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From: reviewer chief
Category: Books
Date: 10 April 2005
Avoided this as an adolescent because I didn't want to be thought too teenage. It's good. Beat stuff is like Miller and Hemingway mashed up. Not as radical as Miller in some ways, still polite. Kerouac's crazy Dean Moriarty is no Sherlock Holmes, he's a underage girl perve, a philanderer, a car thief, and all together no role model. Some of his habits would be considered less charming today in our paedo obsessed society. There is a complete lack of characterisation of women except as long suffering wives or dolls or pretty girls (often an accurate term). Maculinity, as per usual in this type of fiction, is posited as answering the door naked, drinking, screwing in public, and general toughguyness. It all seems a bit old hat, yet you can't deny the verve of Kerouac's pacy writing, and the genuine excitement about a non-linear life that the book generates. Strip off all the bullshit, of all the guy writers, and underneath a universal love of life is found. (except for our friends who shot themselves).
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