Did you like On The Road by Kerouac? Why?

Question

I've decided I need to read more classics, and everyone seems to rave about Kerouac, so I started with On The Road. Well, I had to force myself to finish it, and can't see what the hype is about. If you've read one chapter, you've read it all. Maybe I seem uneducated because I didn't get anything out of it, but I read voraciously and can name so many more books I thought were better written and more entertaining. I just wanted to know what you think about the book, out of curiosity.

I see what you mean about the controversy, but for some reason I liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read To Kill A Mockingbird in the 9th grade (a loooooong time ago) and liked that as well.

Answer 1

Anonymous, I picked up Kerouac again recently, and I have to say, you did better than I did. I put it down after a few chapters. I can take the stream-of-consciousness style in small doses, but you know, it DOES get tedious after a while. And there's nothing particularly interesting about the story by today's standards.

The thing is, though, that the book was something totally different in its day. The style was different, and the subject was a bit unconventional. While there had been "road novels" before, most notably The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I think On The Road spoke clearly and loudly to American Post-War youth who felt stuck in "square" society. The book inspired a generation of people, and had a substantial role in the creation of sixties counterculture and, by extension, modern counterculture as well.

These days, people think nothing of dropping their lives and heading across country. This is why the plot of On The Road seems so uninteresting by today's standards. Even the prose, with its "period" slang, and its rambling, is outdated.

Answer 2

One need not necessarily "enjoy" reading 'On the Road' to appreciate it. The reason it is considered an "important" book is because Kerouac was the first person ever to write a piece quite as visceral and honest about his times, and this deserves some respect.

You don't need to "understand" modern art to realize that the very first person to paint a completely black canvas was having a very original thought. It doesn't make that particular black painting any more interesting to look at, but hopefully it makes you "think" about waht art is and isn't, and how important artistic expression is to keeping mankind (reasonably) sane. Without Kerouac, there would likely have been no Tom Wolfe. Without Tom Wolfe, we would likely have no "reality TV"!

You always need to consider a piece of writing in contect, often this will make it more enlightening or enjoyable. Think a bout why or how a writer ended up writing the way they did. To use another "art history" example, "impressionism" (which is so horribly popular now!) was really a reaction to the invention of the camera. What is the point of being a "realist" when a little square box can, in an instant, make a more accurate image than you can ever hope for in oils? So artists found new ways to "validate" their existence.

One easy way to filter out "good writing" is to read books that have been translated from other languages. Who would bother doing that for a book that does not have 'worthwhile' qualities?

And never be afraid not to finish a book if you really don't like it!

Answer 3

I loved the book in my youth, but tried to read it last year and couldn't quite finish it. Still, it's not going into the bag for a charity book sale. I know I will go back to it.

To be quite honest the true stories of the Beat Generation tend to be more interesting than their writing. Like Jack's friend, Wm S. Burroughs--there is a long biography on him that I could not put down yet his books--I wrote a thirty page paper on the man and only finished one.

As for On the Road--it does kind of chronicle how Jack got in to this group. It's pretty biographical and a coming of age. Jack was cool, and it's the best novel of that generation in my mind. I think why you don't like it is that he did write very plain, not always in the best form, and there are some boring chapters where nothing seems to happen. I think, however, Kerouac was trying to reflect his real life which was from modest roots, and his language and experience where he was doing a lot of thinking, going with the flow, taking risks, and being open to new things. There were lulls followed by excitement and he had a lot to take in with life and people. It's his reflection.

Answer 4

You have to think of it in the context of when it was written. It was pretty controversial at the time, although by today's standards, it's pretty tame.

I felt the same way about "The Catcher in the Rye."

A great classic with universal themes still relevant today (at least to me) is "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, and "All Quiet on the Western Front" by some German guy.

Answer 5

Yes I read it and lived it. Until a person goes that route it probably is kind of hard to see what he was putting into words. Kerouac,Ginsburg,Curso and my man William Burroughs traveled roads out of the norm of the times and wrote about it from personal experience. It gives a glimpse of what was going on in the 50's in what was called ''The Beat Generation'', Kerouac should be taken as part of the whole of what was going on at the time. The ''Beat'' ushered in and influenced the ''Hippie Generation'', and like they say the rest is History.

Answer 6

It's an overrated piece of crap from the 50's...

if you like "classics" then read Dumas, Dickens, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky...to start.

Answer 7

I love Jack! He was a visionary!