Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road

by John Leland

Legions of youthful Americans have taken On the Road as a manifesto for rebellion and an inspiration to hit the road. But there is much more to the book than that. In Why Kerouac Matters, John Leland embarks on a wry, insightful, and playful discussion of the novel, arguing that it still matters because it lays out an alternative road map to growing up. Along the way, Leland overturns many misconceptions about On the Road as he examines the lessons that Kerouac's alter ego, Sal Paradise, absorbs and dispenses on his novelistic journey to manhood, and how those lessons, about work and money, love and sex, art and holiness, still reverberate today.
He shows how On the Road is a primer for male friendship and the cultivation of traditional family values, and contends that the stereotype of the two wild and crazy guys obscures the novel's core themes of the search for atonement, redemption, and divine revelation. Why Kerouac Matters offers a new take on Kerouac's famous novel, overturning many misconceptions about it and making clear the themes Kerouac was trying to impart.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Literature, Essays, Literary Criticism, Writing, English Literature

205 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

John Leland (born 1959) is an author and has been a reporter for the New York Times since 2000, and former editor in chief of Details, and he was an original columnist at SPIN magazine. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice called him "the best American postmod critic (the best new American rock critic period)," and Chuck D of Public Enemy said the nasty parts of the song "Bring the Noise" were written about him. He lives in Manhattan's East Village with his wife, Risa, and son, Jordan.

Reviews

[Robert Lashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Why Kerouac Matters, John Leland’s bio criticism of Jack Kerouac and on the road, there are the raw materials for a fine, well thought out book; one that might convince even the most misanthropic of Kerouac detractors to rethink their opinion of him. The scholarship and criticism surrounding him has been surrounded by such a level of hysteria, deism, and emotional invective, that it was refreshing to hear one of his defenders attempt to format an actual literary argument, something that Leland accomplishes at the books more bearable moment’s. When Leland steps out of his own id and array of beat poses, he paints a convincing picture of a conscious young writer attempting to grasp the American landscape and synthesize his demons. Unlike the myth of the dope addicted Wildman who wrote his scroll like novels in three days(a myth that he sadly bought into later)Kerouac at his best was a conscious artist, taking literary cues from James Joyce and Thomas Wolfe. Although one might disagree to the extent of how he( Kerouac) succeeded, it is commendable that Leland created a template in which a reader can discuss him.


If Leland had left the book at that, burnished the biographical parts, added a little more of a literary context to his theories, and kept some of his personal neuroses to himself, he might have created a damm fine scholarly piece or a short academic book. What we have, however, is a work that is less about Kerouac than Leland’s fixative devotion him, and a work that tells a lot more about the various neuroses of the beats. For when Leland’s strays away from the story of on the road and how it was developed, to his celebrity, his fame, and his personal worship of every recycled romantic cliched about him, the book quickly devolves from a fine study of the writer, to yet another prostlyzation of him. Riddled with inane, paternalists, and racially problematic views on race, sex, and hipsterism( I AM NOT MAGICAL, GODDAMMIT), the worst aspects of Why Kerouac Matters would be excruciating in a jaded coffee house ramble. Taken to the level of a book, it is more fuel to the fire of those who find the beats unbearable, one that does no justice to the writer that Leland deems to worship.

That said, the book made me grow to hate him less. Most of the Kerouac readers I know don’t know his worst work, or are smart enough to sift through it and appreciate his best. What I still cant stomach is the Kerouac that sees him as some kind of tragic, Keatsian figure, and not the violently racist sociopath that angered so many black and jewish intellectuas At his best,Kerouac was a fine expansionist prose writer. He was also the author of two of the most violently racist books I ever read( The Subtereanneans, Big Sur) , a vicious anti semite, and so viciously opposed to the civil rights movement that he was excluded from all polite company in the 60’s . I've learned to appreciate the first Kerouac. I wish more of his fans would come to grips with the second. That just about describes my reading experience toward Kerouac Matters. It is also just about all the good I can say toward the white writer ( Kerouac) who got away more racial shit than anyone in the history of American literature without being called on it.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to anyone who has read On the Road and had trouble appreciating it. Leland deals not only with the books historical signifigance to a generation looking for answers, but explains what Kerouac was trying to do literarily (is there such a word?)

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Titles like "Why Kerouac Matters," usually suggest the opposite is true.

Author John Leland seems to argue as much in this fascinating dissection of the great saint's canonical, "On the Road."

The book's subtitle is, "The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)," and as such, Leland has given the classic a read like no other and assembled incontrovertible evidence to support his surprising assertions.

His book attempts addresses a long-standing dilemma that, "Readers have always had a problem with Kerouac in that he had very traditional values, while living at odds with them."

Leland argues that readers have gotten Kerouac wrong. That, rather than a paean to drinking, whoring embodied in Dean Moriarity's (Neal Cassady) star turn, "On the Road" is alternately a map to maturity, a yearning for family, and a search for God manifested in its lower-keyed narrator, Sal Paradise (Kerouac).

"Contrary to its rebel rep," he asserts, "'On the Road' is not about being Peter Pan; it is about becoming an adult. Its story is powerful and singularly gloomy...but good."

The hippies of the '60s who adopted "On the Road" as a movement's manifesto and guide to living, were not Kerouac's favorite people.

Anybody who has seen the writer's drunken appearance on William Buckley's "Firing Line" can't help but be struck by the contempt he displayed toward his erstwhile disciples in his dressing down of hippie leader Ed Sanders with the words, "You like drawing attention to yourselves, don't you?"

Although right-wing thinkers such as Buckley used Kerouac as a foil in debunking the dreams of his own ideological offspring, Leland says they did not take him seriously and saw the same "parlor act" many others did during his boozy and rapid descent.

Nonetheless, Leland sees Kerouac as a profoundly conservative man trying to cut his way through the tangle of modernity in a search for the eternal things.

Kerouac, he writes, "had always been conservative -- a blue-collar son, Catholic, a veteran of the merchant marine and (briefly) the Navy."

For all its pot-smoking and promiscuity, "On the Road," Leland observes, "[E:]nds with Sal sober, at peace, ensconced in domestic life with a new flame named Laura, a great beauty who offers him cocoa and a home in her loft."

Quite originally, he sees the arc of Kerouc's novel as a love story that starts with his aunt and ends up with the lady in the loft.

For all Kerouac's sensitivity, Leland seems to suggest the author was either resistant or unaware of the seismic social shifts occurring in post-war America; an unwitting agent of change.

"Kerouac had become like his father or Neal's, a relic of a working class that did not fit into the collegiate counterculture," says Leland.

The writer, we are reminded in "Why Kerouac Matters," was not born into the suburban privilege of his unwanted acolytes. He was the product of a New England factory town and a working class guy whose brother died young and father not long before On the Road was written.

Leland says: "The son of a printer, he put great stock in words as a material product, dutifully recording in his journal how many he produced in any given day as if he were laying bricks or clearing acres...He clung to an antiquated standard that measured a man by how much he produced, not how much he consumed."

So why the three-tome fascination with the crazy Cassady, Kerouac's muse?

Leland suggests that Neil is good for a time in Sal's life, just as Kerouac notes in his reading of On the Road for The Steve Allen Show, back in the '50s: "We're still great friends, we just have to move onto later phases of our life."

That's clear for those who stick with Kerouac and move beyond "On the Road" to something like "The Dharma Bums," which takes the placid oriental scholar, poet and pacifist Garry Snyder as basis for its protagonist Japhy Ryder and proffers more settled, pure, even sweet lessons.

And Leland ensures that Cassady's history is not frozen in the frame of Kerouac's early vision.

He quotes Bob Weir, guitarist of the Grateful Dead, who knew Neal in the 1960s through an association with The Merry Pranksters, saying "On the Road" captured "the budding Cassady but never caught him in full bloom. He amounted to a whole lot more than Kerouac was ever around to document."

So why does Kerouac matter when he was essentially conservative; a religious guy whose "teachings" were taken out of context if not completely misunderstood?

Leland says that Kerouac, in Sal's clothing, "navigates distinct paths through the men's worlds of work, money and friendship; the domestic turf of love, sex and family; the artist's realm of storytelling, improvisation and rhythm; and the spiritual world of revelation and redemption. His lessons in all four areas remain relevant today -- any reader picking up the book for the first time can apply them to questions that are as new to him or her as they were to Sal."

You don't have to take Leland's word for it. He walks you through each "world" in marvelous fashion, discoursing on America's socio-political evolution, drawing upon C. Wright Mills' "White Collar" to explain Kerouac's fall between the gaps of a national transition from factory work to office horror.

He melds this understanding with a detailed familiarity of popular culture, tabs each music to its own time, and draws a conclusion about what it all means.

Leland perceives parallels in the evolution of jazz from the madness and rule-breaking of bop to the West Coast "cool" jazz pioneered by Miles Davis.

"Though cool or West Coast jazz became a swank soundtrack for collegiate swingers and bohemians the folks who read Kerouac's books -- Sal clings to the wilder sounds that came before. He sees the advent of cool like the arrival of the postwar middle class, steadily pushing out the cowboys and hoboes and bluesmen and prophets that he loves."

He notes that "On the Road" begins with "career counseling and a lecture on the Protestant work ethic," as Sal expresses doubts about Moriarity's request that Paradise teach him to write. "[A:]nd after all what do I really know about it except you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict."

For the benefit of aspiring scribes, Leland observes further on that, "The Paradise Career Plan boils down to a few time-honored principles: Work hard, live poor, travel light. And when in doubt, let your aunt cover your rent."

That's funny. Many have noted, critically, that Sal and Dean are hardly the fearless adventurers their legacy suggests, because throughout On the Road Sal/Jack often hits up his aunt for money to get them out scrapes.

But we must remember that "On the Road" is a tale of youthful adventure, not middle-aged tourism and remember, too, how the world makes allowances for the young, gives them a pass.

Leland addresses a facet of Kerouac's literature that most try to read right through on their way to the next beer-soused roadhouse party: religion.

Allen Ginsberg, whom Leland considers the crafter behind the media-generated image of Kerouac, noted that, "Everybody expected him to be a rebel and an idiot and angry, and he wasn't that at all. He was a suffering Buddhist who understood a great deal and was able to live with his mother. That's not a rebel."

In circles where he has been most popular, secular literary ones, Kerouac's religious talk has been mostly viewed as a product of his inner turmoil and considered, "uncool," Leland notes.

But the author put religion at the top of his list of concerns.

"To anyone who would listen, Kerouac professed that he and his friends constituted 'the Second Religiousness that Oswald Spengler prophesied for the West,' citing as evidence their 'beatific' [beat:] indifference to things that are Caesar's...a tiredness of that, and a yearning for, a regret for, the transcendent value, or 'God,' again."

Leland sees a greater affinity between evangelical Billy Graham, than say, the counterculture hippies who spurned his deeper religiousness in favor of, "his license to handcraft his own belief system, not the beliefs he chose."

As for Graham, "Like Kerouac...he stressed earthshaking individual conversion experiences rather than intellectual engagement or study. 'Billy Graham is very hip,' Kerouac told an interviewer. 'What's Graham say, 'I'm going to turn out spiritual babies'? That's Beatness. But he doesn't know it. The Beat Generation has no interest in politics, only mysticism, that's their religion. It's kids standing on the street and talking about the end of the world."

All of which, Leland asserts, lands Kerouac's legacy less with Woodstock than with Christian rock and Rick Warren, the guy who will bless President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration tomorrow.

"Why Kerouac Matters" is a delightful read, a careful and novel consideration of the writer, yet Leland might have stopped before his chapter, "Sal Paradise and the Lessons Unlearned," which makes a case as to why Kerouac doesn't matter.

The Beat author, he observes, has been studied more for "how he lived or how he wrote, not what he wrote. And most pop writing has focused on his contribution to the counterculture he rued. Any claims for the books cultural impact and historical importance have relied little on its literary virtues."

Writers who want to adopt his style, Leland concludes, will fail to have their work taken seriously by the literary establishment while "a 21-year old applying to a writing program is as ill-advised to cite Jack Kerouac as an influence as O. Henry or H.P. Lovecraft."

Which, of course, begs the question of whether a Kerowackian would/should be interested in having their rough edges smooth in exchange for a masters at some academic reading redoubt in the first place.

We think not, but thoroughly enjoyed this book.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most die-hard Kerouac fans, I was hooked after "On the Road". My affection for his other books and poetry was largely engendered by that first love for the enthusiasm, even sentimentality with which he wrote "On the Road", and for the book's most widely acknowledged theme: the canonization of the marginalized. After all, it wouldn't be a counter-culture bible if it didn't signal for its readers an alternative to orthodoxy. As I grew older and re-read and re-read road, and as I grew perhaps too intimately familiar with Kerouac's biography and body of work, I recognized that there was more to "Road" than kicks and tolerance and enthusiasm. There's misogyny; his writing on race, while progressive in its day, looks awfully patronizing now; there's a sadness, grief-for-loss, that permeates the work (like his other works as well). What Leland's "Why Kerouac Matters" does best is to give "Road" that refreshing close-read, not eschewing the past reception and scholarship, rather, recognizing aspects of "Road"'s legacy that have long been overlooked, perhaps too conveniently. Namely, Sal's grief is a part of a maturation process, not a will to remain adolescent. And Sal's (like Kerouac's) values and spiritual centering seems almost as likely to appeal to (literate factions of) the right-wing as to self-styled iconoclasts today. To Kerouac fans who know about the man's grievous personal flaws and respect his body of work anyway, many of Leland's revelations are not news, but a new collection of well-grouped observations that have long needed to be put into print. What "Why Kerouac Matters" does best, perhaps, is straddle existing scholarship that either lauds the work and the man too reverently, or dismisses these with willful blindness to their cultural and literary significance. And while Leland might certainly be considered a Kerouac scholar for his work in this book, it reads easy, complete with humor and trivia, sans academic posturing. A personal favorite aspect of the book is that Leland gives "Big Sur" a bit of attention that I've always thought it deserved as brave and true writing, ruthlessly representative of Kerouac's psyche and process.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting beginning...gets dense when family and then jazz get brought into conversation...

It is a good and quick read. Important read I think for those, like myself, who don't share western cultural ideals of self and strict rationality, but also have a sense that self-destruction or irrationality may not be the answer to combat this rationality

An early postulation from author which I liked on page 8(see notes below)....showing that Neil was needed so that Jack could be allowed to freely grow

Chapters roughly go through themes of "growing up", nievity(wet hitchhiker), ideas of manhood, a horrible chapter on love/sex, and a less concise chapter on the Jazziness of his writing...although some interesting stuff found there...(The "Book of Revelations" was a descent read about "holy goofdom" which Cassidy represented, and there is one quote used from this chapter that really kind of ignites something in me....(p 158 below)....this is quite a damning passage, however it should be noted that Jack often made such pronouncements which he later asked his friends for forgiveness of, as he did not mean them....also some good stuff included on Jacks writing style "spontaneous prose".

NOTES:
p 8. For Sal(Jack) the road is a path to growth. As long as Neil remains a child, therefore tempting Jack to do the same, then Jack can mature by his own free choice, not as a concession to social expectations or simply as a product of age.

p 15. Early on in "on the road" Kerouac sees people in archetypes rather then as individuals...because of this he "enters their worlds on his terms, which prevents him from seeing anything else"

p 30. Kerouac's dualism: Notes that Kerouac resolved contradictions of his dualist nature(young/old) emotionally rather then intellectually.

p 35. Leland notes that Dean(Neil) was an American reversion of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot"....he was the innocent idiot.

p 52. Rationality of world that could destroy itself in a day brought into question. If it is rationality that brought us to this then.

p 68. Kerouac distinguishes between "authentic work" and work done to buy things.

p 152. Comparison to Gothes Faust, who is a child of the enlightenment, while Jack/Dean are products of the enlightenments failures....seeking wisdom through revelation rather then rational study....therefore "on the road" seems to be a rejection of secular knowledge and instead seems to be a spiritual/religious tale

p 158. By 1961 Kerouac's idea of the "holy fool" had reached its most elaboration....Jack called his character in Big Sur the last poor holy fool and defined it as "a special solitary angel sent down as a messenger from Heaven to tell everybody or show everybody by example that their peeking society was actually the Satanic Society and they were all on the wrong track."

p 158.2 Kerouac noted that his high-speed writing tactics were a way of "freeing foolish wisdom from a writers rational tendency to self censor".(Leland) "What a man most wishes to hide revise, and un-say, is precisely what literature is waiting and bleeding for."(Kerouac)

p 163. Leland notes that Kerouac didn't need/want rational explanation of these "moments"....instead he thought that this rational explanation would just "gum up" something that was already "KNOWN"

p 178. Interesting connection to the future. 9/11. "when daybreak came we were zooming through New Jersey with the great cloud of Metro New York rising before us in the snowy distance. Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. he said we were a band of Arabs coming to blow up New York." Author notes that around same time the beginnings of the Jihad movement was happening in not dissimilar conditions to what Jack and Neil dealt with.

p 182. What is beat? "The beat generation has no interest in politics, only mysticism, thats their religion."

p 193. Suggestion that Ginsberg created Jack Kerouac and the beat Generation.

[Cherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are just starting to be a Kerouac fan and don't know much about On the Road, you would probably find this book fascinating. However, if you have written a thesis on Kerouac (like I have) and done tons of independent research, this won't necessarily point out too many new things and wouldn't be of interest like you hoped it would.

[Lennox Nicholson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, balanced and investigative, drawing from a huge range of sources and putting it all on the table. Incomparable reference aid if undertaking any work related to the titular themes, and in total agreement that they are not what you think.

[Cedricsmom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I encountered Why Kerouac Matters while trolling my library’s Biography section and chose it because of the question it posed (well, does Kerouac matter?). On the Road has sat unread on my shelves for over 10 years. But now I have a chance at understanding it because I read this slim volume.

Myth and legend have swirled around On The Road from the day it was published—how spontaneous it was, how JK composed the entire novel in a 3-day frenzy on a continuous scroll of paper (which sold at a Sotheby’s auction for over $1M years ago), and how JK didn’t believe in revision or any old school writing stuff.

Why Kerouac Matters blows the lies out of the water and reveals how marketing can have a lasting impact on an author’s work. The biggest lie was probably that the book was a road map for “disaffected youth” who wanted nothing to do with America at the time. But you’d have to do a little background work to know that the book was published 10 years after JK wrote it, into an America that was rapidly changing from its former self 10 years before.

Another literary myth shattered. John Leland, I salute you. Now I have an actual chance at understanding where JK was coming from and where he was going On The Road.

[Nui · Rating 2 out of 5]

I decided to read this book expecting to learn more about the Catholic and conservative sides of Kerouac, aspects of his life that are often ignored or overlooked even when they are vital to understand his works. However, even when this book addresses and identifies these aspects correctly, it fails at the time of exploring and analyzing them to their full extent The result is a superficial reading that doesn't change the easy going hippie image we already had about Kerouac.

[Sadie Ruin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I really enjoyed this book I think people who haven’t read On The Road wouldn’t benefit from it at all. I think it takes some interesting looks at themes within the book, the characters, and how they interacted with their real life counterparts. If you enjoy Kérouac as much as I do then it would be a great book to pick up and add to your reading list.

[Eli Prager · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book seems like a needless flattering of Kerouac, rather than any providing actual analysis or criticism.

Unfortunately fails to address many of the racist and sexist themes in his works.

Feels like the author has had many a-conversations with hapless strangers at bars and clubs and parties on why Jack Kerouac is the last “true American artist” or whatever.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many other fans of the Beats I too found it difficult to reconcile the fictionalized Jack Kerouac of On the Road; Sal Paradise, with the bitter conservative reactionary alcoholic Kerouac later became. Leland makes some good points that On the Road has been misunderstood by its fans and admirers and in fact carries an ultimately conservative theme. I'm not sure I'm convinced of his argument, but On the Road, like all great art is open to new interpretations that only enrich the readers understanding. If you're a fan of On the Road I would highly recommend you read the Original Scroll version that came out a decade ago or so, and you'd probably quite enjoy Leland's interpretation too.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think there was much anyone could say about "On the Road" that would not seem like old news, but I was quite wrong. Leland's analysis and interpretation, drawing not only on the published novel but also Jack's contemporaneous journals and letters, as well as the so-called "scroll version" of the book, is fresh and insightful and goes a long way toward explaining Kerouac's distaste for being called the "Father of the Beat Generation." A fine book about a very misunderstood man and the novel that both made him famous and (along with his alcoholism) ruined his life.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you looked at On the Road as an exciting tale of two cool cats finding adventure on the open road, then this book will be a bit of a downer for you.

According to Why Kerouac Matters, On the Road is more a tale of loneliness and compulsion than of freedom and adventure. It is the story of two fatherless boys who constantly criss-cross the country on a quest to discover how to be a grown-up. A discovery that, apparently, alluded Kerouac.

John Leland, the author, conducts a deep-reading of On the Road, and he makes some very good points. I won't be able to read On the Road the same way again. In retrospect, a lot of the points that Leland makes seem obvious. On the Road is chock-full of examples of surrogate fathers and of the tensions between ribald freedom and sober responsibility. (OK, maybe "sober" isn't the right word for this book).

Why Kerouac Matters gets a little repetitive and tedious in some points. And, at some points, the author seems to be stretching. There may not have been enough underlying material to support a whole book.

Additionally, Why Kerouac Matters does not live up to its subtitle, The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think). All of the "lessons" seem to be rather rambling and subjective to Keruac, himself, and not to readers at large.

There was one fault that I encountered early in the book that troubled me all the way through. Kerouac did not end well. He was unable to support himself; he was unable to sustain any meaningful relationships; and he died at a young age in an alcholic stupor. Early in the book, Leland cautions us not to let Kerouac's personal failures cause us to discount the lessons of On the Road. he states that we must not confuse Kerouac, the author of On the Road with Sal Paradise, the narrator of On the Road. It is a valid point. Leland then undermines this valid point by repeatedly confusing Kerouac, the author of On the Road with Sal Paradise, the narrator of On the Road .

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you didn't even know you wanted to know about On the Road. John Leland is a great journalist, and this book is a must for Kerouac fans.

[Elyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers interesting insights into the messages and deeper meanings of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. Since I have read a lot about Kerouac and The Beat Generation, I already knew much of what the author presented.

I did, however, gain some new information and also found the author's perspective interesting and thoughtful. In particular, he exposed a lot of Kerouac's flaws and struggles, rather than mythologize him. He gave background into Kerouac's writing process. He also did not shy away from really examining the mystical/religious undertones of On The Road, which are often unexplored in such depth.

Overall, this book helped me to gain a better understanding on why On the Road had such a huge impact on my life and why its influence continues. The author makes an important point that Kerouac was "after emotional and spiritual truths and not intellectual ones". I think a lot of readers connect to the emotion and spirituality of On the Road, myself included. The author also reminds the reader that On the Road is not linear and has no clear ending, but rather it spirals like the jazz music of that era. This enables readers to bring themselves into the narrative and interpret it more freely and apply their own meanings to the story.

Finally, one of the last quotes in this book sums it up best when the author concludes that On the Road "doesn't offer answers. Its travels don't resolve ignorance but affirm it; they don't forestall suffering but accept it as part of the human condition. What better reasons could there be for characters to hit the road, or for readers to join the journey? Life is ignorance and suffering and jazz and loss and occasional revelation. So is the road--as much at the beginning as at the end. And still we travel and still we live because, what else can we do?".

[Cari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)

...except for how they are exactly what you think.

Okay, to be fair, the lessons laid out by Leland are the ones usually missed by a lot of readers, especially younger ones. If a reader buys into the rebellion, fuck you hype and picks up On the Road, it's easy to miss the spiritual and coming-of-age themes along with the rest of what Kerouac was trying to get across, simply because that's not what the reader is focused on, not what he came into the experience looking for. With the passive narration combined with Kerouac's style, that's an easy thing to do.

Leland does a fair job presenting the issues and "lessons" of the classic, although I could have done without all the jazz comparisons, as it felt like he wasn't really familiar with jazz, simply drawing parallels with information picked up from other sources. The sheer amount of biographical information was also unnecessary, having little to do with the lessons from the novel and, admittedly, boring the crap out of me because I knew that stuff already. I didn't read this for a life lesson about Jack Kerouac; I read this for more insight into the book itself, which is separate from the man.

Why Kerouac Matters... feels an awful lot like the syllabus for a 101 college lit course. That's not necessarily a bad thing, considering the layout presents everything in a clear, rather linear fashion that helps keep the reader focused on the subject even when the author can't quite seem to and starts wandering around from the point.

But one thought kept occurring to me the entire time I was reading, and when I finished the book, the question seemed even more pressing:

Leland is handing us the "true", intended lessons from On the Road, but since the real meaning of a work lies with the reader (and thus individual interpretation), does any of this even matter?

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently everyone who reads On The Road initially reads it all wrong. Leland makes excellent points that the lessons of OTR are most often ignored, lost in a cultural milieu that Kerouac himself would have relentlessly chided. Taken as the icon for generations of 'agnostic and atheist" arbiters of cool, Kerouac was, initially and eventually through and through, a self proclaimed Catholic-Buddhist mystic. a real read of almost all his work shows this to be so. Even Cassady, whose relentless push toward nihilism and self abnegation drives the book, and gives impetus for its existence as well as its appeal, was no stranger to the idea that there was some higher mystic purpose to all this, and that Jack's role as a writer is to try to make that plain to people. whether or not he was successful, now, that is a good question, but at the very least of it the question of whether or not he really wanted 'those good things" in American life like the wife and white picket fence are answered quite well by Mr. Leland. Of course he wanted them! He just wanted them honestly and on his own terms. Hopefully readers of this book will have read enough of Kerouac that thee points will have been self-apparent by the tie they get to the end of Mr. Leland's critique, but chances are that many are only familiar with the surface and with OTR at most. Maybe this could drive them to reading more of Kerouac (I hope so, for he's a widely misunderstood and under-read observer of American life). Kerouac was less a critic of America than he was one who wished to bestow a dharma-blessing upon it, even in all its incongruity and corruption and banality, he was the "poet who could see the roses growing in the dogshit" (Kesey).

[Shalini]

I want to read this just because of this little article snippet from the CityPaper (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/di...). Then again, haven't I felt this way about every formerly favorite book from my youth? I cringe when I look at old "favorites" lists, yet I can't deny the effects those books had on me. I just hope I don't have to spend the rest of my life reading books that analyze books that I used to love, just to maintain some semblance of self-respect. I've already fallen for With Love and Squalor.

For anyone who read Jack Kerouac's On the Road in their teenage years, it didn't matter that it was written in 1951. It spoke to you. It represented freedom and adventure -- maybe you even made that road trip to California. But for anyone who's tried to re-read those enthralling moments later in life, you were probably shocked that you once found Kerouac so hero-worthy. The characters just seem irresponsible, the writing childish. To keep your youthful memories from being dashed, New York Times reporter John Leland has written Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think). Leland, focusing on the more sympathetic, though less charismatic, character Sal Paradise, walks us through the wisdom of Kerouac. Leland quotes Kerouac's journals: "One of the greatest incentives of the writer is the long business of getting his teachings out and accepted." Leland's primer continues this business, helping Kerouac survive cynicism.

[Garrett Cash · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Leland powerfully argues that Jack Kerouac's beat bible "On the Road" is not a book celebrating excess, immaturity, the fast line, and mindless pleasure. Instead it is as Jack Kerouac once stated "It was really a story about 2 Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him." Leland also tears apart the popular culture image of Kerouac as the portrait of Beat, instead saying that this has been a misreading and the image that we place in our heads about Kerouac is actually the personality of Neal Cassady. Basically, if you're young and see "On the Road" as some kind of rebellion novel about two wild cats tearing it up on America's freeways you'll be disappointed in this book. It instead tells us about a conservative Catholic that grows up and seeks God, which is certainly not as hip as the people who read "On the Road" would like it to be.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on Kerouac. The first few chapters went by quickly, but I felt that the book began to drag once the author started comparing Kerouac's writing to jazz. The next few chapters were such similar topics (religion, ghosts, visions) that the paragraphs began to feel repetitive. The topics might have been better if they were combined into one short chapter.

The author also seemed to reach a bit at some times to justify Kerouac's lifestyle. I'm not sure I completely believe Kerouac's intention's were always so non-offensive or easily explainable.

Overall, not bad if you're a huge Beat/Kerouac fan and would like some more information about the story behind the story (On The Road), but not solid enough to buy.

[Jonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book randomly at the Chicago Public Library. I saw the author, John Leland. I read this book awhile ago (years ago) called HIP, THE HISTORY which was a real eye opener and also written by Leland. This guy really has a knack for tying things together. And the subject matter is always cool. Fun reads, educational, plenty of style. Not literary masterpieces, but Leland is just a guy you would want to smoke weed with all night and talk about cool shit and listen to records. Can't complain there. Check this one out. If you like it, read HIP, THE HISTORY. You'll be cooler for it.

[Peg]

"With its two Beat Generation protagonists, the classic On The Road seems a manifesto for youthful rebellion. On the book's 50th anniversary Leland argues that it actually reflects our traditional family values.

[Kimberly]

From what I have read, it doesn't look like the kind of book you'd want to read right after devouring On The Road at age 20...but I'm not 20 anymore, and I'm not sure if I could tolerate On The Road at this point...

[Greg Converse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, anyway, he was an industrious Canadian Catholic who explored Buddhism and then drank himself to death. The point of this book is to show that he was not just the wild, drug-addled speed freak with no moral center that his critics painted him to be. He had a conscience, a steady work ethic and a confidence in himself as an artist.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this years ago. From what I recall it wasn't too dense to read but the problem was I didn't care for "On the Road". I've since forgotten why I read a book about "On the Road" in the first place.

[Adria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting analysis of On the Road and Kerouac's journeys and inabilities to get his act together. Much as I love Kerouac's writing, in reality he was such an asshole! Still a cool read, though, and lots of fun Beat tidbits.

[Deidra Purvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must-read for anyone who has read Kerouac's On the Road. The insights gained have altered my appreciation for On the Road. Leland is insightful, well researched, and often playful in his analysis of On the Road and of Kerouac.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leland makes several interesting and original points, but there's a lot of padding. Would've made a terrific magazine article.

[Carmen]

Even though i started this, i am marking as "to read". I wasn't in the frame of mind to get into it, so i'll try again later.