Difference between revisions of "On the Road"

Revision as of 16:26, September 14, 2012

On the Road is the second novel published by the American-born French-Canadian author Jack Kerouac. The principle themes are travel, self-fulfilment, drugs, sex, jazz and a search for spiritual and physical comfort. It was published after Kerouac's first and more conventional novel, The Town and The City, which was heavily influenced by Tom Wolfe. Kerouac wrote a novel before either of these titled The Sea Is My Brother, which he disapproved of and therefore did not wish to see published.

On the Road was written in 1951 and published in 1957. It chronicles the real-life travels of Jack Kerouac and his friend Neal Cassady in Mexico and the rest of North America. In the book, as in Kerouac's other novels which depicted real people, he gave pseudonymns to his characters in order to prevent accusations of libel He refers to himself as Sal Paradise and to Neal Cassady as Dean Moriaty.

The novel is the first to use Kerouac's own developed style of writing which he called 'spontaneous prose'. This was a style which broke with literary conventions and adopted a sentimental, highly descriptive tone which, as one critic put it, "swings to the rhythym of jazz". Many of Kerouac's sentences in the novel are very long, poetical, highly quotable and lyrical. It was written in three weeks, though for the next six years, it was edited and amended sporadically by Kerouac.

On the Road was deemed highly influential in sparking the hippie movement of the 1960s.

A quote by the musican Bob Dylan is included on the back page of the Penguin Classics edition of the novel, in which he says of the book: "It changed my life, like it changes everyone elses."

Kerouac originally found it difficult securing a publisher for the novel, and when he did it was met with critical approval but relatively few sales. Viking Press first published the novel in 1957, though since then it has been published, often with lengthy introductions that illuminate the background to the work, by other publishing companies.

Kerouac wrote a letter urging the actor Marlon Brando to make a film of the novel at a time when he was struggling financially.

On the Road is still widely read today, although mainly among intellectuals. It is generally regarded as one of the classics of American literature, and the leading work of the 'Beat generation' writers, of which Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs were notable figures.

Quotes from the novel are featured on a slab in Kerouac Alley, California, at a site nearby to a bookstore and bar where Kerouac would read and drink.

In a drunken interview years after the novel was published, Kerouac seemed to dismiss the novel, saying "I was young then" and waving his hand as if to imply he regarded the work as immature. However, many interviews which Kerouac took part in towards the end of his life (he died in 1969) demonstrate that he was suffering from the effects of a life-time of drinking. He would later die as a result of this alcohol abuse.

On the Road was adapted into a film in 2012, to the general dissaproval of devout fans.

Both in style and in content, it continues to be an inspiration, principally as a liberator of disaffected youths. One of the foremost effects of the novel is that it points out the open road, and invites all those who share Kerouac's counter-culture attitude to take to it, just as he did. However, many inspired young people, Kerouac would later reveal, took it upon themselves to call at the home of the author, in order to thank him for it. As he says, by the time the book was in circulation, that part of his life was over. He was too old to join them on their adventures.