On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition

I loved this book in high school and I purchased it so my son could read too. Did he love it as much as me? Not at all in fact he hated it, hated the characters and found it boring. Doesn’t matter still a great book.I will say this is a budget version the quality wasn’t bookstore.

I started reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and about time, you might say. All my life, I had expected this book to be a sort of hysterical gospel of the beat generation. In a way, it is, but above all it’s a hymn to the United States, its vastness, its sadness, its poetry and melancholy. It’s got something of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie with, in the background, Ennio Moricone’s music for Once upon a time in the West. I’m glad I first went from Arkansas to Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, then New Mexico and Arizona before I read this book. I can taste the wide open vistas, the mesmerizing monotony of endless roads over perfectly flat land, the sense of emptiness in this under populated country. Also, I understand somewhat better Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the common Man. All so beautiful and heartbreaking ! Like Kerouac, but under much more comfortable circumstances, I enjoyed the impact of unexpected encounters : an Indian in New Mexico, for instance, at a service station. He’d noticed my Little Rock, Razorback T-shirt, and we started talking. “I just spent several years in Little Rock” he said. “Now, I’m going home” : a simple statement, as moving as a haiku. You could never be friends with these people ; here now, gone a few seconds later, yet they stay with you all your life.Kerouac’s style has a lot to do with the fascination one quickly feels for the novel. Style can turn an ordinary story into a magic one. Here, sentences are clear, yet enhanced now and then by poetic touches : a misleading simplicity, and no mean feat.The major drawback lies in Kerouac’s obsession with booze, beer and getting drunk. Characters in the novel - including the main character - are always complaining that they are short of money, and it’s very true that they are not exactly rolling in it, but if they didn’t drink so much, they would have enough to get by, most of the time. The story takes place in 1947. By the time I went to live in North America (Canada is the same) it hadn’t changed. For me, the year was 1963. If a man managed to take a girl to a motel with him, he also had to bring in a bottle of whiskey. Apparently, it’s still like that. What a sad, sad outlook on sex ! Getting drunk on cheap booze instead of getting drunk on each other ! When the body is fighting with 6 shots of Bourbon, orgasms are reduced to the mere release of biological tensions instead of the last movement in a grand symphony of sensations and emotions.In California, Jack meets a lovely Mexican girl with blue eyes, which prompts an old farmer to say that, at some point, “the bull jumped over the fence.” You just know that their affair is not going to last, even if it keeps on for a few weeks. Jack Kerouac’s talent means that, as a reader, you are more in love with the girl than the author ever was. There is great sadness at their parting (there is great sadness throughout the book), but love, real love, deep love is never an element of the story, and that makes it even more poignant. On the Road is a drifting odyssey of self-centred people who are not even aware that they are self-centred. It’s an ode to complicated losers.

It's the classic novel, which is interesting in itself, but the cover art and texture of the cover and pages are amazing, like books used to be. People wanted it when I was done. It was fun to experience the physical joy of books again.

Jack Kerouac's On the Road details Sal Paradise's (Kerouac's) adventures with some of his real-life friends and acquaintances as he travels around America during post-war 1940. Hailed as a definitive Beat Generation novel, it chronicles Sal's exploration for meaning, self-identity and independence. The search for self-realization becomes a repeated theme throughout, as Sal and Dean experience America through travel and adventure.On the positive side, I found the travel aspect to the novel compelling and interesting. Kerouac's description of the places and the people make the journeys very authentic and real. It's clear from reading that he is excited about the prospects of being on the move. I think readers can readily identify with Sal and Dean's experiencing the world through a road trip, meeting people along the way, and making connections. Sal wants to make his way in the world by connecting to the people in the places he visits and the road itself is symbolic of that freedom and expression. The spirit of adventure, going out on the open road and experiencing the many diverse cities and town, and being a part of the world is something that Kerouac does manage to eloquently capture.However, the primary characters were unlikable and the ideas and philosophies projected were rather shallow. Sal has only flickering glimpses into any deep perspective about what this whole sense of self-discovery is and what life experiences ultimately mean to him; he is way too busy writing in a rambling, mile-a-minute fashion that catalogues everything and every "kick" without giving much substance to the moment. I waited for a big revelation at the conclusion, but never really got one. Sure, there are seldom moments where it appears that Sal is pushing away the world of wild, reckless abandon that Dean promotes and settling down to a more stable life, but these moments are rather fleeting and minimal. Sal's inspiration primarily comes through his idolization of Dean. Dean appears to be the poster child for the irresponsible, immature con-man. He flakes on his friends, cheats on his wife (or wives) repeatedly, has illegitimate children on a whim, constantly is in and out of prison for breaking the law, and looks for others to bail him out of trouble. He is the ultimate man-child, never wanting to grow up. It was difficult to understand how Sal worshiped this guy.Much of the book's appeal comes through its associations with the Beat Generation and the visions this movement projects, but in the end I just couldn't readily identify with On the Road or its characters. Too much cool hipster bravado with little depth.

great price. great quality.

Veio em 4 dias mesmo com a entrega padrão, bem embalado, e sem amassados!Kerouac é um clássico! O livro é um retrato da geração beat!

Julklapp till min dotter!

An amazing tale of friendship, jazz, sadness and the life on the road. A must read!

hat Spaß gemacht zu lesen auch in einer Sprache, die nicht meine Muttersprache ist

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