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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
The Road is a collection of short stories that focuses on Jack London's tramp life, and the stories he wrote about tramps. In this book there are 14 short stories. The one I liked best by far was "Local Color", which had me howling with laughter. Some of the other ones were interesting, and a few of them were absolutely completely boring. However! They did serve me a practical use. A few months ago I was going through a period of insomnia, and I would literally read the boring stories from this book to fall asleep. It worked.
Overall, London has a very unique and vivid way of writing. It's more the topics that he's writing about that sometimes fall flat.
Overall, London has a very unique and vivid way of writing. It's more the topics that he's writing about that sometimes fall flat.
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
Fifty years before Kerouac, Jack London published a memoir about his life “on The Road.” In this case, The Road was the railroad, as London describes his years as a hobo riding the rails across the country. The essays are rather loosely connected, arranged by topic rather than chronologically. Indeed, only toward the end does London delve into how he began his life as a hobo after his teenage years as an infamous oyster pirate in San Francisco. (And you think THAT’S weird? Just wait until you read [b:John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs|288301|John Barleycorn Alcoholic Memoirs|Jack London|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356889870l/288301._SY75_.jpg|2059278] or hear about his time in Asia!)
But back to this book: the highlights are London’s encounters with the justice system -- being beaten by cops (“bulls”) for no reason other than being a poor guy walking down the street, the farcical “trial” that hobos must face, and the time he spent in prison. London portrays the graft and social caste of the prison as a mirror of the American capitalist system. Like businessmen or government officials, the prisoners barter, take bribes, abuse their authority, form trusts (of a sort), run underground black markets, and form communication syndicates.
When he’s not in prison, London is immersed in the subculture of the tramps: their communal bond, their slang, their sharing of resources, their survival skills, and most importantly, their stories. London states that he refines his storytelling craft by not only listening to and engaging with his fellow hobos in telling their stories “on The Road,” but also by spinning elaborate narratives to secure food/housing from sympathetic people or to evade being locked up by the police. As with the other London memoirs I’ve read, it is fascinating, beautifully written, thought-provoking, and entirely male-centric. London’s language is both wonderfully archaic, but also surprisingly modern. He sounds at times like he’s writing in 2007 rather than 1907.
Recommended for those interested in American history/culture, adventure narratives, or even the roots of the later mid-twentieth-century Beat ethos. To be read alongside the fictional accounts [b:Sister of The Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha|680141|Sister of The Road The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - as told to Dr. Ben Reitman|Ben L. Reitman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328696807l/680141._SY75_.jpg|666540] by Ben Reitman and [b:On the Road|70401|On the Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413588576l/70401._SX50_.jpg|1701188] by Kerouac.
But back to this book: the highlights are London’s encounters with the justice system -- being beaten by cops (“bulls”) for no reason other than being a poor guy walking down the street, the farcical “trial” that hobos must face, and the time he spent in prison. London portrays the graft and social caste of the prison as a mirror of the American capitalist system. Like businessmen or government officials, the prisoners barter, take bribes, abuse their authority, form trusts (of a sort), run underground black markets, and form communication syndicates.
When he’s not in prison, London is immersed in the subculture of the tramps: their communal bond, their slang, their sharing of resources, their survival skills, and most importantly, their stories. London states that he refines his storytelling craft by not only listening to and engaging with his fellow hobos in telling their stories “on The Road,” but also by spinning elaborate narratives to secure food/housing from sympathetic people or to evade being locked up by the police. As with the other London memoirs I’ve read, it is fascinating, beautifully written, thought-provoking, and entirely male-centric. London’s language is both wonderfully archaic, but also surprisingly modern. He sounds at times like he’s writing in 2007 rather than 1907.
Recommended for those interested in American history/culture, adventure narratives, or even the roots of the later mid-twentieth-century Beat ethos. To be read alongside the fictional accounts [b:Sister of The Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha|680141|Sister of The Road The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - as told to Dr. Ben Reitman|Ben L. Reitman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328696807l/680141._SY75_.jpg|666540] by Ben Reitman and [b:On the Road|70401|On the Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413588576l/70401._SX50_.jpg|1701188] by Kerouac.
adventurous
Je n'en demandais pas trop à cette lecture dès le départ. Un livre court, en sorte de biographie...oui mais ça parle de voyage, d'aventures. Et bien, cette lecture me laisse un avis assez mitigé. Un vrai livre de vagabondage et non de voyage. Ce que j'aime dans les livres qui racontent des voyages, des périples, ce sont les descriptions de paysages, la réflexion, l'esprit, la mentalité, le changement mental du personnage. Jack London ici, débarque avec ses gros sabots: "ça s'est passé comme ça et croyez-moi", il n'y a pas de changement, pas de remise en questions. Il raconte des faits.
Dès le premier chapitre, le lecteur est confronté à l'imagination du vagabond, à ses mensonges qui lui permettent de mendier. Et dès les premières pages, et ce tout le long du livre, je me suis demandé si ce qu'il racontait était vrai ou si il nous vendait encore un de ses gros mensonges. Certains faits sont racontés de manière si hyperbolique, si prétentieusement qu'il n'en paraît rien de véritable. C'est cet aspect de l'écriture qui m'a déplu. Il y a également le fait que j'ai l'impression qu'il veut perdre son lecteur; plusieurs points :
- il ne suit aucune chronologie
- chapitre 2, "comment on brûle le dur": les termes et l’enchaînement rapide des faits perdent le lecteur, la répétition de ces termes techniques m'ont juste totalement perdue, ce qui a rendu ma lecture pénible et insupportable, et ce qui a fait que j'ai lu en travers sans prêter attention à se que je lisais. Ça n'a eu, pour moi, aucun intérêt.
J'ai également la désagréable impression qu'il ne veut pas uniquement raconter mais aussi vanter son talent, supérieur à tous les autres. Jamais nous avons son ressenti d'être humain, jamais un sentiment, une sensation quelconque, mais toujours un semblant de vantardise. Cependant, j'ai aimé les différentes descriptions qu'il donne des personnages rencontrés sur sa route, même si celles-ci restent assez rapides, il en forme une certaine sociologie qui donne à voir les différents comportements des Hommes et des Femmes selon leur région ou leur culture dans les Etats-Unis du XIXe siècle. Autre chose que j'ai aimé, son rapport à la fugacité de la jeunesse, et de la vie qui mérite d'être vécu. Vivre, et ne pas se contenter d'exister.
Dès le premier chapitre, le lecteur est confronté à l'imagination du vagabond, à ses mensonges qui lui permettent de mendier. Et dès les premières pages, et ce tout le long du livre, je me suis demandé si ce qu'il racontait était vrai ou si il nous vendait encore un de ses gros mensonges. Certains faits sont racontés de manière si hyperbolique, si prétentieusement qu'il n'en paraît rien de véritable. C'est cet aspect de l'écriture qui m'a déplu. Il y a également le fait que j'ai l'impression qu'il veut perdre son lecteur; plusieurs points :
- il ne suit aucune chronologie
- chapitre 2, "comment on brûle le dur": les termes et l’enchaînement rapide des faits perdent le lecteur, la répétition de ces termes techniques m'ont juste totalement perdue, ce qui a rendu ma lecture pénible et insupportable, et ce qui a fait que j'ai lu en travers sans prêter attention à se que je lisais. Ça n'a eu, pour moi, aucun intérêt.
J'ai également la désagréable impression qu'il ne veut pas uniquement raconter mais aussi vanter son talent, supérieur à tous les autres. Jamais nous avons son ressenti d'être humain, jamais un sentiment, une sensation quelconque, mais toujours un semblant de vantardise. Cependant, j'ai aimé les différentes descriptions qu'il donne des personnages rencontrés sur sa route, même si celles-ci restent assez rapides, il en forme une certaine sociologie qui donne à voir les différents comportements des Hommes et des Femmes selon leur région ou leur culture dans les Etats-Unis du XIXe siècle. Autre chose que j'ai aimé, son rapport à la fugacité de la jeunesse, et de la vie qui mérite d'être vécu. Vivre, et ne pas se contenter d'exister.
Highly entertaining, though his bragging and putting down those that believed or enjoyed his stories gets extremely old.
3.5 stars
3.5 stars
So Jack London's seemed like a rakish lawbreakin' rogue in everything I've read till now, but according to this he was in a gang that used to beat the shit out of drunks and rob them. Somewhat less charming. Also he makes oblique reference to what I understand was a sort of ugly homo-pederast thing hoboes had going with the runaway kids they'd take under their wing, but all that considered Hoboeing sounds awesome.
Three and a half stars. I hadn't been interested in reading any more hobo literature after "You Can't Win" - it just didn't seem like anything had a chance against Jack Black. However, Jack London's stories of tramping are definitely worth reading, and I'm glad I gave this book a chance. I especially recommend this one if you are interested in hobo terminology; by the time you get through the book, you will have learned a bunch of the lingo for train-hopping and other hobo activities.