On the Road - a Success?

"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