On The Road

Jack Kerouac’s On The Road is about . . . uhhh . . . hmmm . . . well, I’m not sure it’s about anything. It’s the story (using the loosest definition of the word story) of the narrator, Sal Paradise, as he travels across the country and back in the late 1940’s (supposedly influenced by Kerouac’s own expeditions through America). The book starts in New York and transports the reader across the Midwest, to Denver, to San Francisco, and finally to Mexico (with some stops in between). Sal and his friends, most notably Dean Moriarty, bum around without much money, hitchhiking, getting odd jobs, drinking, doing drugs, and listening to jazz. They supposedly epitomize the Beat culture of the time, and while I admittedly know nothing about the Beat generation, as far as I can tell this just means they were lazy drug addicts that rattled on nonsensically.

Mrs. read the book in college and warned me that it was boring. I think she even called it one of the worst books she ever read. I won’t go that far, but at the same time, it’s hard for me to recommend the book. My main criticism was the complete lack of a plot. Sal, Dean and the gang just wander aimlessly around the country. There are also a lot of characters, but little character development. Most of the side characters were forgettable and I couldn’t even keep them straight. Sal and Dean are the main characters in the book, but they offer almost no redeeming qualities. Dean is an unreliable friend who is twice married and divorced, with several children scattered around the country. He has seemingly lost his mind and by the book’s end I was glad to be done with him.

Perhaps the book meant more during the time it was written, but I’m missing whatever made it an “American classic” according to the book’s jacket. Perhaps I should have read it drunk.

Next up: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.