On the Road by Jack Kerouac

In 1955, a book called On the Road by Jack Kerouac came out. The story is written in what people call poetic prose, and the plot points are minimal. In short, Sal Paradise, a pseudonym for Jack Kerouac himself, traveled chaotically across the country with an anti-hero Dean Moriarty, a pseudonym for Neal Cassidy, a resident of Denver, Colorado. Together, they document the forgotten open road of post-World War Two America in what many call a fever dream. I read the book because it was one of my father’s favorite books of all time. He said it is a sentimental book that captures the dreams and sorrows of a burgeoning America, which is both horrifying and endearing at the same time. Jack Kerouac’s writing style was called Spontaneous prose, and that means first thought, best thought, and it was supposed to be void of editing, and it was a reflection of the subconscious mind, where dreams impose a certain emotional truth to the reality of the world it was documenting. I have to say the book was an amazing read. Once I accepted the lack of plot and accepted it was an adventure bent on dreaming up a visceral experience, I loved it. I saw the spirit it captures and how this book became the catalyst to a counterculture movement of the 1960’s anti-Vietnam movement and the emotional truth of documenting the stress of growing up and becoming accustomed to growing up in an atomic age where mankind had the power to destroy itself. The paranoia of the time seeps through in this book; it is a beautiful tribute to an era long gone, but a tribute to, as Kerouac writes, the “mad ones, made live and desirous of everything all at once.” The beautiful descriptions of the Colorado landscape and stories of old Denver were just a small reason this book is magical to me, and a true American Classic.