Bad Books: On The Road

Last week I humbly brought to your attention The Catcher in the Rye and vomit-inducing author J.D. Salinger. This week we're sticking with the era, more or less, and the country and bringing you another one of the more over-rated books you'll likely ever come across, On The Road.

First, in the business of full-disclosure, as I gave you my reading history last time with The Catcher in the Rye, I'd feel remiss if I didn't offer it to you with this lousy book. Oh, "lousy." What a Holden Caufield thing to say! Maybe I am just a phony...Oops! I did it again. You and me Brittany, baby. You and me. So, anyway, I read Jack Kerouac's travel companion a total of zero times. Yep! Zero. But I did give it a good go at least three times. Let's take a closer look at these attempts.

Attempt #1:

High school. I liked the author, though I thought it was 'Kerovac,' not 'Kerouac.' And he was sold as the King of Cool and how could a young man resist. This was after all a man who kept company with NAMBLA member Allen Ginsberg and wife-killer William Burroughs (though the latter does at least regret shooting his wife in the head, so that's saying something, I suppose, while the former stood strong in his stance for the right for men and boys to engage in sexual relations up until the day he died. Yup! Fight that battle, Allen, you sick, pathetic waste of life).

Anyway, I started reading it. Then I stopped reading it. It wasn't all that well-written compared to the books I had been reading at the time (See: Francine Pascal), but more than anything else, it was boring as hell. So I stopped.

Attempt #2:

I was in my early 20's this time. America and Kerouac's radicalism attracted me back to his book. Man, how I so identified with this Devil May Care attitude and the misunderstood American youth. And just what did America mean, man. You know, the word and the country. Dig. And Eastern Philosphy, man. America just didn't get it and it just didn't get me. I am Jack Kerouac, I said laying awake in bed at night, plotting my course across America to see what it was all about, to see what I was all about. Just kidding, even I wasn't that insufferable. Plus, that book put me to sleep it was so bad. I think I made it almost 100 pages this time.

Attempt #3:

Late 20's. Still bad. Worse than I remembered. 125-150 pages tops.

Synopsis:

Guy meets friends. Discovers he has more in common with friend he idolizes than he thought. Guy falls in love with friend and himself. Lots of driving interspersed throughout. Also, hangs out with people and is a total jackass.

Why this book is terrible:

It's just bad. It's poorly written and nothing happens. Nothing happening is fine. Some of my favorite books are the one's where nothing happens. But this is a different type of nothing happens. Guy gets in car and drives. Sees some friends. Gets back in car. Drives. Sees some friends. Christ, it's basically a culmination of every shampoo bottle I've ever looked at.

I don't get it. I really thought I would like this book. I think most people would. Heck, who doesn't identify with the disaffected in America, except those who aren't, though I have my suspicions that most of us would like to identify with that sect of society on some level and probably do. But that just isn't what's going on here. Basically, the guy, Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) is just hanging out. And he isn't even from the dregs of society that he'd have you believe. No. He's from an upper-middle class family. How else could he afford to drive around doing nothing for three years or however the hell long he did. Kerouac was an interloper, slumming it with the poor folks, playing tourist. But we all know you can't play away games too long. The novelty just wears out, or you get tired. Whatever. You have your fun then you go back to your tax bracket.

Also, Kerouac helped cover up a murder, was arrested for that, and when his dad wouldn't pay his bail he married a girl who said she'd pay so long as he'd marry her. So marry her he did and then he had it annulled. He also married another woman, years later, and had a child with her, but claimed it wasn't his and disowned the child. Nine years later blood tests confirmed that the child was in fact his. What an asshole. But we've all been there and how many of us wrote an American classic?

On style, I suppose Kerouac thought he could somehow improve upon William Faulkner. He went the stream of consciousness route and just wrote and wrote, with sentences going on for pages at a time. The difference is that Faulkner is one of America's best authors and Kerouac just never learned grammar. Or to quote Truman Capote on Kerouac: "That's not writing. It's typing."

Why this book is actually worse than I think

Apologist will claim that On The Road does advocate for homosexuals, racial minorities and the generally marginalized socities in America following the Second World War.

Well, I contend not. I don't know how one can read the following passage written by a white middle-class man, without a hint of irony, and claim it's not only absurd, but offensive and racist: "I wish I was born a Negro in the Antebellum South." His reasoning for this: He then could have lived a care-free, worry-free life, one that was simple and enjoyable.

What the fuck!

Kerouacs co-opting is even worse than most. He not only co-opts the have-nots, and the marginalized, but transforms their own suffering into his own paradise, so long as you look at it the right way. Who does that? I'd say he should go off and die, but thankfully he's already gone and done that for us.

He also lionizes the ethos of chauvanistic male behavior and degrades women for the better part of 300 pages.

Jack Kerouac is a terrible writer:

When Kerouac tried to get published, his style, as well as his subject matter, was off-putting to publishers. They didn't think people would want to read those long-winded sentences. And they really weren't that good. Heck, I can give you a decent imitation of his style without even trying:

We drove down the streets and through the alleys of the cast-offs and forgotten children of a country that killed millions just to prove a point while we used the radiator to warm up days old food we'd been saving in the backseat until we couldn't take the hunger anymore, a hunger that mirrored those this country left behind in its pursuit for empire, in its quest to put banks in front of God and Country and charge two dollars and fifty cents admission for anybody who even wanted to take a look at it, who even dared to dream that they could be a part of it, this empire that bought and sold the souls of young men for the rights to pieces of land which it would never visit, to grow fruit on a tree in someone elses backyard and not even offer the neighbors over for fruit salad and all the while staring at God and daring Him to pass judgment.

Gahhhhhh. I hate myself for even writing that. But that's basically what you get with Kerouac. Weird dude. Bad writer. Total asshole too. Adored by mostly high school boys and college kids who have yet to change their major from Eastern Philosophy to Business.

What to read instead:

I don't know. People seem to really like The Hunger Games books. Maybe read those.

Or you could read The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski, author of Severence Package. The Wheelman is outstanding fun. It's about a mute, getaway driver for bank heists or some shit. I don't remember who/what they were robbing, I just assume it was banks. Suppose it could've been a jewlery store or a gas station. Anyway, the driver is this mute kid and he's the best getaway driver in all of Philadelphia. He helps out on this heist, but ends up not only getting screwed out of his share of the money, but also gets left for dead by his own crew in a drainage pipe or some shit. Half-dead he climbs his way back into the city and rains hell down on those who dared to cross him. It's fast and it's fun and while it's not quite as good as Severance Package it's probably one of the best books ever written about a guy and a car, and that includes On The Road.

You could also read Gertrude Stein. She's good. She repeats herself a lot, much like Kerouac, but with design, style and craft. While you're at it, you could read some William Faulkner as well. There's stream of consciousness and how it should be done.