Friday, January 25, 2013

The End of the Road


On the Road has finally come to an end, both the actual book and the class discussions. A long wait it has been. I think I am one of the only people in class that didn’t absolutely love the book. While it was not a terrible read, it definitely was not one of my favorite things to read. To me, the story was extremely confusing. This could have been because of the fact that the one long continuous paragraph was literally driving me insane. Books have paragraphs for a reason Kerouac!

Maybe it is because I was just not interested in the plot, although I feel that with a little help it could have been even more entertaining. A story about a group of friends that set out on different travels not worrying about anyone but themselves is not a story I would normally pick up to read. I feel that the way the story was written it was very easy to get side tracked and start thinking about other things. Some parts gave a perfect amount of detail of the scene where I could stay entertained, but there were other parts that were so long and drawn out that I just could not keep my focus. I kept getting so sidetracked reading the book that it would take me way longer than normal to finish reading the assigned sections. The way that Kerouac would describe and express himself in the story was also extremely distracting to me.
I also had a very big issue with some of the characters in the story, especially Neal Cassady. I think he is one of the most self-absorbed, selfish, and egocentric characters I have ever read about. The sad part is that he is not just a character in a book, but a real person. I cannot imagine being friends with such a selfish human being the way that Jack Kerouac and the rest of the One The Road characters are. The way that he treats the women around him is what really gets to me. It seems that everyone around him is so quick to believe all of his thoughts and beliefs and they are so quick to follow his footsteps. It is almost like nobody has their own mind when they are around him. It is sad to see that such a person is placed on such a high pedestal. It can clearly be seen that Kerouac and some of the other characters views Cassady as some sort of a God, for what reasons I have not been able to figure out.

For this reason is why Kerouac bothers me. Although he is older than Cassady, he always just seems to follow in his footsteps. Instead of creating his own path, he is content with following in Cassady’s. I think that men should be strong and independent and I just don’t see that in Kerouac.
Although I have many complaints about the book, it actually was interesting to me. The fact that these men were able to just pick up and do exactly what they want to do is appealing to me because I know I would never have the courage to do it. I’m more of a follow the rules type a girl, and they’re more of a break the rules type of crew. 

4 comments:

  1. I think you and I are in the same boat when it came to this book: the story had potential to be really interesting, but I couldn't get over the style. It's one thing to write a stream of consciousness type of story, but even James Joyce edited and used paragraph breaks!

    I had similar issue with the Kerouac/Cassady dynamic too. I don't necessarily think men HAVE to be strong and independent, but it was really strange to see Kerouac as such a follower. I'm really baffled/appalled that Cassady was a real man--As much as I wanted to push him off a cliff at multiple times during the book, I can't help but wonder what was going through Cassady's head when he was going off doing all his crazy things. I suppose what really got me about this book is that it's written by one of those people your parents told you to stay away from.

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  2. I must say that I am not a fan of this novel either. It was not put together orderly nor was it on one train of thought but jumped ideas and feelings leaving me to search for a line break when technically there was none--paragraphs in particular. The novel is full of fragmented thoughts with no sense of direction but I think that was the whole point. Paragraphs would be conforming to the artistic rules of literature but what Kerouac represented was individuation. He wanted to be able to express himself that was not the usual manner of representation in literature. His inspiration was the life of a nonconformist, Neal Cassidy. He represented society's disapproved lifestyle and used it to his advantage. Although Cassidy is no role model, I do think that he was Kerouac's guinea pig to life's questions and answers. Oddly this helped him grow both spiritually and intellectually. I agree with what you say about Kerouac not having his own mind and think he was ignorant in many respects. This is not a book I would keep in my library thats for sure.

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  3. I had a hard time with the novel too. Like you, I longed for something with paragraph breaks and some semblance of structure. I often got confused who certain characters were and where they were at. I'm glad I read it because of its place in popular culture but I don't think I'll be picking it up again.

    Cassady is almost hilarious to me in how awful he is, I can barely fathom him being a real person. I actually wouldn't mind reading about his life though since he met so many interesting people in his travels (including Hunter S Thompson, The Grateful Dead, and the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang).

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  4. It was not so much that I had a hard time, it was the fact that it was dry outside of the drunken blur. The book got boring very quickly and I must admit that the drown out prose did not help. If i actually sat down and had Kerouac relate the story to me I would be enticed but I never wanted to read something that did not fit the form; this seems like a story meant to be spread verbally.

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