On the Road

Written on benzadrine-induced spurts as rolls of paper fed the typewriter - a device to avoid time delay by taking out old pages and putting in new pages - Kerouac's rapid typing (kickwriting) throws the reader into the constantly moving adventure of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity on the American roads of the 1940's.

Going through several T-shirts each day during the three-week writing session of this book, which basically incorporates the seven previous years of his life, Kerouac crams piles upon piles of details of the lives of Sal and Dean - the men who seem always to be on the road.

It reads like a diary. But, many passages remind me of Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward Angel." Other parts remind me of Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49." His doldrums often resemble those of Nathaneal West's "The Day of the Locust" or Joan Didion's "Play It As It Lays." Each of the other authors was touched by or did touch upon this author. But, the whirlwind writing, and fast-as-lightening presentation leave the reader exhilarated, exhausted and swept. This is not written like any other book prior to its time.

The pace may fool some. Capote said this was not writing, this is typing. And, to some extent that is a fair statement. Language use is not artistically delivered. Plot often steps back to factual recitation of where, how fast, when and what happens next in any of the four major trips of this book. But, the feeling of recklessness, total lack of inhibition, total immaturity to run from one's responsibilities are well highlighted by this reckless, uninhibited, and immature writing style.

Dean Moriarity, as stated on many occasions, is loved although he is nothing more than a con man who impregnates women nationwide and runs from them. To make Dean more hated, he runs from Sal. He runs from many of the others. Often running away while borrowing the others' money, the others' cars, the others' "stuff." He is "beat."

Dean is free - he has nothing left to lose. But he is only one jail sentence away from life in prison. In spite of this fact, Dean teases the police and gets arrested numerous times for the most ridiculous of reasons. And then laughs.

This is the book that defines "beat" -- whatever that means. But, in one passage, Kerouac hints about what this means when he writes, "They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining." As we learn, that group lived nomadic lives on American highways with a hobo's allowance. It is gloom of the underworld.

This wild ride of a novel had me wondering about mortality- not so much my own mortality, but that of some of the characters within. Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac shares with us his search for...I don't know what. ON THE ROAD recounts some of Kerouac's traveling adventures but the true mystique lies in the fast, reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous lives he and his beatnik buddies lead. Apparently, in the late 1940's, a broke, semi-homeless hitchhiker was the cool thing to be. Kerouac's semi-autobiographical prose is quite poetic. But I hope there is more fiction than fact in this tale, because the characters in this novel are a bunch of misfits.

In the midst of these road trips across America (and Mexico at the novel's climax) there's a lot of drugs, alcohol, womanizing, and stealing going on; all the things your mommy tells you not to do. Yet what I find most fascinating are some of the characters Jack partied with, some of whom became pioneers in the beatnik literary movement. Here's a little breakdown on who's who: Dean Moriarty=Neal Cassady Carlo Marx=Allan Ginsberg Bull Lee=William Burroughs

Each of these literary figures partied way too hard and it's their life spans that amaze me. Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady was a major drinker and the biggest A-hole in literature. He's selfish, irresponsible, and untrustworthy. He was also an absent father and a womanizer, just to name a few. But you can't help loving the guy because he knows how to have a good time. Cassady died in 1968 at the age of 41. The cause of his death was unknown but drugs were involved. No surprise there.

Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac died in 1969 at the age of 47 from an internal hemorrhage. A lifetime of drinking was the cause.

Carlo Marx/Allan Ginsberg, to my shock, also a heavy drinker and drug user, died in 1997 at the age of 70.

Here's the real kicker: Bull Lee/William Burroughs died in 1997 at age 83. Not only was he a big drinker, but he was a heroin addict. He also got away with "accidentally" shooting his wife in the head in Mexico during what he says was a drunken game of William Tell. Go figure.

ON THE ROAD really focuses most on Dean Moriarty. Sal Paradise is obsessed with Dean's free spirit. This book deserves to be canonized as one of the best works of modern literature.

I started reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and about time, you might say. All my life, I had expected this book to be a sort of hysterical gospel of the beat generation. In a way, it is, but above all it’s a hymn to the United States, its vastness, its sadness, its poetry and melancholy. It’s got something of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie with, in the background, Ennio Moricone’s music for Once upon a time in the West. I’m glad I first went from Arkansas to Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, then New Mexico and Arizona before I read this book. I can taste the wide open vistas, the mesmerizing monotony of endless roads over perfectly flat land, the sense of emptiness in this under populated country. Also, I understand somewhat better Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the common Man. All so beautiful and heartbreaking ! Like Kerouac, but under much more comfortable circumstances, I enjoyed the impact of unexpected encounters : an Indian in New Mexico, for instance, at a service station. He’d noticed my Little Rock, Razorback T-shirt, and we started talking. “I just spent several years in Little Rock” he said. “Now, I’m going home” : a simple statement, as moving as a haiku. You could never be friends with these people ; here now, gone a few seconds later, yet they stay with you all your life. Kerouac’s style has a lot to do with the fascination one quickly feels for the novel. Style can turn an ordinary story into a magic one. Here, sentences are clear, yet enhanced now and then by poetic touches : a misleading simplicity, and no mean feat. The major drawback lies in Kerouac’s obsession with booze, beer and getting drunk. Characters in the novel - including the main character - are always complaining that they are short of money, and it’s very true that they are not exactly rolling in it, but if they didn’t drink so much, they would have enough to get by, most of the time. The story takes place in 1947. By the time I went to live in North America (Canada is the same) it hadn’t changed. For me, the year was 1963. If a man managed to take a girl to a motel with him, he also had to bring in a bottle of whiskey. Apparently, it’s still like that. What a sad, sad outlook on sex ! Getting drunk on cheap booze instead of getting drunk on each other ! When the body is fighting with 6 shots of Bourbon, orgasms are reduced to the mere release of biological tensions instead of the last movement in a grand symphony of sensations and emotions. In California, Jack meets a lovely Mexican girl with blue eyes, which prompts an old farmer to say that, at some point, “the bull jumped over the fence.” You just know that their affair is not going to last, even if it keeps on for a few weeks. Jack Kerouac’s talent means that, as a reader, you are more in love with the girl than the author ever was. There is great sadness at their parting (there is great sadness throughout the book), but love, real love, deep love is never an element of the story, and that makes it even more poignant. On the Road is a drifting odyssey of self-centred people who are not even aware that they are self-centred. It’s an ode to complicated losers.

Jack Kerouac's On the Road details Sal Paradise's (Kerouac's) adventures with some of his real-life friends and acquaintances as he travels around America during post-war 1940. Hailed as a definitive Beat Generation novel, it chronicles Sal's exploration for meaning, self-identity and independence. The search for self-realization becomes a repeated theme throughout, as Sal and Dean experience America through travel and adventure.

On the positive side, I found the travel aspect to the novel compelling and interesting. Kerouac's description of the places and the people make the journeys very authentic and real. It's clear from reading that he is excited about the prospects of being on the move. I think readers can readily identify with Sal and Dean's experiencing the world through a road trip, meeting people along the way, and making connections. Sal wants to make his way in the world by connecting to the people in the places he visits and the road itself is symbolic of that freedom and expression. The spirit of adventure, going out on the open road and experiencing the many diverse cities and town, and being a part of the world is something that Kerouac does manage to eloquently capture.

However, the primary characters were unlikable and the ideas and philosophies projected were rather shallow. Sal has only flickering glimpses into any deep perspective about what this whole sense of self-discovery is and what life experiences ultimately mean to him; he is way too busy writing in a rambling, mile-a-minute fashion that catalogues everything and every "kick" without giving much substance to the moment. I waited for a big revelation at the conclusion, but never really got one. Sure, there are seldom moments where it appears that Sal is pushing away the world of wild, reckless abandon that Dean promotes and settling down to a more stable life, but these moments are rather fleeting and minimal. Sal's inspiration primarily comes through his idolization of Dean. Dean appears to be the poster child for the irresponsible, immature con-man. He flakes on his friends, cheats on his wife (or wives) repeatedly, has illegitimate children on a whim, constantly is in and out of prison for breaking the law, and looks for others to bail him out of trouble. He is the ultimate man-child, never wanting to grow up. It was difficult to understand how Sal worshiped this guy.

Much of the book's appeal comes through its associations with the Beat Generation and the visions this movement projects, but in the end I just couldn't readily identify with On the Road or its characters. Too much cool hipster bravado with little depth.