I Dig It: Reading On the Road

Until a month ago, I'd never read On the Road. This seemed kind of odd to me, as it is such a seminal book, the kind of book one reads in some formative time, much like Catch 22, The Stranger, or Slaughterhouse Five. I got to all of those, but never to Kerouac, never to the a book that I'd heard so much about and heard talked about, and had recommended to me numerous times. The last recommendation stuck, and I finally picked it up.

On the Road, then, was book with a lot of baggage for me. Prior to picking it up, I already had an idea of On the Road, a mental image of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, and a preconception of the whole Beat scene and ethos. I tried to put all these aside when I picked up the book, but the fact that my edition had the words "The Novel That Defined a Generation" on the back cover did not help matters. Nevertheless, I tried to read it on its own terms.

My short review: I really liked it, but it doesn't have much of a plot.

Kerouac's biggest strength is his authorial voice. His words and descriptions of people and things are suffused with life, and there is a scattershot, stream-of-consciousness feeling to it all. He splatters words, exaggerates, and rambles most excellently. His writing is like an exhuberant shouting, and he transmits his exhuberance to the reader.

Kerouac certainly does make you want to get in a car and drive across America, but then, I wanted to do that anyway. Now I just want to do it more. Kerouac's writings, though, reflect nicely what it means to travel. Sal Paradise (Kerouac's alter ego) and Dean Moriarty (Cassady's) don't have much in the way of goals or objectives. They are not after any particular thing, nor do they have any coherent destination in mind. At no point do they really say "Let's go to place X and do Y." Instead, they derive value from the things that surround them. As cheesy as the old slang is, I really appreciated how the characters would simply get out of the car and "dig" things.

I've been there, and could relate. Last night I was on the Portland waterfront, stopped my bike, and just looked at the lit-up city. I didn't have any well thought out reason for doing this, or anything specific I was trying to derive from the experience. I just sat there and appreciated a glowing American city. There were plenty of days when I just walked or rode my bike around places in Japan, and just took those in. That's what On The Road is all about. Finding things, looking at them, and soaking in the beauty of the surrounding world, digging it.

It's too bad that's a cliche now, because On the Road must have been fairly fresh when it was published. The idea that you could have a travel narrative that's mainly a series of anecdotes and visions doesn't seem very revolutionary now, and while reading it I constantly wished that I had some ability to have seen the book in the context of it's time, but I suppose urges like that are frustrating and useless.

This project of the book though, this snapshot of America and the meanderings across it, is also the book's biggest shortcoming. On the Road doesn't really have much of a plot, which makes it something of a plod at times. There isn't much in the way of a beginning, middle, or end. There's mostly just lots of middle. Many of the characters remain fairly undeveloped, as well. Most of the people who aren't Sal or Dean just sort of show up in scenes and vanish later, which is fine, I guess, but it makes the supporting cast sometimes seem interchangeable.

Another issue that I had with the book (and I don't think this is a literary flaw, mind you) is that Dean Moriarty seemed like kind of a dick. Sure, he's entertaining and would probably be fun to hang out with in small doses, but I couldn't help but judging the guy for lying to and mistreating women and abandoning his kids. He steals cars as well, but I can forgive that. Knocking people up and ditching them, though, I don't find particularly charming.

All in all, though, the book made me want to get in a car and drive somewhere, speed around, see whatever shows up, and talk to whomever. I can understand it's appeal, I can see why Kerouac inspired so many, why generations of hipsters have picked up Kerouac and said "yeah, man, yeah!" Kerouac seemed to look at the world in such a way that he could not help but see something wonderous and stimulating.

While reading On the Road, I couldn't help but think of another piece of Beat literature, Allen Ginsberg's Footnote to Howl, wherein the old poet madly proclaims the holiness, as he calls it, of basically everything. I've always thought of Ginsberg as something of a manic street preacher of a man, belting insanity, though the best sculpted sort of insanity. Kerouac doesn't seem nearly as crazy as Ginsberg. If anything, Sal Paradise is often the sane counterweight to Dean Moriarty. Kerouac, though, seems to have seen the world through the same eyes as Ginsberg, taking in everything, not judging, not evaluating, and simply letting the visions and beauty of the world pass into you.

I am far away from the Beat ethos, but I think that's why I liked the book. As someone who constantly thinks, constantly judges and evaluates, and does his best to remain calm, I found this fervent enthusiasm for the wide world appealing. It spoke to a part of me that is often outweighed by the overriding intellect, an emotional outpouring of unjudgemental wonder.

Yeah, man. Yeah.