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sdb27's review against another edition
5.0
How, exactly, does one review On the Road? I realized as I sat down to write this that I had no idea where to start; there is no real “genre” that you can file this book under, no criteria with which you can grade it. Quite simply, On the Road is the definition of itself. Before I read this book, I didn’t understand all the hype. I wanted to explore it for myself, so I avoided reading reviews and plot summaries and just jumped right in. Initially I had to over the formatting; the book is literally one giant paragraph—no page breaks, no chapters, nothing to indicate a transition except punctuation and the occasional marker which told the reader that a new “scroll” was beginning. But once I got into it, I got it. I got why people exalt this book, why people say it changed their lives. It didn’t necessarily change mine, but we’ll get to that.
The version that I read was the original scroll, which meant that none of the names were changed from the original: Sal Paradise stayed Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty remained Neal Cassady, Carlo Marx was Allen Ginsberg, and Marylou was Luanne Henderson. It also meant that it was somewhat of a “director’s cut” or “extended edition”—all the “racier” original content was there, unedited. Kerouac’s cast of characters is colorful, but rather jaded in life. There is a sort of thematic listlessness that runs throughout the book, which is part of what compels the main characters to hit the road and explore all that the unknown has to offer them. I envied them that freedom, which is part of why I enjoyed the book so much. I got to live vicariously through Neal, Jack, et al. when they encountered hobos, hitchhikers, and cops, various part-time jobs and part-time lovers, all sprinkled along scenic ‘50s Americana and parts of Mexico.
What struck me most about the book was, of course, Kerouac’s prose. It’s not overlong or flowery, yet somehow Kerouac manages to capture the breathtaking beauty of the Sprawling American Landscape with short, deft brushstrokes that nonetheless are more poetic than anything else I’ve read in a really long time. The words leapt off the page and really painted a vivid portrait of the scene that Kerouac wanted to portray. I suppose what I loved best about this book, however, was the style of narration; it was as if Kerouac was sitting right in front of me, telling a story to a close friend. The companionable tone of the entire book kept me turning page after page with ease, because it was less a daunting story to be taken in in small chunks at a time, but rather a vivid story that lived and breathed with each sentence, so much so that I felt like I was experiencing it myself.
I would have found myself being able to identify more with what the main characters went through if I didn’t live in a time where something as innocuous as hitchhiking could mean ending up in a ditch somewhere three days later. Also, I was always under the impression that the ‘40s and ‘50s were a time of modesty and reserve, but from this book I’ve gotten an entirely new perspective on the vices people allowed themselves at the time. This book was just as much a history lesson as literary experience.
On the Road is a book that sticks with you regardless of whether you loved it or hated it. Every bit Kerouac’s magnum opus as it is the voice of a generation, this book—and in particular, this unedited edition—is an engaging, and ultimately timeless, read.
____
For more book reviews, visit my blog The Bookshelf!
The version that I read was the original scroll, which meant that none of the names were changed from the original: Sal Paradise stayed Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty remained Neal Cassady, Carlo Marx was Allen Ginsberg, and Marylou was Luanne Henderson. It also meant that it was somewhat of a “director’s cut” or “extended edition”—all the “racier” original content was there, unedited. Kerouac’s cast of characters is colorful, but rather jaded in life. There is a sort of thematic listlessness that runs throughout the book, which is part of what compels the main characters to hit the road and explore all that the unknown has to offer them. I envied them that freedom, which is part of why I enjoyed the book so much. I got to live vicariously through Neal, Jack, et al. when they encountered hobos, hitchhikers, and cops, various part-time jobs and part-time lovers, all sprinkled along scenic ‘50s Americana and parts of Mexico.
What struck me most about the book was, of course, Kerouac’s prose. It’s not overlong or flowery, yet somehow Kerouac manages to capture the breathtaking beauty of the Sprawling American Landscape with short, deft brushstrokes that nonetheless are more poetic than anything else I’ve read in a really long time. The words leapt off the page and really painted a vivid portrait of the scene that Kerouac wanted to portray. I suppose what I loved best about this book, however, was the style of narration; it was as if Kerouac was sitting right in front of me, telling a story to a close friend. The companionable tone of the entire book kept me turning page after page with ease, because it was less a daunting story to be taken in in small chunks at a time, but rather a vivid story that lived and breathed with each sentence, so much so that I felt like I was experiencing it myself.
I would have found myself being able to identify more with what the main characters went through if I didn’t live in a time where something as innocuous as hitchhiking could mean ending up in a ditch somewhere three days later. Also, I was always under the impression that the ‘40s and ‘50s were a time of modesty and reserve, but from this book I’ve gotten an entirely new perspective on the vices people allowed themselves at the time. This book was just as much a history lesson as literary experience.
On the Road is a book that sticks with you regardless of whether you loved it or hated it. Every bit Kerouac’s magnum opus as it is the voice of a generation, this book—and in particular, this unedited edition—is an engaging, and ultimately timeless, read.
____
For more book reviews, visit my blog The Bookshelf!
mk_pagano's review against another edition
3.0
So after letting it languish on my shelf for years, I finally tackled this. And I’m so glad I did, despite my conflicting feelings.
This book is like one giant run-on sentence. It’s the unedited first draft of On The Road. No paragraph breaks, no chapter breaks, questionable punctuation. You can see why it took me some time to get through. It also uses real names, not aliases–Dean Moriarty is really Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg is Allen Ginsberg, etc.
First, the good:
This book is so romantic. How could it not be? It’s young people take off on the road with no real plans, living fully in the moment, having adventure after adventure. It’s enough to make you ache with wanderlust.
"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."
"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."
It was also so evocative of the time, and of this country: America. It was just so real:
"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness."
Reading sentences like this I get this weird nostalgia for an era I was not even close to being a part of, but I feel like I remember it anyway. It makes me think reincarnation must be real, that I’m catching bits of memories from my past life. And maybe I was there.
Another inarguable asset to this book: Kerouac is an impressive word-spinner. Some of these sentences just slay me. I’m even more impressed knowing these were all part of a first draft.
"Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries."
"…because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing… but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."
Now, the negative…
This novel could have benefited from paragraph breaks and more punctuation. There’s a reason most first drafts don’t get published. But I get why this was important to publish in its original form–there’s something so exciting in the frenetic pace of the prose–and I did choose to read this over the edited version, so that’s my own fault.
The main issue with this novel is the characters.
They were not very good people.
First there’s Neal Cassady, alias Dean Moriarty, the Gatsby to Kerouac’s Nick. He sleeps with whomever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless if he has a wife or some children somewhere across the country waiting for him to come home. He steals cars, among other things–they all do–and is pretty much overall a plight on humanity.
"You have absolutely no regard but for yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you’re silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time."
That’s most of Kerouac’s friends in a nutshell, but especially Neal Cassady.
It’s hard to empathize with people like that when they run out of money, go hungry, etc. because they bring it, and worse, on themselves.
I mean, I get it. I get those days of being young and wanting to feel alive all of the time instead of just some of the time, and needing to throw off convention and the adult world and just drink and smoke and laugh all the time. More than anything this novel reminded me of the summers when I was in college, where I spent my time in a constant cloud of friends and alcohol and smoke, drinking and laughing away the night and sleeping away half the next day. I loved those days, and I miss them–but I confined them to just a few summers of my life. And I didn’t cheat on anyone or steal from anyone while I did it.
But then, on the flip side of this, Kerouac’s love for Neal, despite his many, many faults, comes across as very genuine. At first it’s like a hero’s worship, but the more you read, the more you realize how much he cares for his friend. And there’s something quite touching about that.
I really loved this book and at the same time I was really appalled by some of the things these characters did. I don’t know if knowing it was all real makes me love it more or less. These people actually did these things, but then again–these people actually did these things.
But I encourage you to read it and form your own opinions.
"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Neal Cassady, I even think of Old Neal Cassady the father we never found, I think of Neal Cassady."
This review originally appeared here: http://wanderlustywriter.com/2015/08/25/mks-book-reviews-on-the-road-the-original-scroll/comment-page-1/#comment-1424
This book is like one giant run-on sentence. It’s the unedited first draft of On The Road. No paragraph breaks, no chapter breaks, questionable punctuation. You can see why it took me some time to get through. It also uses real names, not aliases–Dean Moriarty is really Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg is Allen Ginsberg, etc.
First, the good:
This book is so romantic. How could it not be? It’s young people take off on the road with no real plans, living fully in the moment, having adventure after adventure. It’s enough to make you ache with wanderlust.
"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."
"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."
It was also so evocative of the time, and of this country: America. It was just so real:
"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness."
Reading sentences like this I get this weird nostalgia for an era I was not even close to being a part of, but I feel like I remember it anyway. It makes me think reincarnation must be real, that I’m catching bits of memories from my past life. And maybe I was there.
Another inarguable asset to this book: Kerouac is an impressive word-spinner. Some of these sentences just slay me. I’m even more impressed knowing these were all part of a first draft.
"Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries."
"…because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing… but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."
Now, the negative…
This novel could have benefited from paragraph breaks and more punctuation. There’s a reason most first drafts don’t get published. But I get why this was important to publish in its original form–there’s something so exciting in the frenetic pace of the prose–and I did choose to read this over the edited version, so that’s my own fault.
The main issue with this novel is the characters.
They were not very good people.
First there’s Neal Cassady, alias Dean Moriarty, the Gatsby to Kerouac’s Nick. He sleeps with whomever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless if he has a wife or some children somewhere across the country waiting for him to come home. He steals cars, among other things–they all do–and is pretty much overall a plight on humanity.
"You have absolutely no regard but for yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you’re silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time."
That’s most of Kerouac’s friends in a nutshell, but especially Neal Cassady.
It’s hard to empathize with people like that when they run out of money, go hungry, etc. because they bring it, and worse, on themselves.
I mean, I get it. I get those days of being young and wanting to feel alive all of the time instead of just some of the time, and needing to throw off convention and the adult world and just drink and smoke and laugh all the time. More than anything this novel reminded me of the summers when I was in college, where I spent my time in a constant cloud of friends and alcohol and smoke, drinking and laughing away the night and sleeping away half the next day. I loved those days, and I miss them–but I confined them to just a few summers of my life. And I didn’t cheat on anyone or steal from anyone while I did it.
But then, on the flip side of this, Kerouac’s love for Neal, despite his many, many faults, comes across as very genuine. At first it’s like a hero’s worship, but the more you read, the more you realize how much he cares for his friend. And there’s something quite touching about that.
I really loved this book and at the same time I was really appalled by some of the things these characters did. I don’t know if knowing it was all real makes me love it more or less. These people actually did these things, but then again–these people actually did these things.
But I encourage you to read it and form your own opinions.
"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Neal Cassady, I even think of Old Neal Cassady the father we never found, I think of Neal Cassady."
This review originally appeared here: http://wanderlustywriter.com/2015/08/25/mks-book-reviews-on-the-road-the-original-scroll/comment-page-1/#comment-1424
_ash0_'s review against another edition
Boring as hell. Way too many characters, hookups and not much of travel.
duparker's review against another edition
5.0
This book is so intense and enjoyable. I can't read it enough. I love the imagrey, the funkiness, and the strangeness. I have to read it every few years. Everytime I read it I think back to junior year in high school reading it and being in love with it and the girl that introduced us. She turned out to be a whore and fake, but this book and Desolation Peak were transformative for me. Made me want to drop out of society and be anything but a responsible adult. It made me want to be responsible to society and to myself, but not an adult.
Re-reading it is a good reminder that we need to be curious and allow things to happen in life, and in doing so we will have adventures and opportunity that we don't look for. Life happens around us and we need to be part of it and not just let it happen.
Re-reading it is a good reminder that we need to be curious and allow things to happen in life, and in doing so we will have adventures and opportunity that we don't look for. Life happens around us and we need to be part of it and not just let it happen.
jordanfeht's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
sir_wordsmith's review against another edition
5.0
This was a tough read as I purchased the original scroll version. I went back and forth with it, hating for a while, then loving it in equal measure. The thing was, it stuck with me, even through days of putting it down and not reading, it haunted my thoughts. The closing of the book, after the infamous "the dog ate it" sticky note, I got a glimpse into the imagery of the edited version, and it was then I felt the full impact of the scroll version. I will re-read the edited one, and recommend, for those of you stout of heart, the scroll version.
jacoboar's review against another edition
5.0
Por fin lo terminé! Con esto me dan el carnet de hipster, no?
adru's review against another edition
5.0
Alguses olevad 100 lk esseid on väga hea lisa ja lõpus olev märge "original scrolli viimased paar jalga on kadunud, kuna Lucien Carri koer sõi need ära" kõige parem, aga keskelolev tekitab, nagu ikka, isu veel ja veel lugeda; ju tulebki "Visions of Cody" ja 1957. a lõplik raamat nyyd ette võtta.