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On The Road by Jack Kerouac

"The whirlwind adventure of Sal Paradise and his friend, Dean Moriarty, who often just drop everything they have, their families, wives, children, and travel across country to experience life. The idea is fun but the book itself was a painful struggle of run on sentences, cringeworthy "beat" slang and just an overall dislike for the characters and their flagrant lack of responsibility and selfishness."

1 Star

Pros: It's an interesting notion, to give into the lull of wanderlust and just travel across the country, the idea is intriguing but the reality of the situation just doesn't work for me.  

Cons: All of these men, all they did was drink, smoke weed, hook up with girls, marry girls, have babies, hook up with other girls, get them pregnant, divorce the first girl they married. It was a never ending cycle of selfishness, indulgence and irresponsibility.

Full Review: 

Sal Paradise, the protagonist, lives with his Aunt in Paterson, New Jersey. He's working on a novel when he meets Dean Moriarty and they form a friendship. That friendship will go on for years and years and across thousands of miles. All Sal seems to do is get the urge to travel cross country, with only a few dollars to his name and go off and have ever lasting parties. He often runs into Dean on these adventures and they "get IT" together, which means, they experience all that life has to offer. But to these cast of characters it seems that all life is is one endless party, drinking, smoking weed, hooking up with girls, marrying girls, fathering children, falling in love with more girls, having more children, getting divorced. Only a few of them actually do settle down and have a life. No one ever seems to work or to earn. They're always wiring for money from relatives. 

Perhaps it's a generational thing but, since this book was written in the fifties. And Kerouac was of the "beatnik" generation. But there was nothing likable about any of these characters. Their flagrant irresponsibility was mind boggling. Their selfishness, how they could marry a girl, have children, then go off on an endless debauch across the country and fall in love with another girl, get her pregnant, divorce the first girl...it was all just so selfish. By the middle of the book, after the end of every chapter, after Sal, Dean and other characters had gone off an "got it", I rolled my eyes. 

This was one of the worst books I've ever read. And it could very well be that I'm a stick in the mud. I'm not one for random bursts of spontaneity. I appreciate routine, organization, stability, dependability. These characters and their flagrant disregard for other peoples emotions and the consequences of their actions just left me feeling ill. Sure, sometimes I think just heading off somewhere, no clear destination in mind and seeing what happens, would be fun, but then the rational, responsible part of my mind shakes itself awake and I realize that I couldn't live my life like that. 

Some people can, some people have wander lust and love to see what's beyond that next curve in the road, but for me, I appreciate the predictability and more importantly, the stability of my life and the people in it. Give me a routine, work a day existence over not knowing where my next meal will come from, or whether I'll be sleeping in my car that night. If anything this book made me not want to "hit the road" in a whirlwind adventure. It made me appreciate my life all the more. 

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