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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
The second half of the book was more of what I had hoped when I picked up Lonesome Traveler. Romantic observations of travels, cities, nature, and even hardships, the perspective of one who has opted out of regular society, a sense of wonder. The first half about working on trains and shipyards were boring to me but I'm sure it was important to Kerouac since that was his livelihood for a while.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Chapter 2 and 6 are life changing. This book transformed the way I reflect on solitude, cities, homelessness, drug usage, slaughter of animals, art, and much more.
Ah America, so big, so sad, so black, you're like the leafs of a dry summer that go crinkly ere August found its end, you're hopeless, everyone you look on you, there's nothing but the dry drear hopelessness, the knowledge of impending death, the suffering of present life, lights of Christmas wont save you or anybody, any more you could put Christmas lights on a dead bush in August, at night, and make it look like something, what is this Christmas you profess, in this void? ... in this nebulous cloud?
17
So if I’m gonna travel coasts I’m going to go down to the coast I covet.
19
AFTER ALL THIS KIND OF FANFARE, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of "thinking" and "enjoying" what they call "living," I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds
118
[on the experience of sixty three days and nights of solitude as fire watch on Desolation lookout in Mt Baker Natl Forest] “Darkness came, incomprehensible.”
125
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilder-ness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. Learn-ing, for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy.
128
In America camping is considered a healthy sport for Boy Scouts but a crime for mature men who have made it their vocation. Poverty is considered a virtue among the monks of civilized nations in America you spend a night in the calaboose if you're caught short without your vagrancy change.
In Brueghel's time children danced around the hobo, he wore huge and raggy clothes and always looked straight ahead indifferent to the children, and the families didnt mind the children playing with the hobo, it was a natural thing. But today mothers hold
tight their children when the hobo passes through town because of what newspapers made the hobo to be-the rapist, the strangler, child-eater. Stay away from strangers, they'll give you poison candy. Though the Brueghel hobo and the hobo today are the same, the children are different. Where is even the Chaplinesque hobo? The old Divine Comedy hobo? The hobo is Virgil, he leadeth.- The hobo enters the child's world (like in the famous painting by Brueghel of a huge hobo solemnly passing through the washtub village being barked at and laughed at by children, St. Pied Piper) but today it's an adult world, it's not a child's world. Today the hobo's made to slink. everybody's watching the cop heroes on TV.
174
The hobo has two watches you can't buy in Tiffany's, on one wrist the sun, on the other wrist the moon, both bands are made of sky.
Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark, The beggars are coming to town;
Some in rags, some in tags, And some in velvet gorns.
175
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
slow-paced
It took me a bit to get to the ryrthm of the book, as is not constructed in the common way that i was used to. The stories would have a begging and an end but the middle part was a crazy ride. After i got used to it, i enjoyed it a lot. I would give 5 stars but i try to be harsher.
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
It’s hard to talk about Lonesome Traveler, both because there’s a lot to be said, and because it has left me speechless.
It’s easy to see I didn’t find it perfectly perfect — it’s a fluctuating work, in tone and rhythm as in quality. Kerouac presents his life working and/or travelling in North America, to North Africa, to France, and finally briefly to England. Like the sceneries, the vehicles change as well, varying from trains to ship even to mules. Through such variety, it offers a certain freshness. Individually, though, these life and book chapters vary in accessibility and artistry. Some lack both, some offer one or the other, and some still achieve both.
Kerouac’s prose can get exhausting and even indecipherable at times, creating an insurmountable barrier between the reader and the work. But once you push through these parts, you’re met with nothing short of genius: a narration that is by all means jazz. I lost count of how many sentences or phrase turns I stopped and reread innumerable times, because they’re so delectable to say, to read, to hear, and to the soul. It’s a fully fledged experience to read these feverish, breathless passages — like how The Railroad Earth’s rhythm is vastly reminiscent of the sounds of trains chugging and rushing by. They are addictive, they stay with you and make you yearn for more. In a way, they’re the way Kerouac transmits his own brand of madness.
And as such I understand why so many people have felt the way they have about On the Road, because I feel it for Lonesome Traveler. Will my soul ever rest easy again, or will something inside me burn and yearn forever and ever?
It’s easy to see I didn’t find it perfectly perfect — it’s a fluctuating work, in tone and rhythm as in quality. Kerouac presents his life working and/or travelling in North America, to North Africa, to France, and finally briefly to England. Like the sceneries, the vehicles change as well, varying from trains to ship even to mules. Through such variety, it offers a certain freshness. Individually, though, these life and book chapters vary in accessibility and artistry. Some lack both, some offer one or the other, and some still achieve both.
Kerouac’s prose can get exhausting and even indecipherable at times, creating an insurmountable barrier between the reader and the work. But once you push through these parts, you’re met with nothing short of genius: a narration that is by all means jazz. I lost count of how many sentences or phrase turns I stopped and reread innumerable times, because they’re so delectable to say, to read, to hear, and to the soul. It’s a fully fledged experience to read these feverish, breathless passages — like how The Railroad Earth’s rhythm is vastly reminiscent of the sounds of trains chugging and rushing by. They are addictive, they stay with you and make you yearn for more. In a way, they’re the way Kerouac transmits his own brand of madness.
And as such I understand why so many people have felt the way they have about On the Road, because I feel it for Lonesome Traveler. Will my soul ever rest easy again, or will something inside me burn and yearn forever and ever?
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
‘’After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.’’
Kerouac skildrar sin långa resa från USA till Mexiko, Marocko, Paris, London och slutligen tillbaka till staterna. Han beskriver det han ser och är med om, alla människor han möter på vägen och vad de kan komma att betyda där och då. Det är fint hur allting är i en ständig rörelse, där allt (och alla) har sin egen tid och plats. Han tar arbete längst resans gång när pengarna börjar sina, men när han tjänat ihop tillräckligt hoppar han återigen på första bästa tåg, eller fartyg, som tar honom vidare på hans färd! Han skildrar sina tankar såsom de kommer, och visar upp världen utifrån sina egna ögon. Tycker denna var helt okej! Inte någon favorit, men den gav en intressant inblick i livet on the road (tänkte även ge just On the Road en chans så småningom!) och hur dessa fysiska resor ofta även resulterar i något inre. Tacohej för mig
Classic Kerouac novel written in his trademark jazz fueled, impressionistic prose. Admittedly becoming slightly obsolete as a description of journeying as the world he knew has disappeared he nevertheless continues to have an impact on people for his passion of the spirit of the journey.