A review by mrbanana
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

3.0

What I liked about this book was the philosophical and emotional realizations that Sal, the main character, learns after so many years of living on the road, flying by the seat of your pants, but the fact that he and Dean continue to live this way (however, we don't really know the mindset of dean because it is all written from Sal's perspective). It's not the typical "I learned my lesson and now I'm changing my life". The ending is pretty much like any other part of the book; it's not an ending, it could go anywhere from there. At the same time, I really disliked how the characters in this book objectified women. Women and other minorities were never really given a spotlight, in my opinion, for the reader to learn deeply about at least one person who could have had a more symbolic meaning of the time period, kerouac's actual journey, or whatever (I suppose you could except marylou and terry here). This made Sal/Kerouac feel very old-fashioned, but I guess that's not wrong considering it was published in 1957. At points it did drag on a bit (and it took me much longer to read than I expected), having a very much classic literature feel, and although I enjoy my classics, I think the same thing can be said for many classic novels. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story about a lifestyle that I could most likely never lead myself: life on the road.