On The Road is a novel published in 1957 written by Jack Kerouac in which
youth meets adult life’s restraints, a novel about travels, a novel about the relentless
search for the meaning of life.
In a postwar America these young men in their early twenties refuse to
go along with the ride, they are eager to make their own discoveries, their own
revolution. And yet they end up founding themselves penniless and most of the
times drunk. The insistent pounding of Bebop records echoing throughout.
The writing is fast, sometimes even lunatic. It gets your heart racing. You
dream of freeing yourself from whatever is holding you up. But On The Road is
not about dreaming, On The Road is a mad river of reckless activity.
Jack Kerouac is Sal Paradise. And it wall begins when he heads to San
Francisco with 50 dollars in his pocket.
Neal Cassidy is Dean Moriarty. And that’s when the two meet that the
adventure kicks off.
Along the way there is also Old Bull Lee (William Burroughs) and Carlo
Marx (Allen Ginsberg). The four columns of the Beat Generation altogether.
However, Truman Capote said: “That’s not writing, that’s typing” and he
may have a point. On The Road shines as a biographic narrative but it lacks the
grandeur of the great novels of the 20th century.
If you are into the whole Beat Generation thing it is a must read. If
not, well, it is up to you to read or not to read.
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