On the Road was a book that has been sitting in my to
read pile for quite some time. I come across people who constantly recommend
it, saying that it is their favorite book. So to all those people (Jimbo &
Taylor esp.) I apologize in advance. On the Road did nothing for me
besides make me incredibly happy that I didn’t grow up in the Beat Generation.
You
all know that I don’t like to start a review off on such a negative note, so
allow me to explain myself. I have no problem with author Jack Kerouac’s actual
prose. In fact his style was such a departure to what I normally read that I
found myself drawn into the language in a way that I haven’t experienced in a
while. As his characters get excited so do Kerouac’s words, stacking one on top
of the other in a stream of consciousness wave, creating combinations that
shouldn’t work but somehow are exactly right. His paragraphs run or jump or
simply stroll along as needed and this style is certainly suitable for a novel
about rootless people who spend their lives in various states of travel and
excitement. So I truly have no problem with the words. The characters however
are a completely different story.
The
narrator Sal has no backbone whatsoever and I constantly wanted to hit him and
tell him he was being an idiot, following his aimless friend into hopeless
situations time and time again. He idolizes Dean, a man with no purpose in life
who lives without recognizing there are consequences to his actions. It is a
mystery to me why anyone would want to follow around such a fuck up. Dean is a
terrible friend to everyone, Sal in particular, and yet no one seems to wise up
and leave him behind until the very end of the novel. There has to be more to
life than sex and drugs and wild nights and yet no one in this story seems to
agree. Perhaps my view of this is skewed by having not lived in the Beat
Generation. I didn’t grow up during WWII and have the horrors of life thrust
into my face early on. I don’t feel the need to prove to myself that I am alive
by “digging” everything around me, partying and traveling and refusing to
settle into a life that could easily be taken away. Maybe you need that
perspective to enjoy this novel. Maybe you just need to know what if feels like
to have no direction, no purpose or ambition. I don’t know. I’m lucky enough to
have all of those things and so I can’t get to the level Sal and Dean and the
rest of their cohort are operating on. I can’t imagine leaving behind a steady
job to hitchhike across the country with no plan or money in my pocket. Instead
of being inspired by the spontaneity and freedom with which these characters
live their lives I am turned off by it and have no desire to join them even
with the novels pages as my shield.
So
that’s my initial rant. A more concrete reason as to why I dislike Sal so much
is that his character is woefully inconsistent when it comes to the details of
his life. I can’t pin him down, and as one of the more stable characters I am
presented with, that bothers me.
As
I’m writing this I realize that I really didn’t like this novel at all. I would
try and spin things so that I could at least talk about the language with a
higher regard, but I honestly can’t. I found the novel boring, the characters
infuriating, the language meandering with moments of brilliance and that is the
sum of it. That being said, On the Road is in the great literary cannon
for a reason and even if I couldn’t find it there is no reason you shouldn’t.
Take a chance. Hitch a ride. Maybe the Beat Generation is for you.
