June 18, 2007
Having immersed himself in Beat culture while writing Hip: A History
, Leland, a New York Times
reporter and former editor-in-chief of Details
, makes a convincing case that Jack Kerouac’s most famous novel has endured for half a century because it’s “a book about how to live your life.” The lesson isn’t about impulsive self-gratification, as many readers believe, aided by Kerouac’s tendency to go vague in his most emotionally critical passages. Leland reminds us that narrator Sal Paradise was always looking to settle down into a conventional life, and Kerouac, Leland says, was generally of a conservative mindset. Framing On the Road
as a spiritual quest, Leland deftly combines the biographical facts of Kerouac’s life with discussions of his literary antecedents in Melville and Goethe, as well as the inspiration he took from contemporary jazz, finding in bebop’s rhythms a new way to circle around a story’s themes. Section headings like “The 7 Habits of Highly Beat People” get a little silly, but Leland’s insights provide new layers of significance even for those familiar with the novel.
August 1, 2007
On the 50th anniversary of the publication of "On the Road, New York Times" reporter Leland ("Hip: The History") provides a fresh, thought-provoking examination of the Jack Kerouac classic. He explores the novel's themes of male friendship, love and death, family values, jazz, and religion and argues that narrator Sal Paradise's road trips with saintly fool Dean Moriarty constitute an inward journey leading to manhood and maturity. Drawing on Kerouac's own letters and journals as well as on the work of earlier biographers, Leland discusses Kerouac's use of autobiography, focusing on the role of the novel's narrator. He notes that where Sal Paradise succeeds, Kerouac too often fails. Leland's book is one of the first to take advantage of the availability of the original scroll typescript of Kerouac's novel for comparison with the 1957 volume. (Viking will be releasing "On the Road: The Original Scroll" simultaneously with the novel's anniversary edition.) Written in an informal, accessible style, it will appeal to Kerouac fans as well as academics. Highly recommended for all literature collections.William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from August 1, 2007
On the Road is a book about how to live your life, writes Leland, the author of Hip (2004), in this sometimes arch, always discerning, and occasionally full-out brilliant reconsideration of a novel loved and maligned for all the wrong reasons. Leland carefully parses the inspiration Kerouac drew from Goethe, Melville, Twain, and Proust; charts the novels jazz-based circular structure; and perceptively analyzes Kerouacs mystical Catholicism and exalted artistic mission. But most importantly, Leland interprets On the Road as a set of parables in which Sal Paradise (based on Kerouac himself) and Dean Moriarty (an improvisation on Neal Cassady, Kerouacs main muse and the devil incarnate) embody opposite approaches to existence. For these two seekers, one in search of God, the other on the prowl for sex, the road is a penance, not an adventure. As Leland shrewdly explicates the novels spiritual teachings within dynamic social commentary, he links Kerouac to such antithetical realms as the Christian Right and hip-hop, boldly recalibrating our understanding of an artist as immensely conflicted as he was gifted.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)