“On those destinations all they want to

“On those destinations all they want to

“On the Road”- a success? So much open space- mile after mile of cities, towns, Waffle Houses, and a whole lot of whatnot. There’s such a feeling of freedom on a road trip, just sticking your head out the window to let the breeze of every place that passes, cover your face.

So much is taken in, yet so little, you find it’s hard to stop to sleep or feed yourself. You’re driving to get somewhere, but that somewhere doesn’t matter, all that matters is driving and letting the wind take you. Friends, yell at attractive people as you pass, Or fighting with family, arguing about who’s going to eat the last piece of string cheese. It’s all about the moment and what you choose to do with it. “On the Road”, a novel written by Jack Kerouac, contains many such road trips during a time in life called: the beat generation. It’s an extraordinary tale of two young men searching for things they don’t even realize until they get to their destinations; and when they reach those destinations all they want to do is drive.

In first reading “On the Road”, one might find it a touch absurd and slightly confusing. The writing goes in all directions and who is this Dean guy anyway? Upon reading the novel a second time there’s this fascination with all the characters and their actions. The tale unfolds with Salvatore Paradise, called simply: Sal. Sal is a writer, in his thirties, living in New Jersey (his whole life).

He becomes obsessed (it seems) with a guy named Dean Moriarty. Dean is an interesting character- a con and a womanizer; he still becomes a guy that readers would want to be pals with. Dean and Sal have an interesting relationship, but for the most part they seem like good friends.

After Dean moves out of Sals apartment (after conning his way into it), he moves around, getting married and not really settling down. So this leads to Sal, out of sheer boredom, to pack some things and head out on a road trip, with no car and fifty bucks in his pocket. Off he goes on a wild adventure, coming to many stops along his way to California. From there the story gets kind of repetitive, with Sal going back and forth across the country and Dean still up to all his craziness.

But with all this running across the country, you get some amazing interaction between Sal and the people he encounters along his journeys. Although not much is known about Sal (the story is written through his eyes), you do get to meet an astounding amount of interesting people, each one as unimportant to the story as the other. Sal does fall in love at one point in the story and it’s nice to see him finally become a motivated person who wants some sort of direction in his life. But inevitably he goes back to his old ways. The most intriguing character in the novel is Dean.

Sometimes the novel would get so confusing that I’d want to stop reading, but I couldn’t, I had to know what Dean would be up to next. It’s like Sal’s obsession with Dean carries over and onto the reader and before you know it, you’re obsessed too. Dean made this story a success. As I read the novel a second time, I found it less confusing. I realized that I liked what I was reading. I found myself chuckling at something on every page. It’s a fascinating story with hardly a plot.

It makes you want to move, you want to get in on the action and follow Sal and Dean everywhere they go. The high points (like in any road trip) are not when they reach the places they are going, but in the trips themselves. The novel is basically a book of short stories, all surrounding Sal and sometimes Dean. Each place Sal goes to, is a separate entity, each place like a short story, fitting into a bigger story. There is no real way to define/describe this book. All I can recommend is to read it. It is definitely a classic.

There’s suffering, love, and adventure- what more could you want from a piece of literature? This book is for the avid, mature, reader; someone who likes a weird variety. “On the Road”, by Jack Kerouac is a very unique piece of literature, different from anything I’ve read before. I guess you could call it a “wild ride”.