Modern Classics On The Road [Paperback]

Between the Second World War and the end of the Vietnam War, there were three distinct periods of counter culture which prevailed in American Society to varying degrees. These included the beat era of the 40's and early 50's, the beatnik period of the early 50's to early 60's and the hippie era that followed. A central character in the first, Neal Cassady became the larger than life inspiration for Kerouac's novel On the Road. His spontaneity in actions, zeal for life, philosophical nature, mental prowess and physical capacity are immortalized in the writing of Kerouac.

OTR tells the tale of the Beat Era, when Cassady, Kerouac and a handful of like minded intellectuals zig-zag across America with complete disregard for the law and without personal inhibitions. Kerouac describes this adventure in a writing style, he referred to as spontaneous prose, which were long sessions of typing fueled by Benzedrine, alcohol and marijuana, using little punctuation in an effort to convey his stream of consciousness recounting of the events. Not wanting to even pause to change typewriter paper, he utilized a roll of teletype paper as a solution. Prior to the writing of OTR, Cassady had written a letter to Kerouac detailing a sexual escapade he had with a women which became the technical inspiration for Kerouac's spontaneous prose style. Anticipating a future need, Kerouac carried a note pad with him during these years where he recorded the events as they transpired which was key. Other writers wrote of this period such as John Clellon Holmes, but failed to capture it in the way only Kerouac would.

With a copy of OTR in their back pockets, hippies and teenage idealists since have set out to discover the road described by Kerouac and the period it embodied only to find it no longer exist. The environmental and cultural factors which played such a substantial role throughout both Cassady and Kerouac's lives are no longer prevalent. OTR is to human experience what the remnants of Route 66 are to cross country travel in America. If you go looking for it, you'll catch a glimpse of this time gone by, but more than likely you'll be left feeling empty and disappointed.

Kerouac died in 1969 from alcoholism after years of self abuse. This was partly due to a life long conflict between his Catholic upbringing and his desire to experience life to the fullest. His realization that he was an inherent sinner and the consequential guilt that resulted coupled with the death of his older brother Gerard when he was young, led to much of his excess and deterioration. You will recognize the dilemma involving his faith and the tragedy of losing his brother throughout the book.

To read about the omnipresent Neal Cassady and his final hoorah, I would suggest Tom Wolfe's Electric Koolaid Acid Test which captures the technicolor sixties counter culture scene emanating from San Francisco in an entertaining fashion although Wolfe's portrayal of Cassady is somewhat controversial.

In On the Road, Jack tells of his beatnik adventures over the course seven years, traveling back and forth across America and even Mexico. The main characters Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity, are based on Kerouac and Neal Cassady, another Beat writer who traveled the country together.

Although Kerouac was on the road for seven years, it took him only three weeks to write the novel. He wrote a continues draft on a type writer taping paper together to make one continuous roll. Truman Capote mocked the writer, "That isn't writing; it's typing." Kerouac was looking to create a new style of writing and indeed it is something very different. As he sought out to accomplish, he writes in a continual train of thought that never stops. It is almost as Kerouac is in the room with you just telling a long story on a Sunday afternoon; it lasts some 300 pages, but it never really feels like there is a place to stop. It took years for Kerouac to be taken as a serious writer and accepted as creating this unique pose style of writing, but now On the Road is considered to be a great American Classic.

The story is very entertaining as Dean and Sal travel back and forth across the US meeting up, separating and starting over again. Dean is a flat out crazy character who is always on the ultimate search for his father, also Dean Moriarty. I loved being able to relate to some of the places they visited. For some reason this is what connected me to the characters the most. Just as interesting were the places I had never been; however, Kerouac's writing made you feel like you were there, as if you were "On the Road" with them.

The women throughout the novel, you became more and more sympathetic for. As you fall in love with the antics of the traveling men, you realized the hardships of the woman left behind in cities, who counted on Dean. There is this growing love-hate reaction to Dean who drops everything, or really nothing, going on the road again. I have the urge to scream at Camille and Inez. Dean is a good for nothing looser who makes babies and doesn't take care of them. Why do they keep trying to keep him? I think its a combination of the time period and that Dean is so charismatic and exuberant the woman just want him.

The road trip to Mexico City to achieve Dean's divorce from Camille is wildly entertaining and such a reward for reaching the end of the book. Kerouac paints a picture of Mexico that could easily be translated to any old western film. The heat, the bugs, the booze, and the girls all make for the most entertaining of tales.

This is a lovingly read book. David does a fine job, and this person wouldn't know it if it happened to them.

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