On the Road by Jack Kerouac

On the Road is really my first real introduction to the Beats, other than some poetry reading here and there during college. It’s a shame to think I graduated from college with a degree in Literature without more of it under my belt, but you know how those classes go – and to be honest, I did tend to focus more on those women’s studies and contemporary lit classes than post war literature. On the Road wasn’t quite what I was expecting, and I read it mostly because Pandabob has delved into his Beat era interest and he handed it over to me.

In On the Road, Sal Paradise (or Jack Kerouac, since this is a thinly veiled autobiographical work) chronicles his travels back and forth across America and into Mexico after the war. His pal, Dean Moriarty, has inspired him to hit the road to expand his horizons. He takes you on the journey with him, but it’s a journey of the days where you drive cross-country, pick up hitchhikers or become one yourself. You live free, have very little if any money, and eat cheap sandwiches made from the bread and meat you snatch from the roadside gas stations while the owner isn’t looking. There is a naiveté about it, a gleeful freedom, an energy and drive that still captures the itchy feet anyone gets sometime in their lives – the desire to break off from the known and head out to somewhere, anywhere that is different to see what there is to see – to live abundantly and honestly and free in the world at large. There is all of that, but I also felt there was also an underlying unhappiness, a feeling of drifting, with few ties to anyone or anything.

I understand the place On The Road has in American literature. It’s an important work. It’s bohemian, it’s raw and full of honest, simple language, much like you would expect. I understand that it’s highly influential. I just had a very hard time getting past just how much of an asshole Dean Moriarty is. So even though I can respect the feel of the work, what Kerouac was doing, his purpose in writing it and the movement he spawned by doing so, I also want to reach into that damn book and slap that fool Moriarty around for being such a jerk. But you know, maybe that’s just me. Part of me wanted to get in the car right then and drive, and every time we get in the car and drive to New Mexico, maybe I'll carry some of that spirit with me. 

Rating: 4 Purrs for being a great work of art, and for Kerouac for being honest enough to show the warts on himself and the people he knew