I haven't read it, but after reading on the road I'm not too keen on picking up anything of Kerouac's again.
I thought it was overrated, it's just Jack ("sal") getting lifts around the country, drinking whiskey and either going to a bar or a dance then asking his family for more money to fund it.
Oh dude, that's bullshit. OTR is about more than drinking liquor. It's more about the counter-culture of those times and finding one's self through other people and other places. It's one of my favorites because Kerouac made it transcend into something bigger than just traveling and seeing sights; it was about finding who you are.
On someone else's payroll. It's the same as all counter culture is - acquire money, buy products. There's a reason that counter-cultures are the engine that fuels consumerism.
I have to agree with gedio; On the Road was pretty bad. It basically romanticizes a sexist, selfish, irresponsible bum (Neil Cassady) who I'm pretty sure Kerouac had a boner for because the whole novel reads like an epic love poem to the guy. And as for Dharma Bums, its even worse. Just Kerouac, Zack Snyder and a motly crew of boring, pretentious beatniks talking a bunch of shit about Zen while they go hiking in the mountains--that's it. That's the whole book.
On the Road was great at capturing the reckless energy of youth - buzzing around in every fucking direction, assuming "the answer" is going to be just around the next corner, though it never comes.....buuuut, with that said, it definitely is overrated as well. Part of that dizzying rush comes from the fact that it was written in one benzedrine-filled weekend, but that fact also leads to the "okay, so I went here and then I went to the next place and then the next one and then the next one and then I came back and then went to the next place" type writing. Lots of things happen, with little real significance....but then, such is life, right? It surely doesn't make for the most engaging or enthralling novel, but I think that it did capture the feeling, and the era, that it meant to. Anyway....back to the OP: Nope. Lol.
I think Kerouac wrote it in three weeks, actually. Whatever. Funny to see people call it overrated when they could only dream to write something as beautiful as it was (and still is). Yes, it is a different type of book with this and that going on. It's a different book, in a good way. Life is that way.
The idea that you have to work in a particular medium to be able to appreciate it or have an opinion about it is half-baked at best. Can you make every kind of music you listen to?....or, more to the point here, can you make every kind of music you don't listen to? Lmao, don't be silly sir.
I don't find it beautiful in the slightest, I find it one man's tale of sponging off relatives who were far too liberal in not teaching him the value of money while he was "searching for himself." As Truman Capote said of it, "that's not writing, that's typing."
Maybe that is how he wanted it to be interpreted? Who cares if nobody told him about "the value of money." What kind of crap is that? Who wants to read a book about ethical viewpoints?
Anyone who has a job and isn't just a sponge from their family like Jack. If he wanted to be interpreted as an irresponsible drunk who had no care for how hard his family had to work to support his lifestyle then it worked perfectly.
Not everything needs to be didactic, and not everything that is didactic is directly didactic. In the end, he makes it pretty clear that he didn't really find any more meaning than he had started out with. Not every example is an example to be followed, that doesn't make it any less insightful or important.