Jack Kerouac - On The Road (1955)

On Friday (15/10) I went and picked up some forms to finalize my employment at a Jewelery Retailer. Anyway, I arrived early and decided to head into Whitcoulls. I had recently been reconnected to my love for reading and had an urge to read more novels, as opposed to books that required a lot more resolve that tackled topics like sociology and psychology, etc.

So there I was, in a book store, hoping to find something that would rekindle my reading journey. I proceeded to look for a book, by an author, I had not heard of before, but had an interesting title and catchy back cover. I found myself milling over the section that was responsible for the Penguin Classics Collection. There were a heap of authors I had heard of and the titles failed to capture my imagination.

After some deliberation I picked up 'On the Road by Jack Kerouac'. The title got me it was obvious to an extent, road trips, hitch hiking, etc. Then I read the back cover and I was hooked. Of the few things I enjoy doing one of them is getting to know someones story.

The back cover read:

"Jack Kerouac's On the Road rocked the establishment with it's seminal, stream-of-consciousness portrayal of 1950s underground America. Amidst a whirlwind of sex, drugs and jazz, writer Sal Paradise and his hero 'the holy con-man with the shining mind', Dean Moriarty traverse the country in search of life and experience. Wild and exuberant, this life-changing novel defined the Beat generation and inspired countless others."

So my appetite for reading gets offered it's first break in close to 2 years now. There's a story to be found here, be it fiction, it still happens to offer the possibility of getting know a generation that existed a good 40 years before I was born.

I'm half way through it as I type this. I'll do another post when I finish it, with some more thoughts about the book in particular.