On the Road
ON THE ROAD (Jack Kerouac) - Three Stars
So I finally sat down and read "the legend," the book that has shaped the minds and lives of millions of artistes and pseudo-intellectuals over the past 50 years. Going into On the Road, I assumed a book so legendary could only be one of two things: it was either going to be a five-star masterpiece, a life-changing book of indescribable beauty—or it was going to be a disaster, a wreck of over-wrought, pointless ramblings.
I wasn't expecting it to be both at the same time.
How can I describe On the Road? Have you ever been to a party where everyone is drinking and getting high, smoking weed and maybe doing a few other illicit drugs, and you're the only sober person? Do you remember how wildly entertaining all the other chemically-altered people are, how funny and silly and strange they are that first hour? And do you remember how, in the second hour or so, they started seeming less and less funny, and indeed even started to get on your nerves a little? And how, after two or three hours, you couldn't help but be thoroughly irritated at how LAME and STUPID everyone is, and GOD why didn't they realize it? That, in a nutshell, is On the Road.
There's no point to this novel, beatniks be damned. It's just a series of stories about Sal Paradise (aka Jack Kerouac) and his journeys back and forth across the country with assorted friends, primarily his best friend Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady). The characters never develop, they're the same people at the end of the book they are in the beginning, and no "goals" or "achievements" are ever realized (primarily because few are ever set). Indeed, there are a few passages where Kerouac almost seems to be needling the beat generation this novel both named and inspired. There are moments where he hints at how pointless and silly the characters' lives are, but never really delves too far into that thought.
The psychology behind the book is interesting, to me. There's more than a hint of self-loathing in some of the passages, and the way Sal Paradise self-sabotages his personal relationships is kind of sad (particularly his relationship with Teresa in the California farmlands). He is not a suave character, and has a knack for innocently saying exactly the wrong things.
Sal's idolatry of Dean is fascinating, too. Dean is a free-spirit, yes, but he's also basically a scum-bag: a serial philanderer, he stays with women only long enough to knock them up and start cheating on them; in one scene he seems particularly okay with the idea of smashing some guy on the head and stealing his money; and there are several parts in the book that display a latent pedophilia, his fascination with girls as young as nine, ten or eleven and his friends warning him not to touch them. Dean is portrayed both as a well-hung lout who can bed a woman in the time it takes most men to utter a pick-up line, but also as a "deep-thinker" fascinated with the mystical and unexplainable. He comes off, intentionally, as a madman, and his psychosis only seems to deepen as the novel progresses. But Sal's narrator-voice continuously paints him in adoring, nearly religious tones, literally referring to him as a metaphorical seraphim and even, one time, god.
The book is at its finest when it is dealing with people OTHER than the main characters in Sal's life. Passages dealing with the random people Sal encounters on the roads across America are the most brilliant in the book. These mini-portraits of Americana are terrific writing, aided greatly by Kerouac skill with metaphors which he unrolls in long, unforced, breathless takes. Kerouac's writing style is quite good, and when he's observing the lives of these strangers the novel is a breezy, easy read. Unfortunately, he's far too enthralled with his friends—sad, directionless friends, one-trick-ponies who never change and whose actions become predictable by their very unpredictability—and by the end of the novel you're left wishing everyone would've just sobered up and gone home.
So I finally sat down and read "the legend," the book that has shaped the minds and lives of millions of artistes and pseudo-intellectuals over the past 50 years. Going into On the Road, I assumed a book so legendary could only be one of two things: it was either going to be a five-star masterpiece, a life-changing book of indescribable beauty—or it was going to be a disaster, a wreck of over-wrought, pointless ramblings.
I wasn't expecting it to be both at the same time.
How can I describe On the Road? Have you ever been to a party where everyone is drinking and getting high, smoking weed and maybe doing a few other illicit drugs, and you're the only sober person? Do you remember how wildly entertaining all the other chemically-altered people are, how funny and silly and strange they are that first hour? And do you remember how, in the second hour or so, they started seeming less and less funny, and indeed even started to get on your nerves a little? And how, after two or three hours, you couldn't help but be thoroughly irritated at how LAME and STUPID everyone is, and GOD why didn't they realize it? That, in a nutshell, is On the Road.
There's no point to this novel, beatniks be damned. It's just a series of stories about Sal Paradise (aka Jack Kerouac) and his journeys back and forth across the country with assorted friends, primarily his best friend Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady). The characters never develop, they're the same people at the end of the book they are in the beginning, and no "goals" or "achievements" are ever realized (primarily because few are ever set). Indeed, there are a few passages where Kerouac almost seems to be needling the beat generation this novel both named and inspired. There are moments where he hints at how pointless and silly the characters' lives are, but never really delves too far into that thought.
The psychology behind the book is interesting, to me. There's more than a hint of self-loathing in some of the passages, and the way Sal Paradise self-sabotages his personal relationships is kind of sad (particularly his relationship with Teresa in the California farmlands). He is not a suave character, and has a knack for innocently saying exactly the wrong things.
Sal's idolatry of Dean is fascinating, too. Dean is a free-spirit, yes, but he's also basically a scum-bag: a serial philanderer, he stays with women only long enough to knock them up and start cheating on them; in one scene he seems particularly okay with the idea of smashing some guy on the head and stealing his money; and there are several parts in the book that display a latent pedophilia, his fascination with girls as young as nine, ten or eleven and his friends warning him not to touch them. Dean is portrayed both as a well-hung lout who can bed a woman in the time it takes most men to utter a pick-up line, but also as a "deep-thinker" fascinated with the mystical and unexplainable. He comes off, intentionally, as a madman, and his psychosis only seems to deepen as the novel progresses. But Sal's narrator-voice continuously paints him in adoring, nearly religious tones, literally referring to him as a metaphorical seraphim and even, one time, god.
The book is at its finest when it is dealing with people OTHER than the main characters in Sal's life. Passages dealing with the random people Sal encounters on the roads across America are the most brilliant in the book. These mini-portraits of Americana are terrific writing, aided greatly by Kerouac skill with metaphors which he unrolls in long, unforced, breathless takes. Kerouac's writing style is quite good, and when he's observing the lives of these strangers the novel is a breezy, easy read. Unfortunately, he's far too enthralled with his friends—sad, directionless friends, one-trick-ponies who never change and whose actions become predictable by their very unpredictability—and by the end of the novel you're left wishing everyone would've just sobered up and gone home.
"[Dean] was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him."
posted by Kevin at 5:30 PM
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