And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance!

(I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

I did have a Kerouac phase (in college, read all his work and many of the other beats) but came to the same conclusion as this reviewer a few years later. It actually really hits the nail on the head.

Also -- I liked them because I was 19. It was a phase reflective of a moment in time for me. That didn't last, so neither did the idolization of that way of life. I started seeing it as sad, especially when you learn how most of their lives ended.

It must be so exhausting to go through life only enjoying things that match one’s up-to-the-minute current moral views. I guess all biographies of influential people are basically out, as being successful in 1000BC or 1500AD required one to do things considered unethical today.

It feels a bit like religious fundamentalism with a different veneer.

This New Yorker piece inspired me to finally pick up On the Road last night. I don think it’s a terrible book, but I would say the jury’s out on the people. I’m eighty or so pages in and waiting for the magic to happen. If it’s more of a tone poem, I’ll wind up tapping out because those books and movies are never my jam.

Could be I just like On the Road: The Musical, book by Craig Finn, music by The Hold Steady.

> generally in flagrant contravention of all applicable traffic laws

Being up front, I cannot stand this author in the first place. The idea there were any applicable traffic laws in the Great Inbetween in 1950s America is stupid.

I'm curious, do the people who love the book generally believe that the characters in the story are admirable? I remember a certain sick feeling, the same you get with any story that pulls you along to places you aren't sure you want to go. But at the same time I could relate to the "anything but this" spirit it held toward the culture at the time. I appreciated the mood and the restlessness of it, like watching the sunrise after a regrettable night out.

It has been a long time and now I feel like I should revisit it to see if that still holds.

I interestingly came to a pretty similar conclusion about Kerouac around the same time as this reviewer, and brought it up in my review of Henry Miller’s book on Big Sur (which I can highly recommend): https://kamranjon.com/writings/henry-miller-and-the-big-sur....

I have had my on the road phase when I was around 18 when I read the book but I did not vibe at all with it. I found all the characters highly unlikeable and couldn't help to think that I much better friends, even my wildest ones. But I wasn't wild enough I guess because I actually managed to finish the book, like a well behaved schoolboy.

Around the same time I first read On The Road, my wiser than should be possible mother said "Oh, you need to read this too" and it was "Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg", written by Carolyn Cassady. Rips the band aid right off of those sexist abuser of innocents, those utter assholes. They write great literature, and the fact that they expose their own terrible ethics bare, but surrounded by non-condemning language is the trick. They never hid their nature, but America never realized what they were praising, not really. Which is all so American!

> screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t.

It really is unfortunate that man's sex drive is above and beyond the level he can achieve without subterfuge (at best) and violence (at worst).

The deep pockmarks in Scott Alexander's hands

left from so strongly clutching his pearls

will take an eternity to de-dimple.