bought ages ago but it was only when I read it that I realised I hadn't registered. A classic, autobiographical novel about the writers adventures in his native USA in the late 1940s as the 'beat generation' emerged from WW2. I started reading this about 20 years ago in my late teens and I wish I'd perserved with it then, it's a young person's book and things that I thought would have been incredibly cool when I was 17 I perhaps thought a wee bit less so now. The 'stream of consciousness' style - the entire book was written in 3 weeks - took a bit of getting used to and I think that's what made me give up on it the first time round. Glad I finally read it though!

on its way to oliviapoolside, who chose it from the Alphabet VBB

The book has arrived, thank you for sending it all the way from Scotland. I am looking forward to reading it!

I have slated this book to be read this month. I am listing it in the Non-Fic VBB.

That was an incredibly sad book. A book of lost souls. First of all, what is the "Beat" generation? I always thought it had something to do with music! Or the Bohemian lifestyle. I was surprised to find out that it refers to a group of authors, including Jack Kerouac in the core group. Here is the Wiki definition:

The Beat Generation was a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. - def from Wikipedia

As I was reading this book I was becoming aware that the 1960's started in the late 1940's with the Beat generation. Everything was "kicks", sweet little "gone" girls, and the booze? it never stopped flowing, lots of marijuana too and benzedrine. "...compulsive psychosis dashed with a jigger of psychopathic irresponsibility and violence." It was all couched in this search for the truth of life, the true experience of life. They travel all over looking for the authentic experiences of life. They seem to find their own backgrounds and their own selves inauthentic, or at least emotionally hollow and constantly needing to be filled up. Haven't we all been there to some degree? Isn't that why we listen to music, travel and ingest mood altering substances? It is an emotional yearning.
But these guys? They take it way beyond. They are hedonistic, wild, irresponsible to the point of criminality. And they seem to me to be such sad and empty people, trying to fill up with noise, booze, drugs, girls, and constant motion. Maybe we all are, except now we are trying to fill up with FB, everyone always on their phone, being present anywhere but where they are.

The writing is authentic, it is American to its core. It makes me feel love, nostalgia, disgust and anger; love for my country, disgust at the irresponsibility of the actions of Jack and his friends, sorrow for their emotional wreckage, anger at the damage done to the generations influenced by this book and the cultural change it wrought to drop the moral code and seek the kicks, shock at the ignorance of east coast intellectual liberals with their dreamy eyed vision of the indigent and indigenous peoples and their assumptions of these people's simplicity. There is a lot to rant against in this book, but then there is the nostalgia for the road, to just drive off without plans and see what we shall see. A classic book indeed, the Beat Generation, to a large extent, created the 1960's and the reverberations continue to this day. Some people did not like the writing in this book but I thought it was brilliant in its way. Didn't anyone else want to cry when Dean walked away that last time? Didn't everyone feel the pain of little lost boy Dean always looking for his father in the bars and streets he used to frequent?


Reserved for non-fic VBB (although now that I have read it I understand that it is autobiographical but written as fiction)

Selected by perryfran from the Non-Fic VBB.

Mailed to perryfran

Just picked up our mail at the post office after a 10 day vacation. This was waiting for me along with a few others. Looking forward to reading. Thanks!

This is No. 484 on the 1001 books you must read before you die list.

Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat and Counterculture Generation. ON THE ROAD, published in 1957, is his most famous work and chronicles the travels of Kerouac and his friends in the late 1940s and early 1950s back and forth across the United States and finally into Mexico all the way to Mexico City. So what is the Beat Generation? I always thought it related to music and a lifestyle ripe with drugs and sex, but according to Kerouac, "the term Beat describes a state of exalted exhaustion, but is also linked to a Catholic beatific vision, the direct knowledge of God enjoyed by the blessed in heaven." The novel according to Kerouac took him only three weeks to write on a single scroll of paper, with Kerouac on a Benzedrine and caffeine fueled period of creativity. This prompted Truman Capote to sneer, "That isn't writing; its typing!" Kerouac started his book in 1951 and then after much editing, including changing the names of the characters (Allen Ginsberg was called Carlo Marx, William Burroughs was Old Bull Lee, Neal Cassady was Dean Moriarty and Kerouac was Sal Paradise) it was finally published in 1957.

The novel mainly involves Kerouac (Sal Paradise) and Cassady (Dean Moriarty) as they make several road trips across the US and finally into Mexico. The story is told against a backdrop of drugs, alcohol, jazz, and women. I'm sure this was an influence on the young people of America and was a precursor to the Hippie movement of the 60s. The language used in the novel is somewhat cliche now but was probably the first time such terms as "get your kicks," "dig it," "bop music," and "beat" were used in literature. An example: "Then he got his suitcase, the 'beatest' suitcase in the USA. It was made of paper with designs on it to make it look like leather. . .with a great rip down the top." The novel also describes a lot of drug use including the use of Benzedrine (amphetamine), marijuana (called tea), and heroin. Some of the worst use was by Old Bull Lee (William Burroughs) who was a heroin addict and who performed some very strange and dangerous acts including shooting things randomly with a shotgun.

Overall, I thought this was a volume well worth reading. It was very nostalgic and described the crazy period leading up to the sixties probably better than any other piece of literature. It also showed the depravity and hardships of both the travelers involved in the story and many of the people they met along the way. These included a lot of people who were just surviving with little money or resources. I'm glad I finally read this one but I don't think I can look back on the events described with any kind of fondness or desire.

Releasing this into the ABC Book Box - Round 2.

Taking from the box.