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A review by casebounder
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
2.0
I'm always frustrated to find books on the ever-looming lists of Books You Must Read that are really just... unenjoyable.
I probably wouldn't have finished this one if it weren't for a new book club I'm attending. On the Road is a long and rambling beat-era American mania. The vibe of the novel - a relentlessly episodic fever - is probably its most successful feature, and will be most memorable for me. And there are certainly famous Kerouac lines within, some romantic blurbs plucked from 300 pages of jazzish wanderings.
I think somewhere in an alternate timeline there's an edit of this novel that I would love. Something with a more narrow focus on infatuation and freedom of spirit. But it's not this timeline, and this 1957 novel doesn't stand the test of time.
Read the summary, browse quotes for highlights of Kerouac's prose, and move on to the next Important Book on your list.
I probably wouldn't have finished this one if it weren't for a new book club I'm attending. On the Road is a long and rambling beat-era American mania. The vibe of the novel - a relentlessly episodic fever - is probably its most successful feature, and will be most memorable for me. And there are certainly famous Kerouac lines within, some romantic blurbs plucked from 300 pages of jazzish wanderings.
I think somewhere in an alternate timeline there's an edit of this novel that I would love. Something with a more narrow focus on infatuation and freedom of spirit. But it's not this timeline, and this 1957 novel doesn't stand the test of time.
Read the summary, browse quotes for highlights of Kerouac's prose, and move on to the next Important Book on your list.