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I liked reading the real names of all the people and it made it quarky having all the grammar and spelling errors every once in a a while. I really enjoyed this book. I read the anniversary unedited edition from the origional scroll and I would recommend it. Reading this story really gives you a new found pride for America and all the wonderful people and places we have to offer. Everyone always thinks you need to travel abroad but this story makes you want to get to know the great scenery and characters right here at home.
Yet what I find most fascinating are some of the characters Jack partied with, some of whom became pioneers in the beatnik literary movement. A lifetime of drinking was the cause. Cassady died in 1968 at the age of 41. But I hope there is more fiction than fact in this tale, because the characters in this novel are a bunch of misfits. ON THE ROAD recounts some of Kerouac's traveling adventures but the true mystique lies in the fast, reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous lives he and his beatnik buddies lead.
Kerouac's semi-autobiographical prose is quite poetic. He also got away with "accidentally" shooting his wife in the head in Mexico during what he says was a drunken game of William Tell. Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac shares with us his search for.I don't know what. Here's a little breakdown on who's who:Dean Moriarty=Neal CassadyCarlo Marx=Allan GinsbergBull Lee=William Burroughs Each of these literary figures partied way too hard and it's their life spans that amaze me.
The cause of his death was unknown but drugs were involved. Not only was he a big drinker, but he was a heroin addict. In the midst of these road trips across America (and Mexico at the novel's climax) there's a lot of drugs, alcohol, womanizing, and stealing going on; all the things your mommy tells you not to do. Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady was a major drinker and the biggest A-hole in literature. ON THE ROAD really focuses most on Dean Moriarty.
This wild ride of a novel had me wondering about mortality- not so much my own mortality, but that of some of the characters within. No surprise there. Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac died in 1969 at the age of 47 from an internal hemorrhage. Carlo Marx/Allan Ginsberg, to my shock, also a heavy drinker and drug user, died in 1997 at the age of 70.Here's the real kicker: Bull Lee/William Burroughs died in 1997 at age 83. He was also an absent father and a womanizer, just to name a few. Sal Paradise is obsessed with Dean's free spirit. Apparently, in the late 1940's, a broke, semi-homeless hitchhiker was the cool thing to be.
This book deserves to be canonized as one of the best works of modern literature. He's selfish, irresponsible, and untrustworthy. But you can't help loving the guy because he knows how to have a good time. Go figure.
This product arrived in good condition and i find it acceptable under my circumstances.Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems
That rescued a star in my book. Furthermore, the author laid no foundation by portraying convential life in the 40's, leaving no opportunity for the contrast to appear.
The point of the book missed me completely. Touted as one of the classic pieces of literature of the 20th century, I was expecting more than ramblings of a group of Bohemian kids with little purpose in life.
As an icon to a decade, there was little in the text that was peculiar to that time. Perhaps, it is because better stuff has been published since that time.
Maybe you had to be there. The writing itself was poetic, rhymic, and at times creative.
On the other hand, I wouldn't waste my time with it again and I would really be ticked off if I had to read it as part of a college class.
That was part of it, but also it was like you know how people speak of reading the Bible should be - a revelation. Those last two recent reviewers I've just read didn't dig the book -that's fine. Suddenly I wasn't alone with my pain in the world. A lot of things that people like, and keep on about, don't appeal to me (The film Citizen Kane, football EVERY Saturday, Ernest Hemmingway, television, I could go on), that's how taste goes. I can only say that when I read On the Road back in 1962 it made me realise that I wasn't the only one who felt the way I did. The early 'Sixties were drab and boring (maybe everybody's mid-teenage years feel like that)., here were two guys escaping from that drab, boring, routine. Opening that book was like getting away from your teachers, the 9 to 5, the Straights who fitted into the grim routine and falling in with a hip gang who were just - nice to you.
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