I just can't do it yet. I am supposed to have been reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac, but I can't. This is the second time I've attempted to read this book. The first time I got about thirty dogged, molasses, slo-mo pages in and couldn't proceed. This time, with memories of the first slog in my mind, I gave up after a page.
Here's the thing: Jack Kerouac is a smug, self-satisfied, ass. Of the most detestable, sexist kind. What might have been hip in the 1950s, daddy-o, is insufferable in the 21st century. Even his first, flip, sentence is a turn off, "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up."
I'll bet they split up. I'll bet they split up because he was an insufferable boor who needed to be on the road because no one could put up with him for very long.
I'm going to have to be pushing a 100 books - goal well within reach - to be able to suffer this nowheresville drag.
This is pretty much how I feel. I had to read this for my American Studies class and it mostly just made me hate people who appreciate road trips and finding themselves.
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