“It changed my life like it changed everyone else’s” (Bob Dylan)

Kerouac’s 1951 ‘On the Road’ describes several years of the life of Sal Paradise (Kerouac) while he was criss-crossing the U.S. between New York and San Francisco in the years after WWII. The story’s epic hero is Dean Moriarty (Neil Cassady), who acts as the catalyst for many of the books adventures. Moriarty starts the story as a “poetic con-man” and ends up divorced from his third wife and living with his second; “where once Dean would have talked his way out, he now fell silent … he was BEAT“.

Kerouac is obsessed with the nature of humanity and life, constantly enthralled with the sounds of jazz and the American landscape. Over the course of the book the pace and prose style quickens, becoming more erratic and vibrant. The slow, descriptive paragraphs of the beginning sections give way to language reminiscent of that created during an acid trip.

It is easy to see how this book became the template for works such as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing. It’s a must read for everybody, not just those gonzo fanatics out there.