On the Road: the Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac

On the Road: the Original Scroll Reviews

• 
  Alice

  I've been meaning to review this book for a while, but I get sort of emotional reading what other people think about Kerouac, and it has been hard to figure out what I want to say. I feel almost personally insulted by some of the more negative reviews which is totally weird and inappropriate of me. I guess I identify with Kerouac because in his heart he's not really all that unconventional, but he loves the company of wild adventurers and can be talked into almost anything.
  
  I reread the original (well I guess the scroll is the real original, but you know what I mean) before I read this, and they are very similar. On the Road is an amazing book & the scroll is the same amazing book minus paragraphs, plus all the sex, drugs and real names. The biggest surprise for me was that Carlo Marx was Alan Ginsberg. How did I not know that? Including the sexual relationship between Carlo Marx/Alan Ginsberg and Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady changed the dynamic of the book's Denver portion quite a bit. Cassady's bisexuality is hinted at in the edited OTR but spelling it out the way Kerouac does in the scroll makes the whole situation more complex. In OTR as originally published, Marx & Moriarty have a weird dynamic. Marx always seemed a little jealous of Dean's girls, but I never really got why. Now it makes more sense. Another interesting bit cut out of the edited OTR is Kerouac's visit to his ex-wife. All that gossip and trivia aside, the spirit of On the Road feels the same in this version.
  
  I read OTR for the first time when I was in high school, and every time I've read it since then I learn something different about the characters and myself. There is so much in this book I never get tired of: the motion, the adventure, the sense of an America of boundless size and possibility...
  
  Okay, I'll stop gushing now. I guess I can understand why Kerouac isn't for everyone, but he changed my life for better or worse and helped make me the sort of person who feels compelled to drive aimlessly around the country every few years just to see what's out there. I'll never regret the road trips I've taken, and though there are many writers whose travel narratives have inspired me, Kerouac will always be my first love in that category.
  
  I have to admit that with the exception of Dharma Bums I'm not crazy about his other books. I’ve tried to get into them, but I never could. I think Big Sur is the only other one I've managed to finish and it depressed the hell out of me. The exuberance and optimism that made me fall in love with On the Road faded quickly for poor Kerouac.
• 
  Chrissie

  Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969) is the author of this book. He is considered a pioneer of the Beat generation, along with Allan Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. If you are considering whether to read the book you must decide which edition to read. The book first came out in 1957 with the title
  On the Road. In 2007, the 50th anniversary edition of the book was published under the title:
  On the Road: the Original Scroll, which is what I have chosen to read and what I am reviewing.
  
  This, the Scroll version, is a transcription of the original draft typed over twenty days from April 6 through April 26, 1951. It was typed as one long paragraph on sheets of tracing paper which Kerouac taped together to form a 120-foot (37 m) scroll. This "final draft" was not totally new, being based on earlier journal entries. The content is autobiographical and is based on real events and real people in the author's life. Kerouac writes of four road-trip adventures taken with his buddy Neal Cassady (1926 – 1968), three across the United States and one to Mexico City. The first trip was taken in 1947.
  
  In the first edition pseudonyms were used, not so in the 50th anniversary edition, which is also said to be more sexually explicit. By today's standards though, the writing cannot be classified as graphic. The spontaneity of the text is said to be more evident in the Scroll.
  
  Sex, alcohol, drugs, theft and other immoral behavior do make up a large part of the events described. Don't expect to fall in love with Kerouac or his friends. That is certainly not the point of the book!
  
  What this book does draw well is the friendship between Jack and Neal and other friends too. It captures the feel of the Beat movement, which later became the Hippie movement we all know so well. I cannot say I admire Jack, Neal or their friends, but I do understand what they were searching for….even if much of the times things did get totally out of control! I am glad I read the book because it recalled for me some of the dreams I had as a youth, albeit in less dramatic form. Don't you remember that time in your younger days when you thought you would and could pursue freedom and individuality and would get every ounce of enjoyment out of life?! The belief that one could and would live life to the fullest. Then comes reality, not bad, but more down to earth.
  
  Kerouac captures well the feel of a road trip across America at the end of the 40s. Of course not in fancy hotels, but instead hitchhiking and totally broke. That is to say really being on-the-road. What might you see? Who might you meet? How does the feel of the land change?
  
  Some people say this book has religious undertones. I don't see that in the least.
  
  There are portions that could definitely have been tightened. I am glad I read it, but now I am glad it is over.
  
  The audiobook is narrated by John Ventimiglia. In his reading he wonderfully captures the spirit of the Beat movement. I have given the narration five stars. He captures well Kerouac's spontaneous prose and its intensity.
• 
  P.E.

  Finished in the original.
  
  Matching Soundtrack :
  Jubilee Stomb - Duke Ellington
  
  
  I find Jack Kerouac's spontaneous prose up to the task.
  On the other hand, the five "books" are really uneven, which can somewhat drag you down, however it bears credit to the extensive use of spontaneous prose throughout : the typescript is alleged to have been written in a week.
  
  
  Here goes a collection of personal observations on the book :
  
  - On the Road is reminiscent of French Blablacar, especially in its first third with nothing but a mad series of hitchhiking rides with a wide variety of motorists, informing a compact oral history of the United States, complete with a history of underground music.
  
  - Spontaneous prose intends to capture change, telling you about fleeting memories as they reel, letting the flow go to IT without hindrance, a technique looking up to E.Hemingway.
  The narration is sometimes deceivingly blank, as if it was being conveyed by a child, with no logic between events but chronological succession, gathering of memories, digressions. This is in keeping with the child-like presence and attention given to the moment by Jack and Neal. And comes to fruition in passages when Neal behaves like a Herodotus gone mad in his will to dig people.
  
  - Curious echoing and reiterations on the road from one travel to the other, making the call of the road feel like an arrant drive to seek answers for yourself and find more confusion and bewilderment instead.
  
  - Jack's situation as a narrator makes you associate him with Nick Carraway in TGG or "Fred" in Breakfast at Tiffany.
• 
  Tosh

  
  Five stars is not enough for this book: it should be ten stars! This is a very beautiful book and rightfully an American classic. Stunning!
  
  
  
  "
  On The Road" is the real deal. I just started reading this and it's just a fantastic read. The energy just pops out of the page. The punk rock of novels. Mr. Jack just had the 'moment' when he wrote this, and it is incredible experience to share that 'moment' with the great man. Great.
• 
  Žilvinas Gečiauskas

  1951 m Balandžio 2 dieną Jack Kerouac į spausdinimo mašinėlę sugrūdo 36m ilgio ritinį ( Aleno Ginsbergo sumanymas) , per tris savaites , bibopo , benzedrino ir kavos pagalba parašė „Kelyje“ Knygą. Bet apie tai nesiplėsiu , kadangi vertėja Irena Balčiūnienė viską labai gražiai aprašė šios Knygos įžangoje. Įdomu tai , kad nors Knygą parašė viso labo per 3 savaites , Knyga išspausdinta tik 1957m , pakoreguota ir sutrumpinta ir su pakeistais vardais. O originalaus ritinio tekstas skaitytojus pasiekė tiktai 2006 m , praėjus 50m nuo autoriaus mirties.
  Iš tiesų ritinys yra tobulai šią Knygą atspindintis simbolis , nes Jack Kerouac , kaip koks viduramžių metraštininkas parašė jazzu alsuojanti palaimintai prarastos kartos metraštį . Kartos kuri ieškojo atsakymų į savo klausymus , kartos kuri bandė būti originali ir sukurti kažką naujo ( ir jiems tas pavyko) , kartos kuri tuo metu laužė visas nusistovėjusias normas , kartos kuriai nematerialūs dalykai buvo gerokai svarbesni nei materialūs , kartos kuri ieškojo savojo Dievo, kartos kuriai mūsų karta turi būti dėkinga ( labiau nei hipiams , kurie ir gimė iš Bitnikų ) už dalykus kurie mums atrodo savaime suprantami. Čia Jack meistriškai aprašė kartos virsmą , tad kelias čia ir metafora.
  „Kelyje“ siužetas nėra labai svarbu , kas tobulai derinosi su spontanišku Kerouac rašimo stiliumi. Jackui kur kas labiau rūpėjo asmenybių vystymas , jausmai , įvairios detalės ir dalykai kurie paviršutiniškai žiūrint atrodo nesvarbūs , bet iš tiesų yra svarbūs. Kažkur teko skaityti , kad Knygoje nerasta pačios Amerikos ir jos kultūros , bet tai yra visiškas melas , Amerika ir jos kultūra čia išsilaisvina iš geležinių kapitalizmo gniaužtų ir gražiausiomis spalvomis plūsta iš kiekvieno puslapio. Kerouac meistriškai piešia Amerikos peizažus , pasirinktos metaforos nuostabiai žaidžia su skaitytojo vaizduote ir leidžia pačiam viską pamatyti ir patirti. Jau nekalbant apie tai , kad trumpai , bet itin vaizdingai perteikė Amerikos miestų sielas ir tai kokius jausmus jie sukėlė autoriui.
  Paviršutiniškai daugumai , kuriai Hemingvėjaus „Senis ir jūra“ tėra pasaka apie senį ir žveją , kuriai Bukowski tik nešvankias nesąmones rašantis girtuoklis , kuriai viskas turi būti patiekta ant lėkštutės ir kuriai nepatinka ieškojimai ir Jack Kerouac „Kelyje“ tebus Knyga apie bohemiškus nevykėlius , kurie nemoka gyventi ir viskas ką jie supras bus jazzas , narkotikai , alkoholis ir visas kitas paviršius. Likusiems , net jeigu „Kelyje“ ir nepaliks didesnio įspūdžio , iš šios kelionės pasisems tikrai nemažai.
• 
  K.D. Absolutely

  What I find intriguing about this book was how it was spontaneously written: 3 months on a scroll of papers. Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) did not have formal training on writing and probably he wanted to make a statement by packing up his things and write his experience while on the road with a friend, Neal Cassady (1926-1968). The book was largely autobiographical and describes Kerouac's road-trip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Cassady in the late 40s, as well as his relationships with other Beat (a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the 1950's) writers and friends.
  
  Compared to William S. Burrough's
  Naked Lunch (also 5 stars), the book is easier to read and the narrative is more straightforward. Though it deals on the same subject matters, e.g., drugs, religion, counter-materialism, etc., it also deals on relationships. I particularly liked the parts when Sal (Jack) tries to work as cotton picker and he realizes that he is not for that kind of job. Young and able to explore, I wish I was able to do that when I was much younger. In the Philippines, the job that you end up after graduation normally becomes your career path throughout your working years. When you reach 30 and much more 40, it is hard to have a career change because of the bleak economic condition.
  
  Central to the story is the strong male friendship between Sal (Jack Kerouac) and Dean (Neal Cassady). They are not homosexuals as they have the furry of women that they lived with and got pregnant. What I am trying to point out is that they are buddies, traveling together, fighting and pissing each other off. But in the closing scene of the book, when looking at the harbour, Sal uttered silently ". . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty." I mean it so poignant that you will think of lost beautiful relationships that you had in your life. It's like Jack Keroauc summing up what life is all about: it's about people you loved and lost that make you value those who still remain all through the years.
• 
  Sheri

  This might be my only 1 star review on Goodreads out of 300+ I've rated here so far. Why didn't I like it? In short, it's a buddy-travel-memoir by an extremely immature and sexist 30-something written in a single paragraph. That's right. All 300+ pages of this book (and I'm not counting the 100 pages of introductions by the so-called scholars and critics who adore Kerouac and this book) are a single paragraph. About a quarter of the way through this behemoth paragraph, it was all I could do not to put it down and count it in that handful (and I do mean handful) of books that I've started and then decided not to finish.
  
  One brilliant sentence on page 206 caught my attention (and I'll quote it here so you don't have to read the whole nightmare paragraph just to stumble onto it yourself): ""Somebody had tipped the American continent like a pinball machine and all the goofballs had come rolling to LA in the southwest corner." As for the writing in the rest of the book? It's pretty Dick-and-Jane-ish. Which isn't surprising given that Kerouac wrote this in about a month after he'd completed all four journeys across the US that are the subject of the book.
  
  So why is this book on the list of great and impactful American works that everyone is supposed to read? As near as I can figure, (1) critics were wowed by the entire book-as-one-paragraph concept; (2) Kerouac was cool & hip because he wrote about smoking marijuana (tea, as he called it); and (3) being wild and immature and attempting to screw every female you met was also considered cool and hip.
  
  Bottom line: if you like buddy travel memoirs, go back and read Huckleberry Finn again. It's still the best buddy travel memoir in the English language. And if you're looking for idiosyncratic punctuation, read anything by Jose Saramago (but especially Blindness, his best book). Skip "On The Road."
• 
  Stephen

  The continent "groans" again and again.
  
  The night is too often "sad," the cities are "mad" or "wild" and "sad" some more. New York is the "edge of the continent," and San Francisco, too and sometimes they're the "rim of the world," or some similar allusion.
  
  Jack Kerouac and his friends, would be considered drunks and losers by the standards of most. The author's muse and messiah, Neal Cassady, is a fellow too easily distracted, undisciplined and, by today's measurements, a candidate for depression medication.
  
  In the recently released "scroll" version of "On the Road," Cassady's criminal bent and disregard for his friends are drawn in much starker contrast than in the toned-down Viking Press 1950s version.
  
  But it works and wonderfully so.
  
  Whatever the personal flaws of the roadgoers,whatever the prosodic sins of their faithful secretary Jack, The Scroll is blessed with energy and truth and dynamism, a beatific rhythm and sound that hold up, even though we've read it all before.
  
  But where what was once novel becomes cliché with the passing of time, The Scroll takes on enhanced value as snapshot of a country long-disappeared.
  
  The Scroll is a sweeping panorama of America beaten out on teletype paper by a guy on speed; maybe drug speed, maybe coffee, but probably something else that burned out of Kerouac like heavy kerosene and which caused his death when the last vapors rose from his being and poofed out into the dusty firmament.
  
  It has politics without the jeremiads, whole manifestoes in a masterful word-stroke such as "sullen unions," a flavor and entire reality nailed to the mind's wall.
  
  It is loving landscape portraiture as in this passage laid down about their departure from New Orleans:
  
  "Port Allen -- Poor Allen -- where the river's all rain and roses in a misty pinpoint darkness and where we swung around a circular drive in yellow foglight and suddenly saw the great black body below a bridge and crossed eternity again. What is the Mississippi River -- a washed clod in the rainy night, a soft plopping from drooping Missouri banks, a dissolving, a riding of the tide down the eternal waterbed, a contribution to brown foams, a voyaging past endless vales and trees and levees down, down along, down along, by Memphis, Greenville, Eudora, Vicksburg, Natchez, Port Allen, and Port Orleans and Point of the Deltas, by Venice and the Night's Great Gulf out. So the stars shine warm in the Gulf of Mexico at night. From the soft and thunderous Carib comes electricity, and from the continental Divide where rain and rivers are decided come swirls, and the little raindrop that in Dakota fell and gathered mud and roses rises resurrected from the sea and flies on back to go and bloom again in waving mells of the Mississippi's bed, and lives again."
  
  The passage lies at the book's midpoint; a fine spine to all the word swirling around it, like the Mississippi in its marriage with the landscape.
  
  Everywhere lively applications, symbols, poetry pulled from the American map, magic in Mizzou and Mississippi, no invention, just the natural ordering of an evident song about the land itself.
  
  Early in this passage the prose become unnecessary, but gripped by the author's sweaty hand, we are yanked along, pointed here and there on the keyboard toward ecstatic sites he has taken the time to see for us.
  
  Is there such a thing as a mell or does his easy resort to something that sings make it go down so much easier, and isn't that part of the job?
  
  Mell is a swell on the Mississippi and we know that, even if we didn't before.
  
  It is not easy to sift through all the postmodern swill that has come after and still be awed at the pure audacity of Kerouac; the audacity to make up words, to appear at his New York editor's office sweating and stinking of chemical ooze with a manuscript written on 120 feet of rolled paper demanding respect of The Scroll as if it were plumbed from Dead Sea depths.
  
  So goes it with the aspiring philosopher whom, even if he is a bum, still philosophizes, and not just for those of high brow:
  
  "death will overtake us before heaven. The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced -- tho we hate to admit it -- in death. But who wants to die. More of this later."
  
  And The Scroll renders social commentary still relevant today:
  
  "On the sidewalk characters swarmed. Everybody was looking at everybody else. It was the end of the continent no more land. Somebody had tipped America like a pinball machine and all the goofballs had come rolling to LA in the southwest corner. I cried for all of us. There was no end to the American sadness and the American madness. Someday we'll all start laughing and roll on the ground when we realize how funny it's been. Until then there is a lugubrious seriousness I love in all of this."
  
  There's that "end of the continent" bit while "sadness and madness" appear elsewhere in a vignette of Kerouac's entitled "October In the Railroad Earth," as "end of the land sadness end of the land gladness" not precisely alike, but essentially the same literary trick.
  
  Yet if you're hip to all of this, if you can dig it and know time, then it's not lack of imagination so much as your favorite band playing the same songs at a second show.
  
  And then there's Neal; stripped of Dean Moriarity's mask and draped in a legend Cassady came to embody for three generations of misspent youths, stealing four cars at a roadhouse party outside Denver, denied entry into the homes of kith and kin alike, boy to his father's bum and disappeared dad, wrangler, brakeman, seducer of everybody else's girlfriends (and boyfriends), absentee father himself.
  
  Says "
  Naked Lunch" author William Burroughs of Cassady when they visit him in the Louisiana swamps, "He seems to be headed for his ideal fate, which is compulsive psychosis dashed with a jigger of psychopathic irresponsibility and violence."
  
  Pretty smart fellow Bill Burroughs, as were they all, in spite of their nasty habits.
  
  Cassady floats free of all preconceived notions regarding expected behavior, free of the bars other attempt to bind him with through holy judgments...part-time N.Y. hipster and happy pervert to Kerouac's ambiguous French-Catholic curiosities.
  
  "He lived with Diane in a coldwater flat in the East Seventies. When he came home at night he took off all his clothes and put on a hiplength Chinese silk jacket and sat in his easy chair to smoke a waterpipe loaded with tea. These were his coming-home pleasures: together with a deck of dirty cars. "Lately I've been concentrating on this deuce of diamonds. Have you noticed where her other hand is? I'll bet you can't tell. Look long and try to see." He wanted to lend me this deuce of diamonds, which depicted a tall mournful fellow and a lascivious sad whore on a bed trying a position. 'Go ahead man, I've used it many times!'"
  
  Drunken romantics bound early to your graves. Who should purchase your peddlings?A dank Detroit theater is no palace at 4 a.m. and an alley is an alley is an alley in the crappy part of a marginal Texas town. Or is it? Throwing down your challenge, your example was enjoyment. "Man can you dig the beauty and kicks!"
  
  "We wandered out and negotiated several dark mysterious blocks. Innumerable houses hid behind verdant almost jungle-like yards' we saw glimpses of girls in front rooms, girls on porches, girls in the bushes with boys. 'I never knew this mad San Antonio! Think what Mexico'll be like. Lessgo! Lessgo!'"
  
  Yet for all its ebullience, "On the Road" is but a marginally successful search for joy that, at bottom, asserts something is not right in these sojourners nor in the America which spawned them.
  
  "Looking at snapshots of Cassady's children Kerouac writes, I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth and well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness of the riot, or our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. Juices inform the world, children never know."
  
  Nightmare and dream sit on different sides of the same coin and to know one, you must be familiar with the other.
  
  The extension of the Mexico trip, trimmed to a classical dénouement in the edited version, renders the American break with an organic world wrought by the big bomb drops on Japan.
  
  It is mentioned vaguely, as if to do so more emphatically might conjure another nuclear massacre, but in this passage we hear it and understand that, for all their rebellion and dissociation, the roadgoers are tainted by food from the same poisoned factory farm.
  
  The indigenous peoples they saw, knew who was the father and who was the son of antique life on earth, and made no comment. For when destruction comes to the world people will stare with the same eyes from the caves of Mexico as well as from the caves of Bali, where it all began and where Adam was suckled and taught to know.
  
  Jack and Neal and the third wheel rolling with them are no heroes. They are car escapees from the psychic slaughter unleashed in their homeland, a sudden clanking folly from America with its three broken bozos inside. And the choice has been the same for half a century now: to be with them or against them.
  
  Lead the way you lost and lonely bozos.
• 
  Erk

  นี่ถือเป็นประสบการณ์อ่านหนังสือที่โคตรแปลกที่สุดที่เคยอ่านมาเลย
  
  แปลมาจากต้นฉบับแท้ๆ ไม่มีการขึ้นย่อหน้าใหม่ใดๆ ไม่มีการแบ่งบท ตัวหนังสือเรียงร้อยติดกันยืดยาว มันเป็นหนังสือที่บ้ามากๆเลย เต็มไปด้วยพลังดิบเถื่อน คำหยาบคาย sex ยาเสพติด การโบกรถและการเดินทางบนท้องถนนเป็นพันๆไมล์ทั่วอเมริกาจนไปถึง Mexico
  
  ด้วยเราไม่ค่อยชอบเดินทางไกล (เป็นคน���มารถ) เลยไม่อินหรือได้รับแรงบันดาลใจใดๆทั้งสิ้น แต่เรายังสามารถดื่มด่ำไปกับธรรมชาติ วิถีชีวิต ดนตรีแจ๊ส และผู้คนยุคนั้นได้ แม้จะต้องกุมขมับกับการกระทำสุดห่ามของแต่ละคน ซึ่งเราพยายามจะเข้าใจแต่ก็ไม่สามารถจริงๆ 😌
• 
  Carrie

  I became a fan of the 'original' version around my second year of high school. I remember idolizing these crazy characters - to the point of writing a paper for English class on 'The Beats'. When I heard that this minimally edited version was available, I looked forward to reliving my love of this wild bunch of friends...jumping madly across the continent. Free of conformist society, traditional writing methods, and the mindless responsibilities of the new modern life.
  
  At first I was intimidated by the visually dense pages of text - unbroken by paragraphs or chapters (except for the BOOK 2, BOOK 3, BOOK 4 titles within the lines of text), but Kerouac's energetic and often humorous storytelling made the book's 400 pages zoom by - like the cows and telephone poles along the Mid-Western highway.
  
  Overall, this version wasn't as different as I thought it might be. It was a little raunchier - there were a few more detailed sex scenes and some homosexual moments were left in the manuscript, but it wasn't shocking reading it from the perspective of someone living in 2010. The extra material also didn't change much of the tone or path of the story. Most of the now uncut bits just provided another scene of something crazy.
  
  I didn't read it concurrently with the established version, but I felt that the 'scroll' version was more descriptive - especially near the end of the book while the group was driving through Mexico. I enjoyed seeing the 'real' names of the characters like Allen, Neal, and Bill. I also thought that showing Jack as a guy living with his mother in the scroll was much more straightforward than placing him with some mysterious aunt in the mainstream version. It brought one of the less savory aspects of the beat lifestyle into focus. It was harder to be awestruck with the 'king of the beats' when he's a man living with his mother...in her apartment in Queens...constantly bumming money off of her.
  
  I don't know if it's because of the decade that's passed since I first read On The Road or if this version of the book just presents the characters in a more dejected light...but I found myself feeling more saddened by the characters' lifestyles than inspired by them. Sure they were free of the daily grind, but they were also free of a way to support themselves (for the most part), free of a stable home, free of solid romantic relationships, and free of self-esteem. The fact that these characters had either failed at their relationships and jobs, or (most of the time) failed to even try at anything other than running away really struck me this time. They even reached a point where they didn't know what they were running from anymore...just go go go road is life...
  
  Maybe I've just become a bit of a square, and I'll balance out in the next decade. As a book I still do recommend giving it a try. It's a piece of cultural history, and it's written like a letter from a close friend - who brings me into his inside jokes and trys to enlighten me with societal observations....unfortunately Jack's a friend that I used to look up to more when I was 15.
• 
  Diana

  The first time I read On the Road I was 23, which is probably the perfect age to read it. Now, 30 years later, I've just read On the Road: The Original Scroll, and I have to say, my impressions are different now that I'm older, although I still loved the book and was moved by it.
  
  I liked being able to read it exactly as Jack Kerouac typed it way back in 1951: all one giant block of type, with no paragraphs or even separate chapters, but merely "BOOK II" and "BOOK III" etc. at the beginning of each big chunk of the story. All the typos were left intact too, as well as the real names of all the characters. The effect was that the book seemed more true, and sadder and more real. For example, here's the first sentences in the edited version that came out in 1957: "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road."
  
  Now, contrast that with what Jack originally wrote: "I first met Neal not long after my father died...I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about except that it really had something to do with my father's death and my awful feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Neal there really began for me that part of my life that you could call my life on the road."
  
  The second, original beginning is far superior to the first, edited one. There's really no good reason to change the reason for his illness from his father's death to his split-up with his wife, except to try to make him seem like more of a grown-up, I guess, but that's stupid. And editing the last sentence to make it more succinct doesn't make it better, because the original sentence sounds more expressive and like he's talking to you.
  
  Anyway, it was nice to revisit the book in this way. I had forgotten most of it, but I never forgot the feeling it gave me. Poor Jack. Poor Neal. They both died in their 40s. I don't think either one of them wanted to get old. They didn't know how to be old, and who can blame them.
  
  P.S. I am aware of the misogyny in this book. I was aware of it then, when I first read it in 1991, and I am aware of it now. The only thing that has changed is that society is less tolerant of blatant misogyny now. But this is how I still feel about it: this is Jack Kerouac's account from his perspective. I would never want someone to not be honest about their true feelings in order to better fit in with some puritan ideal of having only nice, societally approved thoughts and feelings. How bland and boring and untrue that would be.
• 
  Fehiman

  Yorumun aslı ve devamı
  Yorum Cadısı'nda.
  
  Yolda, daha önce okuduğum hiçbir kitaba benzemiyor: doğal ve çarpıcı anlatımıyla yoğun bir kitap. Kitabın editörü Howard Cunnell'ın deyişiyle ise doğrudan, samimi, ipsiz sapsız, vahşi ve "hakiki" bir eser. Bir şekilde bir yerlere bağlı olan ama içindeki maceraperest ruhu da görmezden gelemeyen herkesin, Yolda'yı okumasını tavsiye ederim.
• 
  Max Nemtsov

  Хорошие сопроводительные материалы к тексту свитка, развенчивающие ряд мифов о романе, ну а сам свиток - это, конечно, совершенно отдельное произведение, где-то между собственно подчищенным опубликованным романом и вариациями на ту же тему, вроде "Видений Коди". Если боги будут милостивы, и его переведем, это будет интересно (в особенности в тех местах, которые в опубликованном романе намеренно оставлены темными).
• 
  Gideon

  The road is long and winding, and so is Jack Kerouac’s writing, but it doesn’t make for a very enjoyable novel. As Truman Capote famously said, “None of these people have anything interesting to say,” he observed, “and none of them can write, not even Mr. Kerouac. [What they do] isn’t writing at all—it’s typing.”
  
  I understand what Kerouac is trying to do here: to represent life in the wandering way that life exists, and to present two characters that don’t know quite what they’re looking for and don’t find it. Does anything exemplify the post-WWII generation more? We’re still living with these consequences. Travel for the pure enjoyment of travel is good, even great. The intention of expanding yourself, and being with friends, and smelling the mountain and sea air, none of these are bad, but without any kind of connective tissue or narrative intention, it doesn’t make for a good book.
  
  Partially this may be due to this version being the “original scroll” that Kerouac wrote on a single long piece of paper over three weeks. It’s barely edited, uncensored, and ugly in form. I have to assume the book is helped by the presence of an editor, otherwise I fail to see how this captured the minds and hearts of photo-hippies of the 50s and true hippies of the following decades.
  
  The first part of the book, prior to the scroll, consists of introductions by scholars justifying this as a scholarly work. Much time is spent defending Kerouac's rampant racism and sexism - but why is it defended? Anyone who is not white is idolized in the book, yet they're idolized from a superiority point of view while neglecting the downsides of not being white in the 50s or before. Kerouac's tone-deafness leads him to imagine himself as an old Negro, without a care in the world.
  
  Sure.
  
  White women fare even worse - they're not at all idolized. Women in general are beings to be used sexually by men, and any female characters that appear have no personality (which isn't saying much, not many of Kerouac's characters do). Kerouac seeks humanity, yet fails to realize the enormity of humanity: he sees only the enormity of America.
  
  If you’re looking for a road or travel book, I’d recommend The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a fictional, depressing novel set in a nuked America where almost no living thing exists, but hope glimmers at the edges of the waste. For something more in line with On the Road, I much preferred John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley. It’s funnier, more focused, and gives more of a feel for the United States than Kerouac ever even attempts.
  
  If you type enough some poetry will come out, and here are some lines I liked -
  
  - And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, in hints and mighty visitation, far off, the great snowy–tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath.
  - ...air you can kiss…
  - I want to marry a girl so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old.
  - God exists without qualms.
  - ...she won't understand how much I love her---she's knitting my doom.
  - I stood poised on the great western plain and didn't know what to do.
  - Things are so hard to figure when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly world.
  - Women can forget what men can't.
• 
  Jim Cherry

  The plot to “On The Road” wouldn’t really tell you what “On The Road” is about because the travels of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity are more existential than overt action. Yes, they drive from coast to coast, meet people, go to parties, but it’s not the action that is important but the experience Sal and Dean derive from each adventure.
  
  The real story of “On The Road: The Original Scroll” isn’t in the book but in how Kerouac created it. The autobiographical elements that made up “On The Road,” Kerouac and Neal Cassady taking three road trips across the United States occurred between 1947-1949. After years of false starts, Kerouac decided to lay out the whole story and write it from beginning to end on one roll of paper so he wouldn’t have to stop his train of thought replacing page after page as he finished it. Inspired by Jazz improvisation and spontaneity, Kerouac undertook to get the novel he had in his head onto the page. He got a roll of teletype paper, and with help from Benzedrine and coffee Kerouac wrote the novel in marathon sessions of writing over the course of 3 weeks. When he was done he took it to his editor, Robert Giroux, who was dumbfounded when Kerouac unfurled it in his office.
  
  “On The Road” the version that was released in 1957 was a masterpiece and changed the rules of writing fiction, as well as inspiring a generation of teenagers that would go on the road in the 60’s in search of their own existential adventures and kicks. Reading “On The Road: The Original Scroll” you realize that the story flows much better in Kerouac’s original vision of it. Giroux as editor had with all good intentions made Kerouac’s book salable for the times, without removing Kerouac’s artistic achievements but left a somewhat clunky novel that later readers have found hard to get into. I think if they read “On The Road: The Original Scroll” they’ll find that shortcoming removed.
  
  For the avid Kerouac fan and aficinado “On The Road: The Original Scroll” will be a revelatory look at Kerouac’s process of writing in what he had originally intended. And there’s a certain fun in reading the book with all the people’s real names intact, instead of character names that the publisher insisted on to avoid lawsuits. If you’re coming to Kerouac new, I think this original version of Kerouac’s work will highlight the spontaneity of Kerouac’s work and the reader will come away with an appreciation of the freshness of Kerouac’s work.
• 
  SamanthaLee

  Perhaps it's because I am a 19-year-old liberal arts college student or perhaps it's because I always have and probably always will yearn for excitement and beauty and adventure, but whatever the reason may be, I absolutely loved Kerouac's On The Road>i>. Every passage drew me in deeper and deeper until I could hardly stand just how much I wanted jump in the car or on a train or bus and make it across the country to the West Coast. Even the frantic tales of endless NYC nights beckoned me to get on the LIRR and see what trouble I could get into in the city. While the continuous block of text this "original scroll" is presented in made it a somewhat daunting task to complete, once immersed in the rhythm and excitement this prose had to offer, I found myself reading huge chunks of the novel at one time. If nothing else, On The Road has inspired me to truly dig life-to not let anything pass me by without making some kind of impression, to take each opportunity as it comes my way.
• 
  AC

  A book I first read nearly half a century ago. Thought I had outgrown it. If you have tried to read the 1957 published version and given up in disgust at its mediocrity, know that what you read was what the publishers did to Kerouac mournful prose. This is the version that quivers with all the beauty I had remembered.
  
  What I had forgotten was how utterly sad this book was...
• 
  Maria

  It seems like I don't get along well with Mr. Kerouac. Maybe some other time.
• 
  Lysergius

  Having read the original novel over 50 years ago, I was keen to see what had been removed and changed. The clear eyed vision of America evident in the "original" novel is gone. America is a darker and uglier place, the romantic vision has soured and all that is left are the ugly meat hook realities. Cassady is as mercurial as before, and the final chapter in Mexico as I remember it. A kind of pointlessness, a hopelessness comes across from this version. Why run from one side of the country to the other? No explanation is given. For kicks? To dig it? Hmm, I almost regret having read this version.
• 
  Jen Knox

  I enjoyed this book far more a few years ago. I think Kerouac's tale is decent, gloriously rebellious, but over-hyped; this book is marked with a few fantastic insights but my belief is that On The Road is only popular due to timeliness and the oft-consumed glamorization of alcoholism. Kerouac was the face of the movement, not the grit.
  
  William Burroughs was able to write about such tales while bringing to life the disease, the twisting of the gut that follows escapades similar to Kerouac's, only with less Hollywood-style machismo. His prose was searing and linguistically-interesting. Allen Ginsberg brought the politics, the societal rebellion.
  
  I enjoy On The Road a bit more, however, when it is coupled with his daughter's personal essays, which add a touch of reality to the narrative fiction that makes up this book. The thing needs more perspective for me now.
• 
  Monica.A

  Chi può dire quale sia il romanzo originale? "Sulla strada" del '57 o "Il Rotolo" del '51? O forse ancora le altre bozze esistenti e generate dalla riscrittura del rotolo originale a cui andrebbero aggiunti anche "Visioni di Cody" e le sue protoversioni... Allen Ginsberg sostenne che il romanzo pubblicato nel '57 fosse completamente diverso dal folle libro scritto da Kerouac nel '51 e profetizzò che un giorno, "quando saremo tutti morti", "il folle libro originale" sarà pubblicato così com'è. E così è stato. Con non poca meraviglia si leggono le prime pagine e si scopre che, spariti gli pseudonimi, appaiono finalmente i veri nomi dei protagonisti della vita di Kerouac. Niente più Sal Paradiso, niente più Cody Pomeray e Old Bull Lee... qui ci sono Jack, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, nudi e crudi. Alla quarta lettura degli eventi narrati da Kerouac in Sulla Strada e in quello che è stato battezzato On the Road - Il Rotolo posso dire di essermi approcciata alla storia con occhi nuovi, meravigliati dalla freschezza della scrittura, dal ritmo incalzante con cui si è costretti ad andare avanti e avanti senza respiro fino all'ultima parola. Riletto a distanza di molti anni, con una certa delusione mi ero ritrovata, alla terza lettura, a chiedermi se fosse davvero questo il romanzo che mi aveva tanto entusiasmato vent'anni prima. Il Rotolo invece è un'opera nuova che non ha nulla in comune con il "vecchio" Sulla Strada, si capisce facilmente quanto l'autore stesso potesse detestare il lavoro pubblicato nel '57, un libro che aveva perso lo slancio, la forza e il senso dell'originale. Impossibile stabilire quanto merito vada alla più recente traduzione e quanto il testo sia stato realmente rimaneggiato dallo stesso Kerouac, ma la storia delle sue continue riscritture ci può far facilmente intuire la quantità di lavoro dietro al prodotto finito di Sulla Strada, trasformato in un romanzo talvolta stucchevole e standardizzato al punto da perdere la spontaneità di quel racconto fiume sempre osannato dall'autore. Bene, eccolo qui, scorrevole, elettrizzante e leggibilissimo, persino più lineare e coerente del suo fratello "ufficiale". Certo la mia vecchia traduzione del '59 è davvero stantia e credo abbia molto contribuito a ingabbiare la scrittura di Kerouac nel limiti del "consentito" anche se, leggendo la curata e approfondita introduzione al volume, si fa largamente cenno a censure e tagli ad opera dell'autore e degli editori atti a rendere pubblicabile il libro. Le parti a sfondo sessuale e omosessuale non sono dunque state dimenticate nelle letture precedenti, semplicemente non esistono. Il linguaggio sessualmente esplicito del "rotolo", i chiari cenni agli usi di stupefacenti da parte di personaggi noti, tutto sparisce in "Sulla Strada", per timore di querele e censure per oltraggio al pudore il testo subisce tagli e rimaneggiamenti fino ad ingabbiarlo in un liguaggio formale. Lineette e puntini diventano in "Sulla Strada" delle virgole, le virgole si trasformano in punti e virgole o due punti interrompendo e stravolgendo il flusso narrativo originale. Ancora Ginsberg in una recensione a I Vagabondi del Dharma parlado di Sulla Strada si dichiara "triste che non sia mai stato pubblicato nella sua forma più esaltante - bensì massacrato, riempito di punteggiatura e spezzato - i ritmi e l'andatura spezzati - da presuntuosi critici letterari nelle case editrici". Proprio come il celebre rotolo, anche qui viene invece rispettata l'impaginazione continua. Niente punti e a capo, niente paragrafi o capitoli, nulla che possa spezzare il getto continuo della narrazione, si viene gettati in una lettura frenetica e incalzante senza possibilità di respiro. Facile comprendere ora lo stato in cui venne scritto e, ancor più semplice immaginare Neal che suda e si agita nel raccontare le sue avventure perchè è così che siamo e ci sentiamo anche noi lettori, incapaci di tener testa alla narrazione, a questa pura scrittura jazz.
• 
  Kathryn

  On the Road – Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical novel of the exhilarating and exhausting cross-country road trips of 20-somethings Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty – was such an enormous watershed in American culture that it seems quite fitting that its 50th anniversary should be noted by Viking with no less than three newly published books: "On the Road: The 50th Anniversary Edition," "On the Road: The Original Scroll," and "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of ‘On the Road."
  
  While the 50th anniversary edition may be a bit of a disappointment to those already familiar with the quintessential chronicle of the “Beat” generation (it is identical to book’s 40th anniversary edition and contains no extras whatsoever), The Original Scroll is an absolute revelation, both for previous fans of Kerouac and also for those experiencing On the Road for the first time.
  
  Typed in three furious weeks in 1951 on one continuous sheet of paper, The Scroll -- that is, the initial draft of On the Road – was revised three times before the final edition was published in 1957. While The Scroll and the final version are very similar, the differences that remain are quite striking.
  
  Besides containing scenes and narratives which were eventually cut, The Scroll also includes the real names of the people on whom the book’s characters were based. Realizing that Carlo Marx (what a pseudonym!) is a fictionalized Allen Ginsberg gives one the startling sense of viewing a home movie of the ultimate Beat poet. Watching Dean Moriarty’s wildly self-destructive behavior within the pages of On the Road is to have a close encounter with Neal Cassady, the quintessential Beatnik who, although he didn’t do much writing himself, inspired a myriad of other writers to do so.
  
  The Scroll contains no chapter or paragraph breaks whatsoever, and it is this element – combined with the understanding that it was Kerouac’s first and freshest attempt at chronicling his cross-country peregrinations – that gives the reader a more startling sense of urgency than can be provided even in the ultimately galvanizing final edition of On the Road.
  
  Although those with only a passing knowledge of Kerouac may believe "On the Road" to be a tale of unbridled lust (wander- and otherwise), it is actually quite tame by 21st century standards. There is a plethora of casual sex and substance abuse found within its pages, but nothing patently explicit. And squeezed into the frantic narrative are descriptions of such poignancy as to make one aware of Kerouac’s keen sensitivity to poetic images. For instance, while attempting to depict the laugh of a gregarious Nebraska farmer, Kerouac writes:
  
  ". . . you could hear his raspy cries clear across the plains, across the whole gray world of them that day. . . I said to myself, Wham, listen to that man laugh. That’s the West . . . It was the spirit of the West sitting right next to me . . ."
  
  If Kerouac could see poetry in the commonplace, he also read humor into the sublime. Yes, he was one of the “Beats” but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see through the occasional absurdity of their hyper-seriousness. For instance, after listening to an all-night conversation between Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) in which they were “trying to communicate with absolute honesty and absolute completeness everything on [their:] minds,” Sal Paradise (Kerouac) tells them: “If you keep this up, you’ll both go crazy, but let me know what happens as you go along.”
  
  Sal Paradise’s pronounced yearnings to get somewhere, to find something, is what gives the book its intense urgency and Kerouac often couches these longings in beautiful and raw poetic descriptions of the American countryside:
  
  "In the whole eastern dark wall of the Divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the wind, except in the ravine where we roared; and on the other side of the Divide was the great Western Slope, and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs, and dropped, and led you to the western Colorado desert and the Utah desert; all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America and all we could do was yell, I guess– across the night, eastward over the Plains . . .
  
  Several illustrative essays are included as a preface to The Scroll as a means to elucidate the layered meanings found in On the Road. The newly published, "Why Kerouac Matters: Lessons from On the Road" is exceptionally enlightening in this regard. Author John Leland relates, in a very accessible manner, Kerouac’s deliberate themes in the book and also how Kerouac’s own personality – surprisingly – did not fit into the quintessential “Beat” mold. Leland bases his sometimes unexpected but entirely believable suppositions in Kerouac’s own letters and he interweaves significant portions of the text to support his arguments.
  
  Although "Why Kerouac Matters" is extremely elucidative, it should only be read after first encountering "On the Road." Although Kerouac was trying to communicate a very specific message, what matters in the end is what is personally gleaned from the book. For many readers, the freedom and infinite possibilities whispered throughout the exciting and pathos-filled pages of "On the Road" have inspired them to initiate their own odyssey. Which is precisely the point.
  
  (This review also appeared at BookPleasures.com).
  
  
• 
  Anna Carina S.

  Die Urfassung zu lesen war glaub ich eine gute Idee. Sie nutzt die original Namen der Personen und enthält deutlich mehr Szenen (450 Seiten). Insbesondere die Szene um den Aufenthalt bei Bill Burroughs hätte ich nicht missen wollen. Eine äußerst faszinierende Figur der Beatszene. Außerdem ist das 150 seitige Nachwort sehr bereichernd.
  Schon der Beginn, wie Jack mit seinem "belämmerten Schwachmatenarsch" im Bus sitzt und diesen Sprachgebrauch konsequent durch das Buch zieht, ohne zu derb oder platt zu wirken, hat mir sehr gut gefallen.
  Dass es keine Kapitel und Absätze gibt, hat mich überhaupt nicht gestört. Das Buch hatte einfach einen coolen Flow.
  Was ich wichtig finde zu wissen ist, dass wir hier einen 3 teiligen Roadtrip erzählt bekommen, der auf kein großes Finale oder die große Erkenntnis hinausläuft. Wir begleiten Jack Karouac, Neal Cassady und andere beim Unterwegs sein und Ihrer Suche nach dem ES. Das Buch ist ein einziger Gedankenstrom.
  Mir war das an einigen Stellen zu viel Brainfuck. Ich hab mich die ganze Zeit beim Lesen gefragt: WIESO??? Ihr dröhnt Euch voll, seid ständig unterwegs, kommt nie wo an, habt keine Zeit zu reflektieren. Wie wollt ihr da etwas finden, wenn ihr nie mal innehaltet?! Ihr seid pleite, abgebrannt, begeht Straftaten. Leute, das ist echt nicht cool!!!
  Die Antwort bekam ich dann auch: "der gerade Weg führt zum Tod", daher haben sich diese Jungs in einem "ewigen Kreis der Verzweiflung" befunden.
  Das Thema Tod spiel eine zentrale Rolle. Jack selbst erzählt von Träumen: egal wie sehr er sich anstrengt, der Tod kommt immer als Erster ins Ziel.
  Ok, ich kann diese Lebensphilosophie, das geradlinige Leben daher abzulehnen nicht teilen, aber kann das Verhalten mit der Erkenntnis gut einordnen.
  Neal Cassady hat bis auf einen Gedankengang, kaum sinnvolle Beiträge für mich liefern können. Aber dieser Gedanke war toll: "....Aber sie müssen sich Sorgen machen, ihre Seelen finden keinen Frieden, wenn sie sich nicht an einer wohlbekannten und bewährten Sorge hochziehen können.... die ganze Zeit geht alles an ihnen vorbei und das wissen sie und darum machen sie sich Sorgen ohne Ende."
  Herrlich, da war ich direkt an einige Stellen aus Paul Watzlawiks Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein erinnert.
  Eine gewisse Ambivalenz fiel mir direkt auf, als Jack die Sehnsucht nach einer guten Frau und einer harmonischen Ehe äußerte -Der Wunsch, neben dem ständigen getrieben sein und der Suche, dann doch in der Einfachheit des Lebens anzukommen, die in dem Roman jedoch ständig abgelehnt wird.
  
  Ihr seht, für mich hatte das Buch so einiges zu bieten, weil es aneckt, weil es mich ärgert, weil ich die Handlungen verstehen will, weil mich der Gedanke, in der eigenen Heimat heimatlos zu sein fasziniert.
  Ganz großartig war diese eine Jazzszene, in der fast zur Erkenntnis des ES kam. Gänsehaut!!!
• 
  Kamilė | Bukinistė

  Knyga, kuriai duodu antrą pavadinimą ir klijuoju Dickenso romano vardą - „Didieji lūkesčiai“. Aš jau gana drąsiai pasitikiu savo knygiškais instinktais, įvairios aplink knygą besisukančios galaktikos kaip antai - žmonės, kurie ją rankansi skaityti, autorius, laikmetis, premijos, apkalbos, na ir ta vidinė intuicija kažkaip susiveda į vieną sprendimą, kuris dažnai priimamas labai greitai - skaityti ar ne. „Kelyje“ - žinoma skaityti. 
  
  „Didieji lūkesčiai“ vietoj „Kelyje“ gavosi, nes lūkesčiai tikrai buvo dideli, o knyga - paprasčiausiai nepatiko. Ir ne todėl - kad mano vertybės kitokios nei pagrindinio herojaus, ne todėl kad jį smerkčiau (na pavyzdžiui „Meilės gyvenimas“ ar „Lolita“ man labai patiko, nors veikėjų poelgių net nemėginčiau teisinti), paprasčiausiai aš visiškai pasiklydau visame tame originaliame chaose. Nors vėl gi - negaliu sakyti, kad chaotiškos istorijos man atgrasios, štai „Durnių mokykla“, „Stepių vilkas“ - knygos kurios įsiminė visam gyvenimui ir buvo skaitomas su pasigerėjimu. Tačiau skaitant „Kelyje“- jaučiausi lygiai kaip skaitant kelyje, tai yra - kai bandau skaityti važiuojant automobiliu - mane pykina. Gal visgi didelę dalį nepatikimo ir sudarė tai, jog skaičiau vadinamąjį originalų ritinį - tai yra ant japoniško piešimo popieriaus išspausdintą originalų Kerouaco darbą - vieną beveik 500 puslapių pastraipą. Nežinau, jei minėtose chaotiškose knygose jaučiausi lyg sapne, čia gi labiau jaučiausi kaip haliucinacijoje po daug nemiegotų naktų. Atrodo - juk aprašomi tiesiog įvykiai, kelionė - kurios ženklus smulkmeniškai parašytame tekste turi sekti, tačiau aš blaškiausi, kankinausi ir tikrai jaučiausi lyg užsupta automobilio važiavimo vingiuotu keliu žemyn-aukštyn. 
  
  Vertinimas - šįkart labai asmeniškas. Aš jokiu būdu nenoriu pasakyti, kad Kerouacas yra blogas rašytojas, neturi talento ar rašo nesąmones, aš greičiau vertinu jo originalumą, kitoniškumą, savitumą. Pati ritinio legenda man užima kvapą, tik deja buvo įspudingesnė nei pats ritinys. Dedu didelį pliusą leidyklai už pirmuosius knygos puslapius - vertėjos tekstą, paaiškinimus, informaciją apie autorių - be tokios įžangos man būtų buvę dar penkis kartus sunkiau. 
• 
  Nicky

  My first experience of On the Road was this quotation:
  
  “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
  
  It was actually quoted in a fanfiction, as Axel's favourite book (Kingdom Hearts AU). It's stuck with me, ever since: not the fanfiction itself, but the quotation. For that, I've loved Kerouac from afar, not daring to try reading it because that quote told me all I needed to know.
  
  Actually, I kind of wish I was still in that state of not having read On the Road. Because it's not really my kind of book, and I think I've always known that. There are bits of it that are, well, like fabulous roman candles, but I don't have the patience with the narration to get to them before I'm annoyed. It's not an atmosphere that appeals to me, not a mindset I can really get behind, so...
  
  But On the Road is still deservedly a classic, and the book has travelled with me for long enough -- for a few years, in physical form, between various student houses; for longer than that, with the quotation in my head -- that I feel quite affectionate toward it, and it's going to keep travelling with me.
• 
  Mary Soderstrom

  This is a book I came to well into writing my non-fiction book, Road through Time. It's about roads as vectors for change and exchange, but when I told people the working title, the supposition was that I was trying to do a Kerouac.
  
  So, of course, I had to read it. Written in the early 1950s, it has not aged well, I think. While Kerouac and his friends were trying to crash through the ordinary, workaday world to something full of life and joy, the means they use are ultimately self-deceiving. Lots of chemical help for their enlightenment, lots of betrayal of women. At least three times Kerouac's mother (MOTHER! and this is a guy who trying to extend boundaries!) bails him out. He and his friends use women for comfort and for support, and try to avoid the consequences of actions. Anybody who reads the book should also check out the website of Kerouac's good friend Neal Cassaday to get some idea of how they treated women.
  http://www.nealcassadyestate.com/caro...
  
  Some of Kerouac's phrases are memorable, but my verdict is: an over-rated, indulgent, sexist book.
  
  
• 
  William Lawrence

  The intro material is 4-5 star and worth the hardcover alone, but the manuscript is just grueling. 400 pages with no paragraphs. That's just torture.