Ok, a lot of interesting discussion here, but before I plunge into the dialogue, let me just give you my take.
When I first heard of On the Road I think I was 17, and I associated it with the 60s, naturally. So when I picked it up recently I was surprised that it took place in the 40s and was written in the 50s. At first it intrigued me as a look into a time which doesn't exist anymore, kind of like Junky did when I read that. The idea of just throwing yourself out there, hitching along with whoever stops by, and just hoping you'll land somewhere on the other end and find a job was what sucked me in and got me to keep reading. However, those are two very different books, and I think my enjoyment of On the Road suffered slightly because of my expectations.
As the story gave more attention to Dean, however, I found it harder to keep my attention on it. After reading the Hungerford lectures and reading about Neal Cassady, I suppose I understand what Kerouac was going for, but I still think it was unengaging and repetitive. From what I understand from the lectures, Dean's corny exclamations and habits of speech were part of an attempt to impart their direct experiences to the reader with a minimum of interpretation. It's a text that is happening as you read it. I have to wonder though, if its failure to engage me can really be blamed on how old the book is, or if it turned readers off in its own time.
Probably the most fascinating thing about the book to me was Neal Cassady himself. This guy insinuated himself into that clique of writers at Columbia University, and seemingly inspired them to create the works that they did.
I mean, check out this list. Just in his lifetime, this guy appeared in fourteen works of literature by six different authors. How many of us can say we inspired even one character in any book, let alone famous ones?
While I found a large chunk of On the Road to be a slog and didn't enjoy the experience of reading it overall, I still think it's an interesting entry point into learning more about the beat generation, and also this group of contemporaries. I certainly want to keep reading. The most interesting thing about this group of writers that includes Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs (though I'm not sure if he's technically a "beat" or not), was that they wrote about what happened to them. At the start of On the Road, Sal mentions that he was open to traveling out to meet Dean because he wanted to gain experience that would help him as a writer. Now, when I first read that, I thought he meant, go out there, have some interesting experiences, broaden your horizons, and then come back and write something from scratch, or maybe only loosely related to things that have happened to you. Apparently though, On the Road is a rather more accurate depiction of real events than I expected from a fiction novel. I mean, just the idea that he wrote it initially using the real names of the people involved surprised me. While Kerouac didn't live a long life, he sought to write about his life by living a life (he thought was) worth writing about.
One last note before I end my torrent of keyboard diarrhea, it's interesting how Neal Cassady influenced events and people enough to appear in so many different texts but has almost no writings of his own. There's some poetry he wrote with Kerouac, a magazine article, a posthumously published autobio, and some letters. If Cassady hadn't met the beats, I almost think they'd have had neither the interesting experiences to write about nor the balls to think they could succeed by simply writing about what happened to them. Just think, if you went back in time and killed Neal Cassady, you might be able to prevent the beat and hippie movements.
posted by
malapropist
17 August | 19:56