Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac holds an air of mystery even to this day. For generations he has been regarded as one of coolest cats of the 1950s. On The Road was an overnight success and an instant cult classic. So it came as a great surprise to everyone when I admitted I hadn’t read it. It wasn’t required in any high school, college or grad school course. Somehow it missed my radar completely. Maybe I didn’t see myself as worthy. Even when Natalie Merchant wrote “Hey Jack Kerouac” I was not moved to know more about the man or the myth. Thank heavens for More Book Lust and this self-imposed challenge. There is a vibe just holding this book. Someone killed a mosquito on page 88; it’s flattened body pressed forever like a keepsake corsage.
On the Road is an anthem for the young, the restless, the daring. It taps into a longing for freedom, a desire to roam, a quest for life and all it has to offer. The language is nonchalant and haphazard giving the story a reckless vibe. Case in point, who says “balled the jack” anymore? Kerouac captures the days when you could take a flatbed truck, load it with a group of reckless youth and roar across the country hellbent for the coast of anywhere, exhilarated just to be alive.
Favorite lines: “I hope you get where you are going and be happy when you do” (p 30), “Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then you get tired, and there’s a fever in your soul” (p 53), “I never saw so many snarls in all my born days” (p 62) and “Everybody goes home in October” (p 103). Favorite phrases, “mixing up our souls” (p 91) and “love is a duel” (p 101)
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called Road Novels (p 202) and from More Book Lust in the chapter called The Beats and Their Generation (p 17).
~*LunaSea*~ 
I don’t know if this is some publishers blurb or if you’re blogging some kind of personal experience review, but why so short? Just when I was getting into your encounter with On The Road it finished, I don’t even know if you liked the book or not. Why not continue this blog to about 1,000 words and tell us what you really think. What you have written is brilliant.
Al of “Beat_Happening” website/group/thread (with the speech marks).
Not a publishers blurb at all. My words for me, myself & moi. My “reviews” are often short and usually written just to “prove” it I read the book in question (I’m on a quest to read 4,000+ books before I die).
Truth be told, I adored On The Road. I could go on and on about the language, the heat, and the voracious appetite I discovered in Kerouac. Since I am also reading The Town and The City and a few books about Kerouac I’ll be writing more the man and his mythical stature in our literature landscape. Promise!