Kerouac's On The Road: Yay or Nay?

Harry Angstrom

I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions on this book. Personally I think it's the biggest load of codswallop that's ever been written. I really wanted to like this book given its relatively high standing in the so-called great novels of the 20th century but it was a massive disappointment to me. It's nothing more than the boring and inane ramblings of somebody who so desperately wanted to be part of the literary 50/60's counter-culture but unfortunately didn't have the requisite talent to go with it. It really annoys me now when I hear literary critics gushing about this book as if it gives them some kind of "cool" kudos if they like it.

Is there anybody out there who likes this book?

Beruthiel

I loved it.
But, it's nearly 20 years ago since I read it and I imagine that it was a case of it being the right book at the right time.
I believe I even had a few inspirational lines of it taped to my wall.
Not sure what I would make of it now if I were to read it again.

bullpost

Pretty much sums it up for me well - about 25 years since I read it.

Beruthiel wrote: »

I loved it.
But, it's nearly 20 years ago since I read it and I imagine that it was a case of it being the right book at the right time.
I believe I even had a few inspirational lines of it taped to my wall.
Not sure what I would make of it now if I were to read it again.

Toby Take a Bow

I read it in my early twenties, and I think I might have read it a little bit too late. Really disliked it, but I could imagine myself loving it just five years previously.

CuLT

I'm 26, read it last week.

I enjoyed it as a product of its time. I actually read up a bunch about Kerouac and the beat generation beforehand, which I think gave me enough context to appreciate it for what it is.

Denerick

I have a group of books that I've set aside for when I go 'travelling', which I imagine will be some theoretical time in the future when I've enough money and have the balls to just go out there and do it. One of them is 'On the Road'. The others are books mainly by James Joyce and Kafka. Though I'm tempted to tuck into Kafka in the near future, I'd rather become cynical before I set off into the unknown.

dixiefly

I bought the hardback about 4 years ago. read it over about 6 months.

Agree with the OP. Found it a bit of a drag and had to force myself to read it. Got nothing out of it.

triseke

I read it about 4 years ago. To be honest, i thought it was a bit "meh". I was expecting something else due to the status that the book has, but i was disappointed.

In saying that, I own a copy of "The Dharma Buns" that i plan to read in the near future.

tim_holsters

On The Road. I loved it.

old gregg

I read it as a teenager in a tea haze 35 years ago and loved it. I guess it's maybe one of those books to read while you are still as naive about life as the author was when writing it cos I don't think I'd have the patience for it now.

electricwolf

I love the whole Beat movement...especially when you put it all in context with Ginsberg's poetry and with a bit of knowledge about the history of the era. I suppose the writing style is a bit Marmite, sort of like Joyce with the rambling, almost stream-of-consciousness effect, but I think it perfectly encapsulates the disaffection of a generation and found it quite poetic. I'm not sure why people would think it's incompatible with cynicism? I don't think you'd have to be young to enjoy it - I think in some ways it's about a loss of innocence rather than a naive portrayal of rebellious youth.

Dades

Read it at 16 with no preconceptions and read it every time I went travelling for years after that.

That said, I read Catcher in the Rye when I was in my thirties and hated it.
Perhaps if I'd read them the other way around things would have been different.

(Nah! Catcher sucks and On the Road rules. )

Fox McCloud

Found me copy of it at home last week, was planning to give it another read. Read it when I was 15, over about two months. Think it might be a book that needs full attention to really get into the spirit of it..

smokedeels

I preferred Dharma Bums

Red Hand

I read about half of it and I couldn't continue. It's rare for me to abandon a book but I disliked it intensely.

Caitlinn

Nay based on the 30 pages of it I read. I gave it a chance but I just wasn't interested in the characters or where they were going so I binned it. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas instead. I think Kerouac is overrated.

Harry Angstrom

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

I read about half of it and I couldn't continue. It's rare for me to abandon a book but I disliked it intensely.

I'm glad to read this. I was beginning to think I was alone in my dislike for the book.

doriansmith

Read it while travelling last year & wanted to like it but I couldn't stand it. Didn't want to give up halfway through so I kept on until the end hoping it'd get better. It didn't.

yeah, agree with the op..meh enough..he was no Burroughs..

bazza1

Finished it for the sake of finishing it! Not a fan of Kerouac! Modern classic...fo me ...no!

Caitlinn

bazza1 wrote: »

Finished it for the sake of finishing it! Not a fan of Kerouac! Modern classic...fo me ...no!

I never understood that point of view, reading a book for the sake of reading it. I usually read the first few chapters of a book and if I'm not enjoying it I bin it. I don't really care if others consider it a classic or not.

Harry Angstrom

Caitlinn wrote: »

I never understood that point of view, reading a book for the sake of reading it. I usually read the first few chapters of a book and if I'm not enjoying it I bin it. I don't really care if others consider it a classic or not.

Sometimes it's worth giving a book a chance - seeing if it might redeem itself at some stage. I remember reading Martin Amis's "Money" and thinking it was dire. I was just about to give up on it after about 100 pages but decided to persevere. I gradually started to enjoy it and by the end I loved it. I was hoping that I'd have a similar type of epiphany with On The Road but it never happened.

Caitlinn

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Sometimes it's worth giving a book a chance - seeing if it might redeem itself at some stage. I remember reading Martin Amis's "Money" and thinking it was dire. I was just about to give up on it after about 100 pages but decided to persevere. I gradually started to enjoy it and by the end I loved it. I was hoping that I'd have a similar type of epiphany with On The Road but it never happened.

I admire your perseverance, personally if I'm reading a book and I'm not enjoying it (after giving it a fair chance) I dump it and find something more entertaining.

CuLT

Caitlinn wrote: »

I admire your perseverance, personally if I'm reading a book and I'm not enjoying it (after giving it a fair chance) I dump it and find something more entertaining.

Personally, I don't necessarily read books purely for entertainment. Sometimes I read them for education or expanding my horizons (I don't mean the "teach yourself x" variety of books).

Education isn't always enjoyable, sometimes it's challenging or boring, but often you're left with something new and different at the end.

I didn't always find Shakespeare or the poetry I read compelling in school, but in retrospect I'm grateful for having had the exposure. Some of its worth only clicks into place as you meet various situations in life.

Each to their own though.

Caitlinn

CuLT wrote: »

Personally, I don't necessarily read books purely for entertainment. Sometimes I read them for education or expanding my horizons (I don't mean the "teach yourself x" variety of books).

Education isn't always enjoyable, sometimes it's challenging or boring, but often you're left with something new and different at the end.

I didn't always find Shakespeare or the poetry I read compelling in school, but in retrospect I'm grateful for having had the exposure. Some of its worth only clicks into place as you meet various situations in life.

Each to their own though.

I don't read books purely for entertainment either.

I do, however, prefer books which are entertaining as well as educational as you put it. Books which entertain while imparting a message so that they don't feel like drudgery.

Interesting that you give the example of Shakespeare, I have always found his work to be highly entertaining as well as educational.

But, as you said, each to their own.

blue_steel

Loved it at 18 but found it quite boring at 30. Not sure whether it aged badly or I did :pac:

bigfloppydonkey

I read it about a year ago and it became an instant favourite. It was the right book at the right time for me, although I wouldn't say you have to be in a certain mood or at a certain age to enjoy it. The pace of the writing was very important. The sense of urgency, urgent to bust out and live life to the fullest. Sadly it was that same urgency that would eventually destroy both Kerouac and Cassady.

googled eyes

Dades wrote: »

Read it at 16 with no preconceptions and read it every time I went travelling for years after that.

That said, I read Catcher in the Rye when I was in my thirties and hated it.
Perhaps if I'd read them the other way around things would have been different.

(Nah! Catcher sucks and On the Road rules. )

I have to agree with the idea here. But personally, having read both of these books in my late twenties I found them both tedious.

bigfloppydonkey

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Sometimes it's worth giving a book a chance - seeing if it might redeem itself at some stage. I remember reading Martin Amis's "Money" and thinking it was dire. I was just about to give up on it after about 100 pages but decided to persevere. I gradually started to enjoy it and by the end I loved it. I was hoping that I'd have a similar type of epiphany with On The Road but it never happened.

I had the same feeling while reading Delillo's White Noise, really well written, beautifully written really. His turn of phrase is breathtaking. But it was way too slow starting out, nothing much happens in the first section of the book. Thankfully it livened up during the second section and I ended up enjoying it immensely. I also decided to finish The Fountainhead. I'm still recovering. Avoid.

markesmith

Kerouac suits you more when you're a certain age, maybe 15-21. It's the perfect 'angry young man' book, or at the age when your senses are a bit heightened to the world.

henryporter

It helps to put the book in the context of its time - a post war 'lost' generation trying to find its way, Cold War worries, a Government hell bent on finding enemies in its own society and so on. Kerouac's book was probably the most accessible manifesto of revolution and the search for freedom, hence its popularity. It should be read in the style it was written - in one compulsive helter-skelter sitting (after all it's not that long).

It's certainly no Joyce or Beckett (by the same logic though one could argue that Dan Brown is certainly no Kerouac!), but it has a place in the history of modern literature and was worth the read for me.

Most books don't have the same magic on second reading - I remember having a second go at Herman Hesse's 'Glass Bead Game' and thinking what was I thinking the first time around.

chicken fingers

I bought a motorbike and drove around mexico for 5 months a couple of years ago. Read it before hand and its what inspired me to go and do it.

Dades

markesmith wrote: »

Kerouac suits you more when you're a certain age, maybe 15-21. It's the perfect 'angry young man' book, or at the age when your senses are a bit heightened to the world.

I don't think OTR was/is a book for "angry young men" - more a book for those who dream of a romantic and somewhat hedonistic life free of many societal constraints.

ThePinkCage

Read it too late as well, at 30 on a round the world tirp with my mother. Left it behind in a Singapore hotel room. Couldn't finish. He clearly didn't like women...

me-skywalker

I read it when I was 16 and loved it. I breathed its freedom, I tried to live its intuitive sense of breaking free. The want to be able to live without any responsiblities, living off impulsive idea's, the emotional urgency to be free, do things in your own way at your own time and do it all now!

That was me then. When I read it again when i was 22 I still enjoyed it but without the sense of wanting to replicate this person anymore merely was more an enjoyable read of a fictional biography.

I will read it again when im in my 30's and I would definitely recommend it to people to read. I actually had the audiobook which the narrator had a smooth, sleepy, deep voice with a short drawl; reminded me of the careless nature of the charactes in the book and drew me in further.

girlonfire

Loved it. As others have stated, it helps to be aware of the context in which it was set.