Country: USA
Genre: Literary/Coming-Of-Age
Pages: 307
A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.
I read ON THE ROAD for the first time in french and almost by accident. I had this class called "Cinema and Other Arts" and I decided at the last minute to make my last paper a comparative study of post-war road narratives in between ON THE ROAD and the movie EASY RIDER. I had a C for that paper, which is downright insulting, so despite having fond memories of ON THE ROAD, I left it aside and tried not to think about it too much. But then came Sarah' Back To The Classics 2012 Challenge, where I had to re-read a classic I liked. So I decided to give Old Kerouac another shot. Unsurprisingly enough, it's still very good and accessible. Depending on how much historical perspective you want to put in your reading, it would be or culturally important or highly enjoyable. This is to me, the definition of a classic. Something that everybody can read and appreciate given the time and effort of a thorough read.
The novel is separated in five parts, which represent narrator Sal Paradise's "life on the road". Each part describe a different road trip and stages of Sal's relationship with his friend Dean Moriarty he met at the very beginning of the book. Throughout the novel, both Sal and Dean are affected by the people they meet on the road, change and their relationship also change. Dean is carefree, fun, irresponsible and represents a world of opportunities for Sal at the beginning of the novel, but as Sal jumps into Dean's world and meets Marylou, Camille, Inez and the people in Dean's little world, he will slowly start realizing that it doesn't matter how fast you live, you can never outrun life. The two friends are living the dream of a carefree young age on the road, but as their adventures come to an end and the dream fades out, you're left with what's real about their lives.
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.
I'm no expert on the Beats. I will gladly admit that ON THE ROAD is the only Beats book I've ever read. Now, I know that this is largely autobiographical and most characters in the novel are the alter ego to a real life person. Dean Moriarity is supposed to be Neal Cassady, Old Bull Lee would be William Burrroughs and the hilariously named Carlo Marx would stand for Allan Ginsberg. That I understand, but purely as a novel, I think ON THE ROAD has something universal to say about the importance of traveling as a means of self-exploration. Hence the timelessness of the novel. If you don't know who you are, the best mirror you can find to identify yourself is the others. Go see how people live, how differently things are done from place to place. The more you will see, the more precisely you will think of yourself. That, I think is the message of ON THE ROAD.
This is both a beautiful and sad novel, because there is the distinctive feeling of conclusion. It's the complete chapter of Sal's life that closes with his incapacity to go on with this lifestyle, because he has moved on to something else. The last hundred pages are particularly heartbreaking as Sal gets physically sick and emotionally morose. Unlike Dean, Sal didn't have anything to run away from (or not much, really it's debatable) and the road will end up getting to him. If ON THE ROAD successfully passed the test of time and was so influential (FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS would probably have never been written without it), it's because it laid a baseline for thinking outside the conventions of the American way of life. It's a well-lived story of wild youth and rebellion. Hopefully, with the film adaptation that's supposed to come out in 2012, ON THE ROAD will live on to inspire another generation of young people.
Classic Re-Read