Kerouac and his contemporaries weren’t Boomers. They were part of the “Greatest Generation”, so called because they came of age in the Great Depression and fought in WWII.

Kerouac wasn’t a boomer, and the book was published when the oldest baby boomers were 10 years old, so none of the characters in his book were boomers, and he wasn’t writing for a boomer audience.

Second, he was describing a small counter culture, not the mainstream culture.

Third, every generation has problems with its elders. It was the baby boom generation that used the phrase “never trust anyone over 30,” although the phrase itself was coined by someone born before the baby boom.

Every generation has selfish idiots. Kerouac’s, the baby boomers, mine, and yours. The environmental movement and most of the civil rights and social movements that we consider mainstream today didn’t have legs until the baby boomers came along and did the work. This whole “the boomers ruined everything” thing that pervades Reddit and elsewhere is just a bunch of whining. If you want things different (and you should), stop complaining, get off your ass and make things different.

Not necessarily disagreeing, but the 'older generation does not get the younger generation' thing happens with every single generation.

>As a non-American, reading On The Road, felt like a snapshot of postwar youthful Boomer mentality.

>I'm not saying all boomers are like this or retain that mentality, but as a non-American, to me, the difference in generational perspectives was very identifiable and familiar.

I'm not trying to be rude, but if you're going to write a post disparaging a whole generation, at least check the dates first. The guys in the book and Jack Kerouac himself fall under the "Greatest Generation", which fought in WWII, and were the PARENTS of Boomers. People on Reddit have a habit of calling everyone older than them a "Boomer." I'm Gen X myself and constantly see posts lashing out at certain "Boomer" politicians who are actually Gen X. We have the internet, we can check our facts before posting.

Learning more about the Beat counter culture movement might improve your view of the book. Others have mentioned that this deals with a different generation than what you think and that it involved a cultural minority, but it goes deeper than that.

The beats were anti-capitalist environmentalists who hated the, as they felt, overpressing and undeserved patriotism that follows war. The environmental activism could have been an accidental byproduct of their loud disapproval of patriotism, but it’s notable all the same.

These qualities meant that the people in this culture were not only a minority, but that they were effectively ostracized from the wider population. Coupled with this social dynamic, long and fast travel was suddenly more accessible than ever before, which gives us On The Road.

It’s silly to frame the characters as being heroes or villains. They’re archetypes of the people a beat poet was likely to meet.

I don’t like this style of literature, for beat writers I prefer Ginsberg, but On The Road is a snapshot of history (biased, of course, from someone living in it), not a manifesto.

There are selfish twats in every generation, but in every generation they choose a great ignored “sin” of their parents generation and attempt to solve it but ignores the virtues of the previous generation that addressed their issues. So this inter generational partisanship thing is over blown but highlights a real tension. Do you thing the vast majority of people see beyond generational stereotypes? Some very young console their lack of understanding and wisdom by dismissing their elders as “boomers” and some older folks dismiss the younger generations discoveries because of their stubbornness and close mindedness that comforts them in their circumscribed ideology? I guess my main point is there are selfish twats in every generation, but in every generation they choose a great ignores sin of their parents generation and attempt to solve.

Kerouac's book was more popular than his lifestyle was among that generation. It became famous as an insight into a counter-culture, as opposed to being culture-driving as you suggest.

By the way, you do realize that just saying "Boomers" has become a disparaging way to refer to that generation? So when you use that term and say you are not disparaging, it comes off as disingenuous.

Being GenX myself, I am well aware of the many flaws in my elders' ways, but also of my own generation's and its successor generations, too. Unfortunately, it's not like any generation has figured anything out and is saving the world.

Edit: Re-reading your comment just triggers me further for its irresponsible generational view. You suggest that Boomers used up the world's resources and scold younger generations to care for the planet. These are not generational issues at all. Clearly there are people and parties within every generation simultaneously destroying and caring for the environment. I see elders caring for our planet (Jane Goodall, for example, was a "Boomer" icon) and see "Millenial" destructors (like Ben Shapiro, Lauren Bobert, the smug kid who claimed victory in staring down a Native American protesting) alike. To make these issues out to be generational divides is oversimplification at best and counterproductively divisive at worst.

I can understand you misunderstanding the impact and place of Kerouac's work within American culture since you are from elsewhere, but leveraging that to misconstrue complex social challenges as simplistic generational divides is not at all productive. I suppose it is at least open dialogue, but it's the sort that merits fervent disagreement.

Entitled? The Beats are rebels. These are outsider stories, they do not represent "Boomers" in any way.

Start over, read some books on the post WW2 cultural shifts first.

You say that you're "not saying all boomers are like [that]" but make a pretty sweeping generlaisation all the same. That generation also saw the birth of the environmental movement and oversaw some of the most socially aware political movements in history. Meanwhile, selfishness has been a constant throughout the ages, and is in no way restricted to any particular generation, nor is the current one devoid of it.

The Beats were a generation older than the Boomers. They were more like a shadow of the Greatest Generation. They rebelled against the conformity of their peers, which made them generally unpopular within their own generation but revered by Boomers a generation later. It's interesting to observe the different ways the Beats reacted to this. Ginsberg seemed to relish his role as an elder demigod to the Hippies, while Kerouac rebelled against the rebellion and retreated back to Catholicism and heavy drinking while criticizing "kids these days."

Thanks for your perspective. Carson's Silent Spring appeared just a little later in 1962. The 20s produced both Dorothy Day and the Great Gatsby. There is a wide range of cultural icons and goals in every generation. But yes, selfish individualism has been a trend in American literature and philosophy from Ayn Rand to Bonfire of the Vanities. I agree with your analysis of the book but not that it is especially Boomer to be that way.

I have two comments to make: first, from where I'm sitting those of the younger generations who most like to complain about "Boomers" tend to be most like the characters you mentioned. Second, studies in trait narcissism in America find an increase since the days of the Boomer's youth (google is your friend). All in all, I hardly think this book says much about Boomers in general. These were outliers.

Yeah idk this book bothered the fuck outta me. I was told it was one of those must read great American novels then I read it and wondered what was so great about it?

I'd say it's almost like reading Great Gatsby or catcher in the rye but somehow worse than both combined. I just couldn't empathize with the main character at all in this one.

There's better jack kerouac novels out there too, who to me was sorta the boomer wannabe version of Hemingway

To be kind of fair to their generation, there wasn't much concern for long term consequences back then. People smoked like chimneys, drank like fish, played with radioactive materials like they were toys, drove without seat belts, did a lot of daredevil stuff like racing, flying acrobatics, etc. Life expectancy was ~45 years on average and the oldest age one expected to live to was about 60, so you didn't have time to worry about life or the future because you were here and gone in a flash. Just ask someone who is 40 right now what they think of their time on earth so far, and they'll all tell you that it's gone by too fast, yet by modern standards they can live to double that age! Not so back then. You turned 40 and were acutely aware that you had a good decade left in you, tops, and then something was going to get you. Since you couldn't really do anything about it, caution got thrown to the wind and you just lived every day like it was your last. You tried to live the most fulfilling life you could, and that was the message of the Beat generation. Prior to that, your whole life was spent in a factory, a mine, or a field. You think of "me time" and "time off work" as entitlements now, but back then you were a lazy, good for nothing bum if you didn't want to work every waking hour. Kerouac and Co. embraced the ideal of the bum, introducing to the next generation the idea that life was more than just all work and no play. Yeah, they took it to an extreme that ended up killing most of them early, but again, the life expectancy was so short back then that they died right when they expected to die anyways. Their legacy looks excessive and irresponsible to people now, but that excessive irresponsibility was a statement back then, and it was a statement that needed to be made (believe it or not) for us to enjoy the ideas of time off work that we enjoy today.

On the Road is definitely a period piece and won’t last a few more decades in the public consciousness. It’s very poorly written. I think Kerouac boasted he wrote it in two weeks. Yea I can fucking tell. It’s such poor human representation it has zero literary merit. We read this in undergrad a few years ago and my professor, a boomer, said it was his favorite book. None of my classmates liked it. I remember me and a classmate talking about how crappy it was. I know Kerouac isn’t a boomer but nobody but boomers praise it. I don’t know why. The characters are totally flat. Who gives a shit about its ideas of freedom or open road or rebellion if you got no characters to sell them.