On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Jack Kerouac - Edge of America

On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouacs works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouacs writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouacs real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouacs alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.

Edge of America
The Beats no longer appear as visionary as they did 50 years ago, and most of them are now quaint stereotypes, but Kerouac's classic autobiographical novel easily rises above what was once trendy. Not only did Kerouac help define the prototypical American road trip saga, but he transformed that motif into a surprisingly melancholy treatise on self-discovery and nonconformity. Kerouac's Beat slanguage isn't much to get excited about anymore, nor are the characters. It's now quite laughable that people used to worship the scatterbrained deadbeat freeloader Dean Moriarty as some kind of visionary prophet. But Kerouac's real-life road trips through the underbellies of America (plus a comparative sojourn through Mexico) allowed him to shed great light on the outsiders who had been left behind by America's unequal prosperity or who had gleefully rejected the squeaky clean conformity of the post-WW2 years. Kerouac himself represented the sense of aimlessness and failure that was forced upon free thinkers and outsiders - then and now. This book is often lionized for its Beat credentials, but forget that. Any passing fad can deliver a classic that transcends boundaries and delivers a more universal message. [~doomsdayer520~]

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