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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It's quiet a jazzy travel story. Not my cup of tea.
[5/166]
Great literature can transform perspective, bringing us past the boundaries of our own experience, and give us the empathy to understand people who are nothing like us.
On The Road is a success in those regards. Perhaps few headspaces are more foreign to me-- hey, at least in the boundaries of white America!-- than the roaming, frantic lifestyle of Sal, overflowing with wit, charm, and really long sentences, drugs and car trips and crossing the country...
the Silent Generation does speak through this book, and the heart of Beat pulses through it. The descriptions of the American countryside are stunning. Kerouac understands America of the time.
(I mean, I wasn't around to see it. It's definitely a convincing portrait.)
However, what this book isn't is iiiiiiiintersectional! Women are featured prominently, such as Terry (a Mexican woman Sal falls in love with at a bus station), Marylou (Dean's first girl, who has a thing for Sal on the side), and Camille (another one of Dean's girls), but there is a firm sense that they are secondary to the male protagonists, reinforced by narration that places them in that uncanny valley between objects of conquest and humans. There are so many moments where the book gets out of its chair to peer down at "queers" or "f*gs" (great, thank you, please stop) and this one, glistening scene where Sal, while picking cotton, fondly thinks about how some of the other workers must've been there since their ancestors in the antebellum south. Yikes yikes yikes.
If you can penetrate the first thirty pages or so of prose, this will be a worthwhile read, although one which should be taken with a grain of salt in many regards. The rambling sentences and constant references to characters off-screen can be bewildering.
Great literature can transform perspective, bringing us past the boundaries of our own experience, and give us the empathy to understand people who are nothing like us.
On The Road is a success in those regards. Perhaps few headspaces are more foreign to me-- hey, at least in the boundaries of white America!-- than the roaming, frantic lifestyle of Sal, overflowing with wit, charm, and really long sentences, drugs and car trips and crossing the country...
the Silent Generation does speak through this book, and the heart of Beat pulses through it. The descriptions of the American countryside are stunning. Kerouac understands America of the time.
(I mean, I wasn't around to see it. It's definitely a convincing portrait.)
However, what this book isn't is iiiiiiiintersectional! Women are featured prominently, such as Terry (a Mexican woman Sal falls in love with at a bus station), Marylou (Dean's first girl, who has a thing for Sal on the side), and Camille (another one of Dean's girls), but there is a firm sense that they are secondary to the male protagonists, reinforced by narration that places them in that uncanny valley between objects of conquest and humans. There are so many moments where the book gets out of its chair to peer down at "queers" or "f*gs" (great, thank you, please stop) and this one, glistening scene where Sal, while picking cotton, fondly thinks about how some of the other workers must've been there since their ancestors in the antebellum south. Yikes yikes yikes.
If you can penetrate the first thirty pages or so of prose, this will be a worthwhile read, although one which should be taken with a grain of salt in many regards. The rambling sentences and constant references to characters off-screen can be bewildering.
I honestly can't tell if it's charming or pathetic but it's certainly unique...
This is an amazing piece of Americana, an era probably lost and forgotten by many. Kerouac brings the era to life and invites you to live it with him.
This book made me want to travel across countries and to care less about what people think and do.
"The bottom of the world is gold and the world is upside down"
"The bottom of the world is gold and the world is upside down"
I should say that this is a book that I decided to read due to a recommendation. Yes, I take recommendations now! And so far, I seem to like them. This one is pretty much the same. But not too much.
So, if people are familiar with this work, this is the book that chronicled the trips of Jack Kerouac across the United States and Mexico. He had company, most notably Dean Moriarty, and although the prose was written as fiction, it is highly autobiographical. And it seemed that it developed a following, with people hitch-hiking and following his route as stated in the book.
Plotwise, there is nothing much that happens. They just travel. So in that sense, I didn't like it too much. However, there are different adventures that they face on the road, and that was quite entertaining. Perhaps that is what people want, that they decide to read this book. So how should I summarize this book? It is a book about traveling, a book about not having a lot of money, a book about sex on the road, and a book about not caring at all.
So did I like this book? Not too much. I cannot get past the irresponsibility of the characters. As much as I like traveling, I don't think I can travel the way they did. No plans, no itinerary, no regard for the future, no thinking of what their actions might result in, that is just sheer irresponsibility in my book. As much as I know that I might die tomorrow, even today, I don't act like I am going to. I still make plans, I plan my life to the best that I can, while thinking that there is a small sliver of chance that I might not exist soon.
So yes, as much as this was a good read, I don't like it too much. I would only recommend it for its place in history and literary value. It is ironic that I am writing this book review in Mexico City, which happens to be the characters' final destination. I even met an Australian here who told me that the book has a huge following in his native Australia, and people there hitch-hike all the time. But no, I am glad that I read it for its historical place in modern literature, but overall I am not impressed.
I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
So, if people are familiar with this work, this is the book that chronicled the trips of Jack Kerouac across the United States and Mexico. He had company, most notably Dean Moriarty, and although the prose was written as fiction, it is highly autobiographical. And it seemed that it developed a following, with people hitch-hiking and following his route as stated in the book.
Plotwise, there is nothing much that happens. They just travel. So in that sense, I didn't like it too much. However, there are different adventures that they face on the road, and that was quite entertaining. Perhaps that is what people want, that they decide to read this book. So how should I summarize this book? It is a book about traveling, a book about not having a lot of money, a book about sex on the road, and a book about not caring at all.
So did I like this book? Not too much. I cannot get past the irresponsibility of the characters. As much as I like traveling, I don't think I can travel the way they did. No plans, no itinerary, no regard for the future, no thinking of what their actions might result in, that is just sheer irresponsibility in my book. As much as I know that I might die tomorrow, even today, I don't act like I am going to. I still make plans, I plan my life to the best that I can, while thinking that there is a small sliver of chance that I might not exist soon.
So yes, as much as this was a good read, I don't like it too much. I would only recommend it for its place in history and literary value. It is ironic that I am writing this book review in Mexico City, which happens to be the characters' final destination. I even met an Australian here who told me that the book has a huge following in his native Australia, and people there hitch-hike all the time. But no, I am glad that I read it for its historical place in modern literature, but overall I am not impressed.
I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Holds up well , shows the timelessness of American Anxiety , wordy and winding , I can see bouncing off of it but if you can dig it , there’s a deep fertile soil there to be dug