519. On the Road

On the Road
Jack Kerouac
1957
Around 310 pages

This is the quintessential disenfranchised young male novel. I was once very eager to appeal to that demographic, so naturally gobbled this up. But much like the quintessential disenfranchised young male, it turned out not to be my taste.

Our narrator Sal Paradise, an obvious stand in for Jack Kerouac, admires the carefree attitude of his friend Dean Moriarty, a less obvious stand in for Neal Cassady, because I didn't know who that was. I think Dean has inspired a generation of douchebag characters, who are really fuck ups, but are painted as philosophers. 

Every generation seems to have this group of partying youngsters. Now that we are done with the Bright Young Things, we have the Beat Generation. I am not particularly scandalized by the behavior in this novel (the List has burned all the humanity out of me by this point), I just don't find this aimless meandering particularly compelling to read about.

That being said, this novel does perfectly capture a certain moment in American culture, so it holds some historic interest. But all of these characters were insufferable, and my eyes had quite the rolling work out.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Jack Kerouac wrote a letter to Marlon Brando, suggesting that he play Dean Moriarty while Kerouac would portray Sal Paradise in a film adaptation. Brando never responded to the letter.

The manuscript was typed on what Kerouac called "the scroll" - a 120-foot scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together.

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