Over the years I've made several starts on [b:On The Road|841947|On The Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178825422l/841947._SY75_.jpg|1701188] but this is the first time I've finished it. This time I chose to read the scroll edition. At first, through a sense of obligation. It was a book I felt I should have read. But it was often cited in [b:Idiot Wind|46251478|Idiot Wind|Peter Kaldheim|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560187553l/46251478._SY75_.jpg|71233035] by Peter Kaldheim which I'd just read, and I felt this obligation as a way of extending my understanding of the book and I was not disappointed.

At the early stages, each time I picked it up (perhaps it was the text itself) I felt I should accelerate and skim a bit. Instead, I became absorbed and slowed down. I became more and more absorbed in its dimensions as the narrative progressed until I felt that once they had crossed the border into Mexico, the book became sublime. I had the sense that this was now a one-way journey out of country - out of time - out of youth.

Yesterday a friend posted a collection of photos taken by today's generation who are jumping trains and sleeping rough across the USA. After Peter Kaldheim's story set in the 1970s. Seems that every 50 years a very similar story is being retold about the underbelly of of the USA and its inhabitants. Similar in some respects to Steinbeck's [b:Travels with Charlie in Search of America|33617956|Travels with Charlie in Search of America|John Steinbeck|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|1024827]. But none so artful and profound as On the Road.

For me the really memorable parts are the descriptions of music and jazz players, being trapped in an all-night cinema, the Mexican brothel and the drive to Chicago.

This is great literature. The structure fits the narrative and the landscape and its depths of imagery are so complex as to warrant further reading.

Such a book certainly makes me wonder why Australia has no equivalent narrative: the journey around the centre and what that means for our national psyche.

We stumbled down the road. Early morning traffic began, every car looking like a cruiser. Then we suddenly saw the cruiser coming and I knew it was the end of my life as I had known it and that it was entering a new and horrible stage of jails and iron sorrows, such as Egyptian Kings must know in the drowsy afternoon when the fight is up in the reeds of the mires. But the cruiser was our taxi and from that moment on we flew East and had to. (p.323)

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The road is long and winding, and so is Jack Kerouac’s writing, but it doesn’t make for a very enjoyable novel. As Truman Capote famously said, “None of these people have anything interesting to say,” he observed, “and none of them can write, not even Mr. Kerouac. [What they do] isn’t writing at all—it’s typing.”

I understand what Kerouac is trying to do here: to represent life in the wandering way that life exists, and to present two characters that don’t know quite what they’re looking for and don’t find it. Does anything exemplify the post-WWII generation more? We’re still living with these consequences. Travel for the pure enjoyment of travel is good, even great. The intention of expanding yourself, and being with friends, and smelling the mountain and sea air, none of these are bad, but without any kind of connective tissue or narrative intention, it doesn’t make for a good book.

Partially this may be due to this version being the “original scroll” that Kerouac wrote on a single long piece of paper over three weeks. It’s barely edited, uncensored, and ugly in form. I have to assume the book is helped by the presence of an editor, otherwise I fail to see how this captured the minds and hearts of photo-hippies of the 50s and true hippies of the following decades.

The first part of the book, prior to the scroll, consists of introductions by scholars justifying this as a scholarly work. Much time is spent defending Kerouac's rampant racism and sexism - but why is it defended? Anyone who is not white is idolized in the book, yet they're idolized from a superiority point of view while neglecting the downsides of not being white in the 50s or before. Kerouac's tone-deafness leads him to imagine himself as an old Negro, without a care in the world.

Sure.

White women fare even worse - they're not at all idolized. Women in general are beings to be used sexually by men, and any female characters that appear have no personality (which isn't saying much, not many of Kerouac's characters do). Kerouac seeks humanity, yet fails to realize the enormity of humanity: he sees only the enormity of America.

If you’re looking for a road or travel book, I’d recommend The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a fictional, depressing novel set in a nuked America where almost no living thing exists, but hope glimmers at the edges of the waste. For something more in line with On the Road, I much preferred John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley. It’s funnier, more focused, and gives more of a feel for the United States than Kerouac ever even attempts.

If you type enough some poetry will come out, and here are some lines I liked -

- And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, in hints and mighty visitation, far off, the great snowy–tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath.
- ...air you can kiss…
- I want to marry a girl so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old.
- God exists without qualms.
- ...she won't understand how much I love her---she's knitting my doom.
- I stood poised on the great western plain and didn't know what to do.
- Things are so hard to figure when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly world.
- Women can forget what men can't. ( )

Everyone likes this book and the scroll version is even better I also have the audible version on the only problem is every time the reader says woo wee it's extremely annoying. ( )

No idea how to rate this; read it to compare with the originally published version, the latter of which I found more enjoyable.

A classic but whew, what a hard and vulgar read.