Journal Entry #6
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 254/254
The book, On The Road, was eye opening to the naivety of youth. We wonder around assuming things will be better when we're on our own or live somewhere else but trouble and responsibility will follow you wherever you go regardless of who you think you can make yourself out to be. And besides that, it also shows that not everyone is who they put out there. This is a lesson that people tell you about very young but no one is really ever convinced until they experience it first hand. Jack Kerouac writes about his experiences but never talks about the lessons he learned from them as if we were meant to figure it out ourselves. It was almost like the stories he was telling were completely useless and you were really just supposed to realize that young people are stupid and don't know nearly as much as they think they do. Which has been made very clear.
Journal Entry #5
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 107/254
(Lucille)
I don’t like them. I don’t like any of them. Dean or that slut Marylou. Or the others from Virginia. Sal isn’t Sal around them. He’s a rowdy, immature, obnoxious teenager. And something I have no interest in. He was a dream before I met this side of him. Someone I would’ve married. But at that party on New Years Eve… It changed everything. I found myself acting like a high schooler again. And just to get back at Sal? Who do I think I am? Why would it matter whether Sal was jealous of Dean or not. And either way I have no respect for Dean! Why would I even pretend to go back to his car? I don’t like the way Dean or Marylou act around Sal. I don’t like the way Sal acts around them. And I don’t like the way I act around them. If Sal expects to keep me here some things are going to have to change. Either for him or for me.
Journal Entry #4
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 90/254
Sal’s flaw is that he is naive. He had these overbearing beliefs about the west and what it was like. He thought in a ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ sort of way. Once he gets there he begins to realize that it is the same everywhere you go. There is poverty and struggle in the west too, just like the east. When he meets Terry and goes around LA with her he has this realization that he’s a really small part of a really big world. I feel like he considers himself helpless. And even more so when Terry and her son come to work with him on a grape farm. He is the father and husband figure but he can only do so much to support them. This sense of responsibility that he feels is a small part of a very large picture of what life is really like. Before he began his travels he had these bright ideas of what it would be like to travel around with his buddies. Although this was sometimes relevant, his expectations were too high for what really happened.
Journal Entry #3
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 72/254
October 7, 2013
Jack Kerouac’s On The Road was written simply to share his travels. The plot isn’t anything life changing. It isn’t supposed to make you stand up and want to make a difference in the world. I believe the purpose was just to make the reader stare into the bright naive eyes of every eighteen or twenty year old that has ever wanted to jump out of their own skin. It is meant to make you feel youthful again and make you think that there’s never really anything tying you down. From what I have read I’d say he’s pretty successful. Kerouac accurately expresses the pressure of finding what you have to do and the common knowledge that you aren’t going to get there without jumping through hoops. Kerouac goes through several jobs and several dollars before he makes his way across the country. There were more than a few nights spent sleeping on benches and when he finally made it to San Francisco he worked as a cop, which is far from his goal to be a screenwriter. And after Hollywood rejected two of his writings, he planned to move on. And that is as far as I’ve gotten. The book is really about how youth get where they want to be and what they’ll do to get it. And so far, Jack Kerouac has been successful is sharing what he went through to get there.
Journal Entry #2
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 48/254
September 30, 2013
The biggest conflict that seems to arise in my book is the debatable overall opinion of Dean Moriarty. He’s a jokester, a player, a trickster, and a madman. Everyone used to like him, so why did this change? After not seeing him for a few months while being in New York before heading to Denver, Sal was feeling nothing but excitement about meeting up with the whole crew again, including Dean. But when he arrives in Denver it seems like most of his friends have stopped talking to Dean, besides Carlo Marx. Sal can’t figure out why this might be but is only enjoying the time he spends with Dean. The way Sal describes Dean it’s like he idolizes him. He does everything Dean does without even questioning himself morally. When he finds out Dean is playing three girls at once all he can muster is pride for his friend instead of sympathy for the girls, which is the type of guy he is. When Sal’s friend Eddie comes to visit, Dean completely disregards him and is actually quite rude, something Sal notices but doesn’t mention. Dean offers to find Sal a job as well, which Sal declines due to his excuse that he won’t have any time to do anything, specifically with Dean. If you ask me it’s your run of the mill toxic, youthful, friendship. The coolness of Dean’s exterior blinds Sal to everything he knows including his own morals and that of his other friends.
Journal Entry #1
On The Road
Jack Kerouac
Pg. 27/254
September 23, 2013
I’m not sure what drew me to this book in the first place. Maybe it was the small print on the front cover, ‘One of the most powerful and important novels of our time. The book that turned on a generation.’ Maybe it was the weathered spine and the bent corners. I’ve always had a thing for appearance, anyway. Regardless of what drew me to the book, it happened for a reason. I’ve always had coherent interest in non-fiction books. I always found the obvious fantasy in fiction books unentertaining and rather tedious. The constant reminders through fairies and wizards that none of this would ever come true was dull and not a challenge to wrap my mind around. On the other hand, a true story that is just as entertaining, plus the challenge of understanding how real it all is? Well, perfect. That’s the book for me. On The Road is about a young boy who dreams of traveling out west in the mid 40’s. It is beautiful in it’s simplicity as well as its demeanor. It gives off the feeling of excitement all through the book. And I’m only on the first 20 pages! This book is about everything you’ve ever wanted to do at 18 that you couldn’t. And to read it and experience it as I never will, well, that’s the dream.
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