On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) (original 1957; edition 1999)

I've had this sitting on my shelf for a little while now and pushed on by my enjoyment of Junky by Burroughs I decided it was time to give it a go. I actually also have 'The Dharma Bums' on my shelf but decided to go for this as its longer and also Kerouac's most famous work. As usual with the Penguin Modern Classics series there is an intro about the author and the book itself. This section of the book adds some interesting background to the story, especially the fact that he wrote it all in a 3 week burst on a single roll of paper.

I have a rule where any book I pick up gets 100 pages to draw me in and gain my interest. If it fails to do this I tend to hand it away to anyone who wants it. So far this rule has served me well, I have only given up on a couple of books. Initially I thought that this book was going to be a disaster, I just couldn't get into it. I found the prose hard to follow in places, in particular because of Kerouac's tendency to insanely long sentences. I couldn't wait to hit page 100 knowing that I could put the book aside but at the same time feeling sad that a modern classic had passed me by without effect.

Eventually though this changed and I started to find myself being drawn in and wanting to read on. The prose was still a pain to navigate at times but it has an energy to it. There is some real zeal to the writing especially in places where Moriarty is in a frenzied state of excitement. This is very evident when he is caught up in a new exciting place such as New Orleans or when they are watching Jazz musicians perform. During these parts I saw a glimmer or what caught the imagination of people when the book was first published. I could feel the excitement that the book would have created for young men wanting to travel carefree across America and beyond.

I really liked Sal Paradise (Kerouac) although found his looking up to Dean Moriarty (Cassady) a bit bewildering. Moriarty didnt appeal to me, I understand being carefree and wanting to live the simple life but criminality stretches it too far for me. As the book progresses you can feel Moriarty starting to lose grip mentally. He starts off as a bit of a likeable pain and slowly becomes an asshole (excuse my language).

Overall I liked the book, I found some of the prose great and some of it really self indulgent drivel. I had hoped it would be more like Burroughs in Junky and it was quite different. I don't think its a book I will return to, I think I may have come to it too late in life to full appreciate it's gift. I am however very glad I stuck with it, its not a book that I will instantly forget. I suspect I will read 'The Dharma Bums', just not for a while. I am more likely to read more Burroughs next time I am in a 'Beat' mood than Kerouac. ( )

I chose to read this book for it's literary and cultural importance. It's often cited as one of the defining works of the Beatnik generation, and as a person who is somewhat of a Hippie, I felt I needed to read this.

I expected to enjoy it more than I did. Unfortunately, I found myself rather bored, as the story didn't seem to have a particular direction or particular arc, just the meandering travels of Sal and co. I couldn't quite get into the story, as the characters didn't feel particularly compelling to me. Sal came across as bland to me, while Dean was unpleasant to follow. Overall it felt very "white male" to me, in the sense that the characters can hitchhike without fear, the way they treat women (Terry, Camille, Marylou, etc.) and the comments on non-white characters. This is not meant as a critique, but rather, a commentary on how it clearly is a product of it's time - readers like myself may see themselves as the background characters, and not as Sal or Dean. This fact in and of itself can highlight important changes through American literary history, and important shifts through the Alternative/Counterculture movements that follow the Beatnik generation.

Overall, while this work is considered an American classic, it may bore some readers with its writing style, and others may feel alienated from the story. As important as this work is, and it should retain that place in canon, it may not be everyone's favourite work of literature.

This could have been so much better.

I hated, hated the Dean character. Whenever he was out of the picture, things settled down, the writing sparkled, the story captivated me. Then he's back, and everything gets stupid again; and once again I have to slog through paragraph after paragraph, page after page, of him banging two girls at once and saying "Oh yass" and running around in a circle and smoking "tea" and oh what a party it was and listening to bop and having only two dollars left.

Sample paragraph with Dean around:
"He giggled maniacally and didn't care; he rubbed his fly, stuck is finger in Marylou's dress, slurped up her knee, frothed at the mouth, and said, 'Darling, you know and I know that everything is straight between us at last beyond the furthest abstract definition in metaphysical terms or any terms you want to specify or sweetly impose or harken back...' and so on, and zoom went the car and we were off again for California."

Sample paragraph without Dean:
"I took the Washington bus; wasted some time there wandering around; went out of my way to see the Blue Ridge; heard the bird of Shenandoah and visited Stonewall Jackson's grave; at dusk stood expectorating in the Kanawha River and walked the hillbilly night of Charleston, West Virginia; ad midnight Ashland, Kentucky, and a lonely girl under the marquee of a closed-up show. The dark and mysterious Ohio, and Cincinnati at dawn. Then Indiana fields again, and St. Louis as ever in its great valley clouds of afternoon. The muddy cobbles and the Montana logs, the broken steamboats, the ancient signs, the grass and the ropes by the river. The endless poem. by night Missouri, Kansas fields, Kansas night-cows in the secret wides, cracerkbox towns with a sea for the end of every street; dawn in Abilene. East Kansas grasses become West Kansas rangelands that climb up to the hill of the Western night." ( )

Why haven't I read this? It's been on my shelf for years and years.

There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars. ( )