The Beatest Generation

I will preface this with a confession that I mostly just read pulpy trash so I’m not much of a literary critic. Whenever I see one of those lists of the 100 greatest novels of all time, I’m always a little disheartened at how few of those books I have read.

On The Road tends to show up in these and I picked up a copy a while back to both broaden my reading horizons and to serve as inspiration before leaving on my road trip. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get around to reading it until after I returned.

Having finished it, I can safely say that I am a complete pussy (shocking, I know) and the amount of hitchhiking, drugs, women, and booze that those guys did was the pretty much the complete antithesis of my trip (also shocking, I’m sure). Man, those guys were the beatest! I suspect that their more staid, corporate-ladder climbing peers of their generation would probably label them ‘degenerates’ instead. But, the contrast between these guys and the Leave-It-To-Beaver-Wholesome-All-American-Family that I always picture as the mainstream from that era is a trip because being all counterculture is like, cool and stuff, ya know?

Kerouac does a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of wanderlust and the need to just GTFO sometimes. I can definitely relate to this but they just take it to a whole ‘nother level. Kerouac and his whole crew just lived hard, fast, and flat out interesting lives. Of course both he and his road buddy Neal Cassady died young but shit, there’s a fine line between madness and being interesting right?

Anyway, starred review, two thumbs up, and all that jazz. Go read it if you are an unread heathen like me. Unless of course you hate hippies (and I know some of you do).