Next up is one of them books that always keeps appearing in various lists of books you should read, whether it’s the BBC’s “Big Read” (#90) or the Telegraphs “100 Books Everyone Should Read” (#87) one thing is for sure this book is almost certainly bound to be on the list albeit outside the top 50.
Its one of those books that I first started to noticed in the mid / late 1990’, I am not exactly sure what year but it was post 94 when I started doing a lot of traveling myself either on trains, coaches or aeroplanes. The Book had this unmistakable black & white cover (Penguin Original Classic version) but at the time there was no smart phones with the constant availability to surf the “World Wide Web” whenever curiosity takes hold of you so it took a while for me to actually find out the name and author of this mysterious book that I kept seeing all manner of different ages of folk reading on there daily, weekly, weekend travels. The Book is “On the Road” By Jack Kerouac.
On the road is Jack’s semi biographical journey into late 1940's America where the Jazz scene is starting to grow and teenagers are drug fuelled spending much of there mis aligned youth as sex craved travellers. This is Jack Kerouac’s most famous works and is filled with a cast of Kerouac’s real friends, travellers met & former lovers. The main characters of the journey are Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos and his idol Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. This is their this cross-country bohemian odyssey not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture thus creating a culture of America’ youth freewheeling across the country looking to find themselves in this wide world.
This is a book that I can truly relate to but not that it made me want to be a traveller, although that is one of my many regrets that I didn’t see more and do more in my wasted mistake driven youth. The part I relate to is in the time when I started to notice the book, I too was a lost soul aimlessly plodding on through life making mistake after mistaken some of those mistakes now haunt me more than ever, meeting new friends and loosing old ones although the inner circle of friends ALWAYS remain just that and everyone else is a bit part player in life’s adventure this is vary much how how I interpret this book.
As good a book as this is i also found it deep and dark at times much aligned to the era that the book is set in the dialogue is also hard to grasp at times especially for someone who's not familiar with the American late 1940's landscape and way of life.
" I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."
Its one of those books that I first started to noticed in the mid / late 1990’, I am not exactly sure what year but it was post 94 when I started doing a lot of traveling myself either on trains, coaches or aeroplanes. The Book had this unmistakable black & white cover (Penguin Original Classic version) but at the time there was no smart phones with the constant availability to surf the “World Wide Web” whenever curiosity takes hold of you so it took a while for me to actually find out the name and author of this mysterious book that I kept seeing all manner of different ages of folk reading on there daily, weekly, weekend travels. The Book is “On the Road” By Jack Kerouac.
On the road is Jack’s semi biographical journey into late 1940's America where the Jazz scene is starting to grow and teenagers are drug fuelled spending much of there mis aligned youth as sex craved travellers. This is Jack Kerouac’s most famous works and is filled with a cast of Kerouac’s real friends, travellers met & former lovers. The main characters of the journey are Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos and his idol Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. This is their this cross-country bohemian odyssey not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture thus creating a culture of America’ youth freewheeling across the country looking to find themselves in this wide world.
This is a book that I can truly relate to but not that it made me want to be a traveller, although that is one of my many regrets that I didn’t see more and do more in my wasted mistake driven youth. The part I relate to is in the time when I started to notice the book, I too was a lost soul aimlessly plodding on through life making mistake after mistaken some of those mistakes now haunt me more than ever, meeting new friends and loosing old ones although the inner circle of friends ALWAYS remain just that and everyone else is a bit part player in life’s adventure this is vary much how how I interpret this book.
As good a book as this is i also found it deep and dark at times much aligned to the era that the book is set in the dialogue is also hard to grasp at times especially for someone who's not familiar with the American late 1940's landscape and way of life.
" I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."
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