Just Finished Reading: On The Road by Jack Kerouac (FP: 1957) [281pp] 

Sal Paradise is looking for adventure, escape and material for a book. What better, he thought, to travel across the country and visit friends in New Orleans, San Francisco and Los Angeles? Borrowing $50 with the promise to pay it back once he got a job, he sets off by bus to see friends, the world and have fun. Almost immediately things go wrong, he hasn’t really thought out his route, he certainly doesn’t have enough money for the whole trip and he finds himself drenched in a sudden downpour. Now hitching, he finds himself almost back where he started before setting out again. THIS time he’d have an adventure, THIS time it would work, THIS time he’d have fun along the way. In the weeks that followed, before the promised return to college, he’d travel across the country more than once, meet up with old friends, make some new ones, meet women, get VERY drunk, watch live music the like of which he’d never heard before and meet the much talked about Dean Moriarty who would change his life forever. It was going to be quite a ride... 

I’d heard about this book decades before I actually picked up a copy. It’s kind of hard to avoid especially if you have hung around students as long as I have. One of my university friends RAVED about this book and I would be surprised if it had helped to define who he was. I’m not sure if it actually created his wanderlust or just fed it enough to create his seemingly permanent itchy feet (although I understand you can get some powder for that). After reading it I can understand both why this is an American classic and the fact that it must have launched a thousand (at least!) road-trips across the US. The structure is pretty simple – a bunch of young guys, although sometimes with girls in tow, travelling around getting drunk, getting high and getting laid. That’s not all but that’s the foundation of the book. What takes it above the mundane and makes it the classic that it deserves to be is a mixture of characterisation and conversation. Sal is pretty much the ‘everyman’ and it's his eyes we see things through. Moriarty is his opposite, almost his ‘evil’ twin. Moriarty is impulsive, hedonistic, irresponsible and frankly dangerous at times. I might even class him as a sociopath – he certainly doesn’t care for those around him and, more often than not, uses people for entertainment and as resources to supply him with drink, drugs, sex and distraction. He has no real direction except for following the siren sound of whatever seems to be ‘fun’ (for him) at that particular moment. He was NOT a very nice character at all – although few of the other characters saw him as such (with the interesting exception of some of the women in the group). 

Overall, I’m glad I read this. Although I can’t say that I loved it, or indeed enjoyed it a great deal, I did find it to be an interesting slice of ‘Beat’ culture and I can certainly understand why it became such a staple of the following 60’s Counter-culture. If you’re looking for an insight into America of that period this is worth a read.