On The Road- The Book

Sleepless nights, and days filled with doctors appointments and tests. I am thankful for my Mobile devices where I can read books while I wait.
I am reading "On The Road". This book thus far reminds me of someone dear to me whom I love very much. I wish I could tell this person to read this.

These are thoughts thus far and some from critics that I found online:



Split into four sections, each consecutive one involving a different road trip with more details and a shorter time-span, I found myself also becoming consecutively more involved as the book went on. The first section I found, unfortunately, tedious and little more than a listing of things he did and places he went. There was throughout, of course, the occasional poetic and insightful passage, but they were few and far between and not really worth the effort to find. The most unfortunate flaw of the novel is that it is actually quite uninteresting. It would have made an intriguing (and bearable) novella, but its length feels frustratingly unjustified.

"The text was less rebellious, and more restraint. It is not forward-looking, but nostalgic. Kerouac's memoirs are a sort of nostalgia for a disappearing era. And the characters, really, are hardly rebels. Instead they drift from place to place seeking excitement, only to find the same dull existence in each setting." In the second half of the book Sal begins to grow tired of the road, and of Dean, as he sees more and more of the same. Also, Sal often feels content to be a spectator rather than a participant, watching the antics of others from a safe distance. Truly, the men are misfits. In this way they were unique, disenfranchised maybe, but they were not rebelling against anything. Mostly they get drunk and try to get laid in a familiar fraternity style. The characters are lonely and insecure, not hipsters or nonconformists. Their journey is about a search for stability, not spontaneity. These are not criticisms of the novel, but merely observations, and are actually the elements that make story interesting.

I dont love the writing style, but it is an interesting read.
What do you think?