View from the Side: Book Reads (On The Road)

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My 5th Book of 2016
(Read from March 10 to 14, 2016)

Genre

Autobiographical Novel

Setting Place

Setting Time

 1947 - 1948

Point of View

 The Author (Jack Kerouac)

My Overall Reading Experience

Although the 1957 version of the book is available, I opted to read the legendary 1951 scroll draft of the published word for word as Kerouac originally composed it.  As the title suggests, he had written the “whole thing on strip of paper 120-foot long… just rolled it through typewriter… rolled it out on floor and it looks like a road… without breaks in the texts, no punctuations, no paragraphs, no chapters. Kerouac was high on Benzedrine (I am not sure what is this... for my education, I added a note below) when he wrote “On the Road”.

In the original scroll, characters are identified by their real names unlike in 1957 version in which pseudonyms are used. It is about two guys (the Author and his friend, Dean) hitch-hiking around United States experiencing life on the road and at the same time, losing themselves on the road. Their life on the road is fueled and heightened by alcohol, sex and drugs.  

The book is considered as a defining novel of the Beat Generation, a post-WWII cultural movement closely identified with jazz/be-bop music, drug and alcohol use, and other forms of artistic, intellectual, and personal experimentation. There's also a fair amount of profanity used ("s--t," "sonofabitch," "dammit," "bastard," "c--k"),

Read the book if you want to have a glimpse of life in America during the late 40’s through early 50’s.  A word of caution, the book is not for immature readers.  

Note taken from Livestrong.com:
Benzedrine is another name for amphetamine and dexamphetamine. This is a highly addictive drug that was once the popular base of appetite suppressants sold over-the-counter in drug stores. Today, this neurological stimulant is the basis of many medications used to treat attention deficit disorders and is the chemical base for the street drug ecstacy.

The Original New York Times Review of 'On The Road':

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