On The Road CD by Jack Kerouac Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of On The Road CD
Book Review: A new audio book lover is born...
Summary: 4 Stars
On the Road is my very first audio book ever. I've tried audio books in the past, but they always seemed to be narrated by some suave fella with a buttery English accent, and I would inevitably end up face-down on my bed, snoring away within 5-7 minutes of beginning. When I began to commute for a total of 80 minutes a day (round trip), I quickly tired of listening to the same music time and again. Although I have an 8gb iPod nano, you can only cram so much music on the thing. After I gave up finding a decent radio station, I was left with one simple option. Give audio books another try.
On the Road seemed an obvious choice for two reasons. 1) I was turning to audio books because I was "on the road" so much (har har) 2) I haven't been able to read it. That is, its rambling style tends to put me to sleep almost as quickly as a British man reading at me. Yet, I've always wanted to complete it despite my doomed attempts, and the recent publication of Kerouac's original scroll sort of bewitched me. I was completely ignorant of the great Kerouac myth before I decided to listen to this book. I had no idea the length of time that Kerouac and his cronies spent traveling the country. I hadn't the foggiest idea that he wrote the book on one long, uninterrupted scroll of paper (120 feet). Or that Kerouac composed the novel in a three-week rush of writing fueled by endless cups of coffee and--though Kerouac adamantly denied it--probably Benzedrine.
But enough of the back story...let's get to the book! I listened to an unabridged audio version narrated by Matt Dillon, and for that aspect alone, I expected to have problems with it. Matt Dillon is generally considered, by me, a boil on the butt of humanity. His teeth bother me, his face bothers me, his voice bothers me. But, somehow, he was able to make On the Road come alive. Given, he has his readerly flaws--his syllables sometimes smashing in on one another, his characters' voices eventually crapping out and evening into something that sounds very much like "every other character." However, he has some rough wildness to his voice that did justice to Kerouac's musical, rambling, stream-of-consciousness classic.
This is one of those books, like Wuthering Heights, that offers few likable characters. They're ruffians and deadbeats and swindlers, but they're also thinkers and adventurers. I suppose the story, as I knew it would, plays into my romantic fantasies of dropping everything and just taking off. I would love to travel the country with no particular place to be for seven years. Drink with friends, intellectualize, philosophize and write, write, write. Alas, Kerouac lived, in many ways, in a dramatically different America than the one we live in today. A man could hitchhike from coast to coast, sleep around and drive his car into a muddy ditch in middle America without worrying too much about being arrested or getting knifed to death and hacked into little pieces.
I read somewhere that Kerouac's novel is a "love letter to America," and I think that's a fair assessment. He became intimately acquainted with corners of this country that most people will never see, and never care to see. His manic scribblings are interspersed with poetic, literary digressions that boggle the mind. The whole thing is one big jazz solo twittering, banging and hooting all night long.
Now, all these praises don't actually mean that I liked the book that much. That's news, eh? This is one of those tomes that I appreciate even if it bored me at times. I appreciate Kerouac's intentions far more than his prose, and when all is said and done, I really like the mythical proportions that this story and its author have grown into.
Book Review: An excellent performance of a childish novel
Summary: 4 Stars
I dislike the prose Beats; I *hate* Burroughs, while I only dislike Kerouac, but nonetheless I agree with John Updike's very funny parody of the genre called "On The Sidewalk" (from his 1965 book Assorted Prose), in which the narrator is a faux-rebellious child who takes off burning through the afternoon on his tricycle, but is too scared to cross the street alone.
But Matt Dillon's performance of this audiobook version is really excellent. He does absorbing but not overdone voices for the different characters, reads the rest of the time with a suitable world-weary tone, and (my favorite aspect of his performance) picks up on the fact that Kerouac sometimes goes on a tear of short, Hemingway-esque sentences, which Dillon reads as if they were liturgy or poetry, with a steady, incantatory beat.
There seems to be a trend of recruiting name actors to do high-profile audiobooks; Maggie Gyllenhall's The Bell Jar is even better.
Book Review: Excellent. Dean Moriarty would probably say: Yes, Yes, Yes, this man has got IT!
Summary: 5 Stars
I think most of the reading is excellent, just some short parts are less inspired, and maybe- but this is very personal - only the very first pages are not read in the mood I feel them in my soul. But the more you listen, the more you are caught in the reading and you realize the great work of actor Dillon has made and in a very spontaneous way.
Dillon's voice is full of colours and tones, the reading is rich in changes of speed, subtle shifting in mood. He succeeds in carving the characters from within in such a deep and honest way that they keep on living haunting you also when the reading is over. All the dialogues are performed in an outstanding way.
If English readers disagree, let me add that I am Italian and I had bought On the road long time ago but in English it was difficult for me and I didn't like the Italian translation. Though not English, I had felt the jazz wave of the writing and loved it. I felt a lot went lost in translation as if you cannot read Cesare Pavese in Italian, I guess.
So On the road had remained there on the shelf together with other not-yet-read books that are like friends I keep loving simply because I trust them.
What a surprise then when a lot of years later, while living in a country with a mysterious language, where English appears the only chance to subtitle reality and fiction, I found out that a reading of the whole book was available and the narrator was Matt Dillon, who has the perfect voice to embody On the road.
So thanks to Matt Dillon for driving me till the end of this journey of Kerouac's word in such an intense way, performing this jazz session of Kerouac right with the voice I had always imagined these lines would sound.
I don't know of any movie of On the Road. This is the kind of book that may frighten a director. However, listening to this reading I imagined it would be challenging with a director as Gus Van Sant or maybe Coppola or Scorsese, having Matt Dillon performing Sal or Dean, or even both, the last idea only if an enough visionary director/writer can somehow tell through the movie art how much Dean is part of Sal himself.
Book Review: Go thou and be little beneath my sight ...
Summary: 5 Stars
Just a note this time. I will not try to repeat what others have so clearly stated. This version of the work with Matt Dillon is amazing. I really enjoyed his vocal version of Dean. The reading of the work is clear and precise and studio perfect.
I'm very happy that this has finally been put out unabridged. David Carridine put out a version through Penguin in the mid-eighties on cassette, that was really fantastic as well, but was, unfortunately, abridged. Carridine's Sal Paradise was truer to the vocal spirit of Jack Kerouac, almost imitating him it seemed, which you won't find Dillon trying to repeat. Nevertheless it's entirely absorbing.
Some people have complained about Matt Dillon's "sluggish" reading in places with the material. I disagree with this sentiment vehemently. I believe the emotional honesty which you can hear from Matt Dillon's voice, shows that not only does he know the material, has listened to Kerouac's and Burroughs's past voice recordings but grasps the larger meaning of the words themselves, which is the true point of the book. He intonates like Jack without trying to imitate him ... which would really be a sin.
Well worth the money and the time spent listening.
Thank you, Matt Dillon.
Thank you, Jack Kerouac.
Book Review: Great book, mediocre reading
Summary: 3 Stars
On The Road is a masterpiece, but this reading is disappointing, particularly in the rendering of Dean (who sounds like Howlin' Wolf on Valium.) Comparison of this recording with Kerouac's own reading of sections of On The Road highlights Matt Dillon's shortcomings and makes you wonder if he did any homework (i.e., listened to any of Kerouac's recordings) before stepping up to the microphone.