Katerina's review of On the Road (original) (raw)
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Katerina's Reviews > On the Road
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
I am not really into classics.
I always preferred the fantasy genre, due to an innate escapism, a vivid imagination and a constant longing for magic. But as you may tell, I didn't cast spells while reading On the Road. I didn't climb the dark wizard's tower, nor heard prophecies whispered in the dark. I set my sword aside for a while, and hushed my heart's desire to experience passionate romances. After a dear friend's raving about Jack Kerouac, I succumbed to peer pressure. And I am rather glad that I did.
“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
If you must know one thing about On the Road, is that it doesn't stand out because of its mind-blowing plot. In fact, it is not a plot-driven novel at all. You follow Jack Kerouac's travels throughout America and Mexico, and that's it. What captivates you is his writing style, a writing style the likes of which I had never encountered. You'll notice a plethora of contradictions: it can be lyrical and so beautiful it makes you hold your breath, and want to absorb every detail, every smell and sound and feeling, and then you'll come across so many traces of oral speech, that you're certain you're listening to a conversation full of curse words and half-finished sentences right next to you; you can sense Kerouac's admiration towards his country and at the same time his bitterness and disappointment; you can feel his loneliness to your marrow, and then the camaraderie that keeps him going. You will find your lips curling into a smile, but then a heaviness will settle on your chest, a near sadness because you see those people searching for something, anything, and when they find it, it slips from their fingers. You contemplate your own morality and mortality, question the meaning of ideals when life is too short and full of misery. When the road lies ahead full of possibilities, and you're lost and bound and torn.
“Because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...”
When you read On the Road, at first you're a little judgmental towards the characters. But as the story progresses, you are envious of their carelessness, their crazy and wild abandon, their desire to live even when they don't know what they live for. You don't read it for the plot, but you read it for its moments, its vigorous, bright and mesmerising moments, mornings eating apple-pie with ice-cream, dirty streets in an alcohol frenzy, a young man on the top of a mountain with the world at his feet, a mexican brothel shaking by the sounds of mambo, cold nights drinking scotch under a crystal clear sky. In the end, it all comes to one thing: we are the sum of the people we meet. Some of them are destined to change us, draw us to them like moths to the flame. Other pass by like fleeting stars, or constitute a constant and reassuring presence. But all of them, without exception, are pieces of the puzzle of our existence.
“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!”
And this is On the Road.
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Quotes Katerina Liked
“[...]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!”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
― Jack Kerouac, 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.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“My aunt once said that the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness. ”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Ah, it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and talk and spit and be heavengoing.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“As we crossed the Colorado-Utah border I saw God in the sky in the form of huge gold sunburning clouds above the desert that seemed to point a finger at me and say, "Pass here and go on, you're on the road to heaven.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Reading Progress
January 18, 2017 –Started Reading
January 24, 2017 – Shelved
January 26, 2017 –Finished Reading
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