I got this book as a birthday gift, and started reading it while in Krakow, Poland. I'd always wanted to read Kerouac for his "historical"--if you will--importance in literature. I honestly thought, before opening the pages, that it was supposed to be a sort of epic poem a la The Odyssey (why does that spelling look so funny to me?), or am I mistaking that for The Iliad? Either way, I was excited to get the book, and then get down and dirty with the reading.

I had, without even reading the book, assumed that the fun vivacious character of the book (the crazy one), Dean Moriarty, was supposed to be a fictional representation of the author. The introduction, however, written by someone else, quickly quieted that all-too-popular assumption, which, it turns out, actually pissed Jack off. The character is actually based on a Cassady, an ADHD sort of fellow who had a life that seems hard to imagine, but makes for a great story. Jack jumped on that--and I would have too.

Although the story didn't remark too much on writing or the art of writing, knowing that Jack/Sal Paradise is a writer really got my fingers itching to write myself. But being with a partner in Europe and writing would be a bit rude and not all that fun considering the conflict of ... um ... hello! Being in Europe! I'm not an expatriate, though that'd be fun, so to sit and write for hours, as grand and wonderful as it might feel for me, would not be all that intriguing to a partner, who may go off and see the great outdoors without me, only for me to be incredibly jealous later when he tells me of the great sights. So writing was... I fear to admit... coming second on this trip. I'm a horrible writer, aren't I?

The story was AWESOME (to get back to the actual book). The story just kept going, characters flitting in and out, adventures had everywhere, details irrelevant when action is the jist. Apparently, Jack wrote the book in a sort of freewrite. Automatic writing. On a typewriter. (To see a picture of the long scroll, click here.) He also took many drugs to stay awake for the writing which he finished in some ridiculous amount of time but spent the next few years editing and rewriting. I have a friend or two... actually, only one, who reminds me truly of Dean Moriarty.

I see him wanting to be on the road, getting into danger, lost in drugs... why this life is appealing, I see only dimly. For the most part... it's a character, not a person. Except for the person Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg knew. Which reminds me--Allen Ginsberg is gay or bisexual? And I have to read the poem that begins with the lines used in a They Might Be Giants song, "I've seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness starving hysterical..." Yes, yes.