Who has read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac?

[Bouncy Ball]

I'm finally reading it, been wanting to for about five years. Awfully good so far.

On edit: I need to read up more on what exactly the "Beat" generation was. I know the time frame of it, and I know they were rebelling against the conformity of the 50s, but that's about all I know and there's got to be more to it. Why did Kerouac become their spokesperson with this book, for instance?

[Jack Rabbit]

1. I haven't read it in several years

But I enjoyed it.

To honest, and I am in the minority in this respect, my favorite Kerouac novel is The Subterraneans.

[progmom]

9. ever see that movie?

I love the soundtrack.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. No, I haven't

It sounds awful. I know Kerouac hated it.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

2. Read "The Dharma Bums" too

[Bouncy Ball]

4. I'm looking at his official website right now

and just noticed the name of that one, plus the one Jack Rabbit mentioned.

Hmmm. Thanks!

http://www.jackkerouac.com/index.php

[progmom]

3. It's been years

I just bought it again and intend to read it next!

[tuvor]

5. Here's a good audio overview of the Beat Generation

At least I presume it is, having been born later. It's a 3-CD box set called, curiously, The Beat Generation by the fine folks at Rhino. It's like a cross-section of the culture, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and liner notes galore.

[Zomby Woof]

6. yes

Although I would say a much better 'road' book about drifting and coming of age is Woody Guthrie's "Bound For Glory", his autobiography, or his semi-autobiographical novel "Seeds Of Man". Much as I like Kerouac, he seems almost pedestrian and mediocre after those 2 books.

[Bouncy Ball]

11. I'll have to check those out, then.

Thanks! Never too many books, I say.

[Zomby Woof]

13. Bound For Glory first!

His childhood recollections alone are worth the price of admission.

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Oh yes. I've always liked him, I can't believe I didn't know he

wrote an autobiography.

[Zomby Woof]

20. It was also a major movie

In 1976, nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (and losing to &#&@ Rocky), starring Kung-Fu's own David Carradine as Woody (which is very odd, but that's the 70's for ya). The movie is not nearly as great as the book mainly due to skipping over the childhood part. Still, it captures some of what made him great, such as trying to organize field workers in California. A very young Randy Quaid is a migrant worker.

My favorite scene in the movie is where he tells off the well-off couple (during the Depression, mind you) who picked him up hitchhiking.

This man and his wife are hitching one of those Airstream trailers, and Woody asked them about their travels. The man mentions all the great food he has enjoyed. So Woody, mindful of how many people were STARVING at this time, says, "There's one thing I've learned about food during all my travels", and the man says "What's that?" Woody says, "The more you eat, the more you shit!".

Next scene: He is left on the side of the road, LOL.

[Goathead]

18. I'm going to look for those two, thanks

[Kathy in Cambridge]

7. I read it in high school

Jack kerouac is from Lowell, Massachusetts

[Bouncy Ball]

10. So was my husband's grandfather.

:thumbsup:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

15. My grandfather grew up there too-and I have relatives there

it's an interesting city with a rich ethnic and industrial history.

[Bouncy Ball]

8. Looks like I found one of my answers anyway:

"This circle, along with a few other friends, became known as the center of the “Beat” movement. Jack and his friends were very interested in and influenced by the popular jazz and bop music of the time. Jack coined the phrase “Beat Generation” in a conversation with the writer John Clellon Holmes, when he described his contemporary generation as having an attitude of “beatness” or “weariness” with the world."

Huh! I thought it meant beat like rhythm. Not like "man, I'm beat." You learn something new every day.

[LoZoccolo]

16. Originally it meant that.

But in The Subterraneans he plays on the word a bit and also associates it with a rhythm, and he also liked the word because it could mean "beatific" as well.

[RagingInMiami]

17. I read it when I was 16 years old

Loved it. It was one of the books that shaped my personality. Or maybe it was one of the books that confirmed my personality. Who knows.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

19. Yes, many times. tried to live it 10 years too late

but, whatever

As far as actual writing goes, I like The Town and the City, but to capture the mood of a movement, On The Road is tops.

Too bad they made him leave the good parts out. It was made pedestrian by editors, or so I have been told by reliable sources.

I do reccommend Woody's book, Bound For Glory, though... it is a very good read.

Also, you will understand the Beats better if you read things about them. There are lots of memoirs by various people, Greg Corso (still miss you man), Orlovsky, Wm S Burroughs, and Ken Kesey all have great books about those days.

If you really want to go Kerouacian... try Mexico City Blues.

Have fun.

[Goathead]

21. I believe Kerouac coined the term Beat.

It had to do with WWII and coming back to a nation of conformity. The Beats experimented with a lot of stuff, from drugs to homosexuality. I would have to say that my favorites are Dharma Bums and Big Sur all though On the Road is excellent. All of his novels were part of a greater tome called The Legend of Deluoz Kerouac was another lost soul in a long line of "lost soul" writers. If you ever get a chance to listen to his spoken word, do it. It is like far out man, real cool.

[solinvictus]

22. I love it..

sadly enough, it's a snapshot of a time in America that is lost forever: relative prosperity, good social relations, and true freedom. I've re-read it this past month.

[tigereye]

23. if you like On The Road

there are a ton of books written by and about Kerouac's friends and compadres... or those associated with the "Beat" generation... poet Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs ( an acquired taste, but a fascinatingly weird guy), Paul Bowles, Neal Cassady, the folks associated with City Lights Bookstore. There are a lot of Beat influenced poets, with wonderful language and perspective.

It was a fascinating and challenging period of time and no one had written about the world in quite the same way they did -love, art, philosophy, pre- and post WWII ennui, drugs, sexuality. Fascinating. I love avant writers and these folks ( there are some women associated with the Beats as well) are as intriguing and more earthy than the Bloomsbury writers (another bohemian coterie of writers), although Brit and more "well-heeled."

Congrats on exploring an amazing American period of writing and self-exploration!

[Withywindle]

24. It's a pretty wonderful book in a lot of ways...

...still not my favorite by him, though. I like his more lyrical, dreamlike stuff best of all: Dr. Sax, Visions of Cody.


The Beats were culturally important for a lot of reasons: they were openly politically subversive in the McCarthy era, many of them wrote openly about homosexuality at a time when gay people were very hidden and persecuted, and they wrote about an openness to learning about Black culture at a very racist time. (A lot of their writings about black music and all that sound racist in a naive, romantic way now - but at the time, for white writers to write about jazz and blues and try to engage with it creativity with such respect and admiration was very challenging to the status quo). Also, while they certainly didn't invent the idea of bohemian counterculture, they did a lot to repopularize it and, for better or worse, redefine it.

[kariatari]

25. I just saw the original scroll on which he wrote it!

It's at a museum at the U. of Iowa right now. Pretty fuckin' amazing that he threw that down without editing it himself. I haven't read it, but I am definitely going to put it on my summer book list!

[confludemocrat]

26. Overrated n/t

[enigmatic]

27. Brilliant book..

Kerouac (along w/ Bukowski and Sherwood Anderson) are my favorite writers. Read "Big Sur" if you can get it; that's probably my favorite.

[Hardrada]

28. His great interest in Buddhism

should also be mentioned. I liked that about him and his often lyrical prose.