On the Road, Jack Kerouac

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. 


On the Road is a very famous classic from 1955. As it is described by Amazon it is "the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture." It makes sense that it is an autobiography; it really feels like it. Jack Kerouac was obviously a famous writer, but I think maybe one of the reasons that On the Road was so popular is because it describes the travel bug; that feeling that you just have to move from place to place, with only a few bucks in your pocket and not much of an idea of where you're going or how you're going to get there. Sal Paradise definitely has this; he's always eager to get to the next town and just keep moving. That said, at first, I didn't think that this would be that interesting; the plot didn't sound that great. But yet, I found myself drawn in almost imperceptibly, until before I knew it, I was enjoying it. It is slow reading, however, despite it's short length. But it's a good book, and definitely a must read.


Read On the Road: 

• if you like Jack Kerouac
• if you like books about traveling

307 pages.  

Very Good! I would recommend this book!