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On the Road

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3.65 263,652 ratings
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On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and

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On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.

Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication.

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Community Reviews

rated it did not like it
almost 3 years ago
Recommends it for: fourteen-year-old assholes

Shelves: bad-reads , dicklits
This is probably the worst book I have ever finished, and I'm forever indebted to the deeply personality-disordered college professor who assigned it, because if it hadn't been for that class I never would've gotten through, and I gotta tell you, this is the book I love t... Read full review

rated it did not like it
almost 3 years ago

Shelves: fiction
I'm supposed to like On the Road, right? Well, I don't. I hate it and I always have. There are a lot of reasons why I hate it. I find Kerouac's attitude toward the world pathetically limited and paternalistic. In On the Road he actually muses about how much he wishes th... Read full review

rated it really liked it
almost 3 years ago

Shelves: reviews
A View from the Couch

OTR has received some negative reviews lately, so I thought I would try to explain my rating.

This novel deserves to lounge around in a five star hotel rather than languish in a lone star saloon.

Disclaimer

Please forgive my review. It is early morning a... Read full review

rated it did not like it
almost 3 years ago
Recommends it for: white heterosexual males

This is the book which has given me anxiety attacks on sleepless nights.
This is the book which has glared at me from its high pedestal of classical importance in an effort to browbeat me into finally finishing it.
And this is that book which has shamed me into feigning an... Read full review

rated it really liked it
almost 3 years ago

I've been thinking about this book a lot lately, so I figured that I'd go back and write something about it.

When I first read this book, I loved it as a piece of art, but its effect on me was different than I expected. So many people hail Kerouac as the artist who made t... Read full review

rated it liked it
almost 3 years ago

I read On The Road when I was 16. When I was 16, I was so depressed. I went to a high school that had a moat around it and a seige mentality. On The Road made me not depressed. In fact ... it made me want to hitchhike, hop freight trains, and more importantly to write. If... Read full review

rated it did not like it
almost 3 years ago

Shelves: 1900-1969 , prose
Although the ideas hold a certain appeal, this book is ultimately just a half-assed justification of some pretty stupid, self-destructive, irresponsible, and juvenile tendencies and attitudes, the end result of which is a validation of being a deadbeat loser, a perpetual... Read full review

rated it liked it
almost 3 years ago
Recommended to Sparrow by: Erica

Shelves: memoir-biography
The other day I was talking to someone and he said, “Well, I’m no pie expert . . . Wait! No! I am a pie expert. I am an expert at pie!”

Another person asked, “How did you become a pie expert?”

“One time I ate only pie for an entire week. I was driving across the country wi... Read full review

rated it liked it
almost 3 years ago

Shelves: 2010 , ugh
I tried; I really tried. Everything was telling me—I was telling me—this is one I’m going to like. Instead, I got Pablum for the Young Rebel Soul. I suspect I approached this novel with the same myopic nostalgia that, occasionally, contributes to the delusion that young p... Read full review

rated it really liked it
over 8 years ago

I personally can't stand the characters. They cover up irresponsibility and real hurt to people in the guise of being artists. However, I do think there is more to this story.

Sure, they are jerks and they are bums and they are full of a lot of BS but as the book progresse... Read full review

Other Books by this Author

  • The Dharma Bums
    The Dharma Bums
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Big Sur
    Big Sur
    by Jack Kerouac
  • The Subterraneans
    The Subterraneans
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Desolation Angels
    Desolation Angels
    by Jack Kerouac
  • On the Road: the Original Scroll
    On the Road: the Original Scroll
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Lonesome Traveler
    Lonesome Traveler
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings
    Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and ...
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Tristessa
    Tristessa
    by Jack Kerouac
  • Maggie Cassidy
    Maggie Cassidy
    by Jack Kerouac

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Book Details

Paperback, 307 pages
Published January 1st 1976 by Penguin Books (first published September 5th 1957
ISBN
0140042598 (ISBN13: 9780140042597)
Edition Language
English
Original Title
On the Road
Characters
Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty
Literary Awards
Grammy Award

About this Author

1742. uy66 Born on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac's writing career began in the 1940s, but didn't meet with commercial success until 1957, when On the Road was published. The book became an American classic that defined the Beat Generation. Kerouac died on October 21, 1969, from an abdominal hemorrhage, at age 47.
Early Life

Famed writer Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de...

Genres

Quotes

[...]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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!
Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.
What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

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