

Ooh great. I'm 15. Just in time, it seems!

Talliesin

sterculelum wrote:

Ooh great. I'm 15. Just in time, it seems!

Yep. Past the optimum age really, but go read On The Road now before you hit 16 and there's no point reading it at all.

Karlusss

I'm 16. It has no story, but it's liquid, it's poetry, and I love it.

shuushh

on the road is a great book read it 3 times, its a good book to read when your travelling actually. i couldnt be arsed reviewing it just go read it !

ExOffender

Tried to read OTR three times. Gave up each time because I just didn't care what happens on the next page. Was 15 reading it too. Big Sur was the same. Kerouac is one of the most overrated authors I've ever encountered, I really just don't see the appeal. Pretentious pompous little nothing-at-all.

MrJoeSoap

ExOffender wrote:

Pretentious pompous little nothing-at-all.

I don't see why you are attacking him, when its not his fault he is over-rated. All he did was write books.

doonothing

i got halfway through last year when i was 15, its not the best really...

humbleCounty

i loved it. I've read a lot of his stuff, and liked most of it. Never got to finish "Visions of Coady" just couldnt make it through the stoned phone conversations with Cassady, but there are still some great moments in there. "Everything is mine because i am poor"

he is a great writer, hugely influential. He, along with Burroughs (read Junkie, amazing!) and Ginsberg (read Howl! also amazing) were the three fathers of the Beat Generation, i suppose you could call em early hippies.

Think it made a big impact on me, and my outlook, but who knows.

sterculelum

humbleCounty wrote:

i loved it. I've read a lot of his stuff, and liked most of it. Never got to finish "Visions of Coady" just couldnt make it through the stoned phone conversations with Cassady, but there are still some great moments in there. "Everything is mine because i am poor"

he is a great writer, hugely influential. He, along with Burroughs (read Junkie, amazing!) and Ginsberg (read Howl! also amazing) were the three fathers of the Beat Generation, i suppose you could call em early hippies.

Think it made a big impact on me, and my outlook, but who knows.

I've actually just finished Junky, and loved it. Really wanna read Naked Lunch now. I've heard of Ginsberg, but I have a big to-do. Reading A Confederacy of Dunces at the moment.

MrJoeSoap

I went to the Beatnik bookstore in San Fran last year where Ginsberg often recited some poetry, have to say it did make me want to read some of his stuff.

Havent got around to it yet.

Redleslie2

On The Road is interesting for its poetic/musical style and for being written in 3 weeks on a single huge roll of paper by a benzedrine fuelled Kerouac. I don't see how he could be considered a proto-hippy at all. His look and philosophy (and his drug choice) was entirely different. He hated hippies in fact.

Burroughs is absolutely rubbish.

foxybrowne

On the Road is cool, read it when I was living in Paris, I'd defo check it out.

humbleCounty

they could be considered early hippies in their outlook. They were easy going, preferred to wander and live as opposed to getting stuck in some mindless job. Quite liberal, into eastern philosophies etc

And they didn't hate hippies... Neal Cassady, Kerouacs muse, was hugely involved in the hippie movement, he even drove Furthur, and was involved with the Merry Pranksters, Ginsberg was also involved with the hippies. Kerouac was for the Vietnam war, which could be considered one of his only anti-hippy stances, but this was shortly before he died of alcoholism, and by all accounts he was quite ****ed up and disillusioned with his legacy.

Howl by Ginsberg is just a poem, its up on the net if you google it, long enough for a poem, but wont take anywhere near as long as reading a book.

BossArky

On the Road: Read it about two years ago. Sufficiently interesting to stop one throwing the book down, but not all that attractive so as to make you put everything off to read...

BaZmO*

I'm actually glad I happened upon this thread. I read this book, or should I say, I "tried" to read this book a few years back and I could only manage half of it. I had stopping as there was a serious chance of me going into a coma if I kept reading.

I'd never heard of him or the book when I started to read it, but it came in a box set of Penguin classics.

It was written in the 50's (I think?) So I could understand how it would've been influential at the time, but it just didn't do it for me.

B.

humbleCounty

It was written in the 50's (I think?)

yup it was written early fifties, think it was released in '57.

I can definitely see how it would connect with some people and not others, it did it for me though.

GUBU

I'm 17 and read it a few months ago, but it didn't grip me at all. Many of the characters are forgettable and I often found that I just didn't care what happened on the next page. Kerouac has a gift for describing places, but it's really not enough to encourage you to persevere with a book that has a severe lack of action. I can understand why it was highly influential, and indeed radical, when it was published, but the aspects of the book that created its reputation (describing the beat generation, the drug-taking references, poetic style etc.) are not sufficiently interesting or arresting today, and I found it was not worth the effort.

the dice man

GUBU wrote:

it's really not enough to encourage you to persevere with a book that has a severe lack of action.

were we reading the same book? the entire book is about action and how kerouac and cassady lived such a fast paced lifestyle moving from one city to the next.

maybe the book only connects to certain people but for me when i read it at seventeen it blew me away.

Dades

GUBU wrote:

Kerouac has a gift for describing places, but it's really not enough to encourage you to persevere with a book that has a severe lack of action.

:eek:

Maybe no-one was blowing stuff up, but the semi autobiographical mayhem in On The Road would finish any of us off!

Kerouac didn't die aged 47 out of lethargy!

the dice man

The Atheist wrote:

:eek:

Maybe no-one was blowing stuff up, but the semi autobiographical mayhem in On The Road would finish any of us off!

Kerouac didn't die aged 47 out of lethargy!

pukey

just read OTR. thought it was brilliant, really well written. made me want to travel, not necessarily hitchhike across america, but just go somewhere for the hell of it, just doing things for the experience