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On the Road is the first road trip book
I've read. At first, I thought the book was so boring. It is because it
only talked about his friends and there were too many characters appeared
in the beginning of the book. However, in the later portion of Part I,
when he went to Denver, I started to understand the flow of the book, maybe
because I knew more about the main characters -- Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac)
and Deal Moriarty (Neal Cassady).
On the Road is written in a
fast-paced, spontaneous, open style. Its real meaning and message speaks
volumes beyond its characters' quest for kicks and joy. On the Road is
essentially about a scattered group of individuals, ruggedly traversing
America and Mexico through a series of adventures in search of IT and everything
spontaneously.
Dean is the physical spirit
of pure freedom, a fast-talking, womanizing con-man, whose complete adoration
of the sensual makes him a magnet for both trouble and excitement. On the
other hand, Sal is basically journeying within himself by hitting the road
and waiting for something exciting to happen to him during his travels.
Many people thinks that the
beat generation developed by Dean invented rebellion. On the Road
is that it isn't the youth of the 1980s or 1990s who first experimented
with drugs; or practiced indiscriminate sex; or listened to music our parents
didn't get; or couldn't figure out what to do with our lives. On the
Road's characters deal with all these issues and more. They were rebelling
from the same thing we rebel from today.
Wild, drunken parties, impulsive
cross country road trips towards freedom, an ecstatic love of jazz, new
thoughts and ideas; you will encounter all this and more in On the Road.
By writing his thoughts and feelings without hesitation, Kerouac created
a great masterpiece on the Great American Road Trip. If you have any free
time and are looking for a fun novel, On the Road is definitely
worth reading. |
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