I tried really hard. I DID. I gave it the supreme effort, and it came up lacking.
I am speaking of the book “On the Road” by Kerouac. What a waste of wood pulp. This will likely incense the hippie-types I know, but then again, as far as I know only a few people read this blog, and none of them are my hippie friends.
The thing is, I cannot even look back at the most irresponsible point in my life and say “Yeah, I identify with this.” Brief Synopsis (Spoiler Alert) : Kerouac is known as Sal Paradise. He writes about some traveling back and forth between 4 known locations: New York, Denver, San Francisco, and New Orleans. He rides the rails, hitches rides, borrows money and is generally one of the least likeable main characters of any story I have ever read. He spends his time mostly in pursuit of one Dean Moriarty, who he worships like a messiah and loves more than himself.
Now, you have to ask, why even like this man? He spends three quarters of the book trying to have one conversation with him, and meanwhile Dean (based on Neil Cassady) is basically chasing his dick around the country, getting wasted and generally acting like a jackass. He is guilty of theft, lying, domestic abuse.. you name it. The guy is a really tasty pick. And Sal just loves him, and constantly obsesses over him.
Now, I have read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and some of my biggest counter-culture heroes are Ken Kesey, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl. They all loved the REAL Moriarty (aka Cassady) like he was a great guy. If Kerouac’s writings are even one quarter true, he is as far from great as my opinion will allow me to portray.
But back to the book. I really thought for a while it might be going somewhere. IT NEVER DOES. It’s just Sal batting back and forth between locations, trying to scrap some money together, trying to make a girl, and eventually hooking up with Moriarty and having what he terms “The trip of his life”on several occasions.. but there is no evidence to support that sentiment. It goes something like this:
“Dean and Marlou and I were going across the country. We were driving 80 miles an hour, stopped in a small town and Dean met a jazz musician and we got some whiskey. He and Mary Lou, who Dean believes is a whore, started having sex while I took a nap. I was thinking I was getting tired of Dean, but I could not do anything but observe what crazy thing he would do next. Then we traveled to San Francisco, where I tried to find a job and make a girl, while Dean jumped a train and left Mary Lou and I behind. With Dean gone, Marylou wanted nothing to do with me. I felt it was time to go back to New York. I am hungry.” etc etc etc
It has no composition.. no point. I understand the stream-of-consciousness style of writing, but even when I am trying to make something up off the cuf, like when I run a roleplaying game, I have the most basic outline. It appears Kerouac had nothing, and just wrote to be writing, drunk and drugged to the gills, smoking his pipe, and generally being haywire crazy.
The idea of being on the road DOES appeal to me, but if you are going to tell a story, man, make sure it has SOME kind of point.
So much for a book that defined a generation. The same generation that is now wearing depends, taking Viagara, driving mid-life-crisis-mobiles and genrally sucking up the good air, and their kids, too. If this novel defined who the Boomers are, its no wonder there is so many dipshits in that group. I never thought a concert going former pot head, wildman rager like myself would say this, but here goes: Grow up, the world owes you nothing, Boomers. 50-60 year old women wearing fairy wings at concerts, wanting kindness from strangers in the form of drugs and food, that shit just doesn’t fly with me anymore. If you want a book to be a paradigm, On the Road will teach you how to be the least responsible bottom feeded in short order.
I was just not impressed, and sadly, I begin to see where the supposed romanticism of this novel led part of an entire generation: Down a blind alley with no hope of turning around.
givethedogabone 