Oh, and did you notice all the snow? I love how pretty the world gets under a blanket of the stuff. Not so crazy about people who don't know how to drive in it.
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| Source: Amazon.com |
From the book’s cover:
On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.
Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago.
Synopsis:
I'm gonna cheat here. Truth be told, I read this one overnight at work right after completing Gone With The Wind. After getting through that big book, it was tough to arrange my thoughts adequately for this one. The shortness of On the Road didn't help matters. So I'm copping out and taking my synopsis from SparkNotes.com. Hey, at least I'm being honest about it. I just finished my last final exam for the semester this morning (the morning before I actually penned this review, that is), and I don't feel like thinking too hard. So you're stuck with what I can give.
In the winter of 1947, the reckless and joyous Dean Moriarty, fresh out of another stint in jail and newly married, comes to New York City and meets Sal Paradise, a young writer with an intellectual group of friends, among them the poet Carlo Marx. Dean fascinates Sal, and their friendship begins three years of restless journeys back and forth across the country. With a combination of bus rides and adventurous hitchhiking escapades, Sal goes to his much-dreamed-of west to join Dean and more friends in Denver, and then continues west by himself, working as a fieldworker in California for awhile, among other things. The next year, Dean comes east to Sal again, foiling Sal's stable life once more, and they drive west together, with more crazy adventures on the way at Bull Lee's in New Orleans, ending in San Francisco this time. The winter after that, Sal goes to Dean, and they blaze across the country together in friendly fashion, and Dean settles in New York for awhile. In the spring, Sal goes to Denver alone, but Dean soon joins him and they go south all the way to Mexico City this time.
Through all of this constant movement, there is an array of colorful characters, shifting landscapes, dramas, and personal development. Dean, a big womanizer, will have three wives and four children in the course of these three years. Perceptive Sal, who at the beginning is weakened and depressed, gains in joy and confidence and finds love at the end. At first Sal is intrigued by Dean because Dean seems to have the active, impulsive passion that Sal lacks, but they turn out to have a lot more in common. The story is in the details.
Where I got that summary from, on SparkNotes.com
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| The author, Jack Kerouac. / Source: GoodReads.com |
What I liked about it:
I liked Kerouac's use of language. It is not flowery or overly prosaic, and yet he throws in some real thinkers, just the same. For instance:
"They were like the man with the dungeon stone and gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining."
or
"Our battered suitcases were were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."
Of course there were some other ones that I could barely fathom. But Kerouac did certainly have a talent for spinning a phrase. And just as a side-note, if you noticed this post has lots of stuff dragged from other places and crammed into my own review, conveniently or inconveniently, you aren't off track. There's a reason for that, but I'll let you figure it out for yourself.
Other things I liked? The story just goes. It almost has a life of it's own. As I have alluded (and will again, I'm sure), this one missed me in places, but I still enjoyed it on the whole. There are vignettes that are really clustered full of imagery, such as Sal's time living as a cotton picker out West, or the infamous trip to Mexico at the end. It was interesting stuff.
What I didn’t like about it:
On the other hand, what makes the book good also makes it kind of distracting. The language it uses isn't a help to this. The slang is quite dated now in most respects. "Dig that," and the like. Plus Kerouac is really trying to riff in places on things that don't always translate so well. I refer again to a quote to make my point:
"What's your road, man?--holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow."
and another, which starts out OK, but then... well, see for yourself:
"So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it... and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?"
Pooh Bear, huh? Seems like he got a bit too high and just started saying stuff that seemed clever. The source to whom I turned to explain this book (see "What I Learned, if anything") said Kerouac wrote the book in a binge of drug-induced enthusiasm over a week or less, or something like that. He also explained (my professor, that is) that Kerouac also had used notes and worked on the thing off and on for years, and the compilation of the book was the binge part. But I think in places that buzzed stuff bleeds through. The above quotes are some examples. Yes, I realize Kerouac was trying to utilize a more free-flowing style and avoid the Thomas Wolfe trap, but... well, it didn't always work for someone who wasn't ready to pick out all the nuances.
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| Kerouac's scroll version of On The Road, as seen at the New York Public Library, was written in a Benzedrine-fueled orgy of typing. According to my professor, the book didn't come complete from this exercise in obsessive-compulsiveness, but was gathered in bits for years in note form. / Source: FutureOfTheBook.org |
What I learned, if anything:
On The Road itself was something of a mystery to me. I found it reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye (which, if you've read my review of that book, sounds like a bad thing), but - thankfully - without the same pretensions and near-constant whining. I suppose you can say that the book taught me vicariously. I read it, was somewhat impressed, and then turned to other resources to put what I'd read in context.
The best source I turned to turned out to be a professor I took a class from this past semester. His name is John Sillito, and he teaches at Weber State University. Dr. John, as he is often known, is the History department's resident expert on the "other guys." He knows the lefties - err... leftists, the counter-culture, the socialists, the communists, and the riff-raff. And he knows about the Beat Generation, of which Kerouac was writing in On the Road.
I learned from him that On The Road was about people seeking something that didn't fit their previous conceptions. That the characters in Kerouac's book are dissatisfied with the world of post-World War II, and its conformity. They romanticize a lot of things we would think are odd today, such as traveling around the country and living on a shoe-string. These guys are trying to find themselves.
Recommendation:
I can't do Dr. John's explanation of the book justice, to be honest. I appreciated his time, but I am afraid On The Road went a bit over my head. He told me that there was a perception by some that Kerouac's book would be forgotten once the Baby Boomers are all gone, but he didn't think so. He said people said the same thing about The Great Gatsby and the Lost Generation, and that has proven false. Gatsby is still relevant today. And I'm sure On The Road is too, and will continue to be so.
On the other hand, the book didn't speak to me. It isn't that it isn't good. No, quite the opposite. I enjoyed the story, and I got a feeling for what I think Kerouac was trying to say. Unfortunately, I think I missed a good portion of the point. To me, it was just an interesting "road trip" story, interspersed with lots of crazy adventures and some odd moments (like when Dean Moriarty leaves Sal Paradise in Mexico with a serious illness and just says "good luck, gotta go!").
My recommendation regarding On The Road should be clarified by saying that I think it is a good book, and that Kerouac has a talent for writing. His use of language is clipped at times, like an on-going narrative in simple prose, but he flares into eloquent and poignant language in places too. And the story tells a tale worthy of reading. But according to my professor, its a story that you see differently each time you read it. So your mileage may vary quite a bit. For me, it was enjoyable, but not something I'll pick right back up again in a year or two. Maybe in a decade I'll try again and see what On The Road says to me then.
Learn more about On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
Hmmm... Oh sorry, I was day-dreaming about getting nicely toasted. No, I don't actually partake, but if they legalized it around my neck of the woods, I'd try a sample.
No you won't!
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