On the Road

Reading On the Road (1957) was not the enriching experience I had hoped for, but thanks to the proper foreword, I did get a sense of American post-war Beat culture.

Initially inspired by Thomas Wolfe ([b:Look Homeward, Angel|29350627|Look Homeward, Angel|Thomas Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456573882l/29350627.SY75.jpg|1156378]), Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) struck out in a new direction. On the Road became a ‘roman à clef’, featuring some key figures from the Beat movement. I was delighted to learn that Kerouac originally had something like [b:Don Quixote|3836|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546112331l/3836.SX50.jpg|121842] in mind, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, the novel contains a continuous stream of trifling events: Sal Paradise and his friends driving or hitchhiking through the country, looking for work and women, stealing money and cars, using alcohol and drugs, being broke.

Of course, I intended to read this novel through the eye of the young author, who rebels against strict morals and seeks freedom and adventure. I quickly grew tired of the narrative, however. Firstly, it is rather boring: events simply follow one another, without any significant development. Secondly, the characters are too antipathetic. They seem full of themselves but hardly reflect on their environment or their role in it. This is especially true of Dean Moriarty, a selfish player who prefers pleasure to responsibility. A sign of the times, perhaps, but I had hoped for a little more. In the end, I couldn’t help thinking that Kerouac’s freedom is in fact an educated straight white man’s freedom. I’m happy to move on.

I think I can see glimmers of what must have been amazing about this book at the time. The wild joy and mystery of adventure following the second world war, and the rapid development of industrial capitalism in America, must have been an oppressive atmosphere for many young men not suited (or not desiring of) a traditional life. The celebration of travel, joy, music, and guilt-free hedonism must have been refreshing. I can still see something in that, and the variety of colourful characters and their escapades in this book were often fun and enjoyable to read about.

But it didn't do so much for me. Partly because of the style of writing. The narrative voice, and approximately half of the dialogue, take on a 50s American drawl, all lingo and slang. And yet the other half of the dialogue would not have seemed out of place in a novel by Proust or Turgenev. It felt strange and at odds with itself. The structure is quite repetitive as well - each chapter seems to have much the same as its antecedent: Dean Moriarty hurtles out of the mist, bursting back into the lives of our protagonist, and again the chaos begins. Everything goes to hell in a handcart, and they have to speed off home again leaving carnage in their wake.

But there's no real character development here. There is a point in the story where Dean appears to have reached a point where age and his past mistakes were catching up with him, and it would have been interesting to see this explored in more depth. The protagonist, Sal Paradise, is ostensibly an amateur novelist during the first chapter, but little to nothing is later made of this. His hanging-on to Dean, but his reservations about his behaviour and the path on which they journeyed, appear from time to time throughout the book, but again nothing is made of this. At times Kerouac comes close to articulating a kind of existentialist angst - the character ask themselves 'Where are we going?, but this thought is no sooner touched upon before discarded in favour of another raunchy episode. Paradise in particular seemingly learns nothing from any of his adventures. Perhaps this was deliberate, and Kerouac was making a point here which I missed. If so: Missed it I surely did.

I can see why a generation of young men must have read this and dreamt of the romance and excitement of just buying a car and them and all their 'buddies' launching off 'On the Road', with no clear end in sight: 'there is only the road'. How else to escape from the monotony of 'ordinary' life in the hey-day of American capitalism? And yet all they do is cavort around causing chaos, leaving misery in their past. It would be hard to say that Kerouac condones the actions of these fellow-travellers, but he doesn't entirely condemn them either. Instead, he sympathises with them - their wild, youthful energy and chaotic, winding path through life. Perhaps that's the best attitude he could have taken. Nevertheless, it seems underdeveloped in its ideas, themes, and characters, and as a result, I found it quite difficult to get through. Worth reading at least once, but I'm not sure I feel any desire to return to it.