Wow, On the road has really blown my mind (and I'm not even American)

Wow, On the road has really blown my mind (and I'm not even American).
Any other books with similar vibe?
How's the rest of Kerouac's work btw?

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Look up other beat novelists for similar work. Kerouac has a lot of solid stuff. After On the Road, most people read Dharma Bums. In my opinion, his finest work is Big Sur, which details the horrors of late-stage alcoholism. His early work isn't the greatest because it took him some time to find his voice.

>On the road has really blown my mind
Yeah, it blows my mind how people back then thought this story about people just going around acting like spoiled children and then fetishizing their immature behavior is considered an interesting or deep work.

let the teens be teens, bruh

I'm getting a strong sense that you've never had to deal with someone like this for that long.

It's not necessarily deep but it gives you massive joie du vivre vibe, my dude. Different times back then, too. WW2 was over, everyone was relaxed and happy to help etc. And sure, the protagonists were really immature and irresponsible, but that was their thing lol, they traveled, wrote poetry, never made any major damage to anyone but themselves except few stolen cars and broken hearts

I have no idea how that book inspired hippie culture because Saul Paradise or whatever his name was actually traveled across America during his semester break.

everyone was relaxed? did you not read the part about mexico where he paints a huge contrast between the two countries and says that the mexicans are more lean back, for example the part where they slept in their car and a policeman comes by just to check if they are alive.

He wrote the whole thing on one continuous document

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>did you not read the part about mexico where he paints a huge contrast between the two countries and says that the mexicans are more lean back, for example the part where they slept in their car and a policeman comes by just to check if they are alive.
I would take anything the guy says about other cultures or races or whatever with a grain of salt. He kind of fetishizes different races because White Americans back then were a lot more sheltered from other cultures.

Example from the book:

>At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night. I stopped at a little shack where a man sold hot red chili in paper containers; I bought some and ate it, strolling in the dark mysterious streets. I wished I were a Denver Mexican, or even a poor overworked Jap, anything but what I was so drearily, a “white man” diillusioned. All my life I’d had white ambitions; that was why I’d abandoned a good woman like Terry in the San Joaquin Valley…a gang of colored women came by, and one of the young ones detached herself from otherlike elders and came to me fast – “Hello Joe!” and suddenly saw it wasn’t Joe, and ran back blushing. I wished I were Joe. I was only myself, sad, strolling in this violet dark, this unbearably sweet night, wishing I could exchange worlds with the happy, true-hearted, ecstatic Negroes of America.

>He kind of fetishizes different races because White Americans back then were a lot more sheltered from other cultures.
And also because he was a self-absorbed tool.

Everyone was relaxed compared to how people are today. And sure you'll always find a grumpy cop here and there anytime. Mexico was on a whole other level tho, I agree

Oh so you have to totally agree with a protagonist's lifestyle in order to find the overall story and idea of the book pleasing. I guess you don't like listening to bands whose music is influenced by drugs or about drugs, too

That's not writing, that's typing.

are you german?

he's right though

No

>Oh so you have to totally agree with a protagonist's lifestyle in order to find the overall story and idea of the book pleasing. I guess you don't like listening to bands whose music is influenced by drugs or about drugs, too
This is different because the author basically spends the whole book jacking off about how cool Moriarty is. Like, it might be fun to read if it were more neutral, but as it is it's basically a love letter to a guy who is just a huge douchebag. The lack of self-awareness and narcissism is very off-putting.

Dharma Bums is one of my comfy tier books. Enjoyed it way more than On the Road. I highly recommend it.

I agree. I'm conflicted about Kerouac's work. On one hand, it is a fascinating document of the time and the adnvetures he had. On the other, I pretty much dislike everyone in his novels. But Dharma Bums was very comfy indeed.

I thought the first bit of the novel built Moriarty up, and the rest of the novel was spent slowly exposing him for what he was...a sad, pathetic man who will never achieve anything.

That's the impression I was left with: that the narrator is slowly recognizing that Moriarity is nothing to idolize or admire, but he keeps clinging to the life they lived but got spat out at the end of it holding an empty sack.

I like Moriarty right now because I need to get off my ass real quick and just go. Things are situational.

Eat a dick, Capote.