Fabian's review of On the Road (original) (raw)

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Fabian's Reviews > On the Road

On the Road
by

Herein lies that gnarly root of our all-American Sense of Entitlement. Coupling this with "Huck Finn" as THE quintessential American Novel is One Enormous mistake: Twain at least entertains, at least follows through with his intention, with his American take on the Quixotean legend; Kerouac might just be the biggest literary quack of the 20th century! The book is awkward, structured not as ONE single trip, but composed of a few coast-to-coast coastings, all having to do with this overused motif.

I despise it. (Living in Denver, Kerouactown, makes me hate him more!) A tale of a closeted individual who really has nothing to say. He has glorified a ruffian (DEAN DEAN DEAN... DEAN!) whose selfishness sits well with him. What Sal does say, however, ever so dully, is just how Cool those around him are, how his only addition to this incomprehensible BEAT movement is as lame as those of a newspaper photographer: he sees and reports, jots idle musings down. What he fails to understand (the main guy is not even YOUNG... [he is old & stupid, desperate & pathetic]!!!) is how entirely false this sense of freedom can be: Can a sheep really outwit the shepherd? Here's a supreme example of the blind leading... I sternly refuse to follow such idiotic drivel. This is a book for followers written by a Conformist, for one can always be some selfproclaimed comfortable conformist of nonconformism.

Nothing sticks. Everything "On the Road" is transitory, & although this works fine in the everyday, in Literature its seen as nothing more than a burden: a plotless restlessness to achieve permanence without that crucial element: mainly, the artist's virtue of Talent.

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Reading Progress

May 27, 2011 –Started Reading

June 3, 2011 –Finished Reading

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