Flipping Through Pages #15 - On The Road (A Book Review)

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."

As a generational hand me down from a father to a son, this is an interesting reflection of the era filled with drugs, sex, music and most importantly a sense of wanderlust and anti-establishment escapes.

Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty are polar opposites, and that's what seems to draw them to each other. Well what draws Sal to Dean, the man who remains a mystery and a physical representation of the mundane oppression that Sal understands to be his through a normal life.

Dean Moriarty on the only hand is a rebellion and a paradox all messed together in one – his actions often so heinous and childlike as if trying to find a way to understand what living is all about.

It’s intriguing to see something that may have been a reflection of that post war generation, but it infects everyone even today. The want to become something more – and understand how much you can stretch notions of belonging, love, music and life itself.

As years pass by, we see how Sal evolves and understands that there is a place for him in this universe of chaos and order, even as the lure of the escape keeps him wondering.

And he wonders of Dean Moriarty.

"Sal, we gotto go and never stop going 'till we get there"

"Where we going, man?"

"I don't know, but we gotta go."

For Dean becomes more and more human by the end. In that, he becomes destructible and no more just an idea that Sal can use to explore the world – we all have to ‘grow up’.

The names are symbolic in itself, using real life icons and metaphors to wonderfully describe their existence in this semi autobiographical novel.

Keroauc’s words aren’t beautiful in themselves but ensure you get the naked longing which Dean can bring in you. You want to have what Dean has – but never the consequences, which the author is very frank in pointing out. If there is paradise, there is a cost for salvation. Through often, Dean does go into areas which become repulsive to even a lax world view.

At that moment, he is no longer an ideal. But a warning.

A beautiful cultural novel that made me understand post war America and the familiar themes that guide my waking dreams. 

So, I give it 8.5 out of 10.

+Beautifully flawed characters

+A wonderful understanding of the American cultural landscape

+Deliciously flows from one era to another

+Brings forth the wanderlust and madness of the post war generation

-Dean becomes too much of a caricature and could have used more depth