I just finished reading what is considered the manifesto of the Beat Generation. This fundamental book
- which remains a best seller 50 years after its release (and, apparently, that the book most stolen from libraries after the Bible!) - none other than:
' On the Road' by Jack Kerouac (1957, reissued in 2007, 300 pages)
Minimum level required: B2 + or C1
(to determine your level of reading, refer to the pages of June 09 of this blog)
The reissue of 2007 is actually a real new publication as it is the 'Original Scroll ', or along the original typescript. Jack Kerouac himself said that this roll of sheets glued to each after the other like the route he has ever borrowed from New York to San Francisco via Mexico, in a frantic desire to be 'On the Road '.
This implies that the text is raw, without punctuation, without a paragraph, and of course, without censorship (the characters now appear under their real name). This is the version 'uncut'. Suffice to say that reading is not easy: the 300 pages are linked together in one piece, without returning to the line. It never regained his breath, Jack Kerouac is followed in all his wanderings with Neal Cassidy, his buddy totally crazy but endearing.
Caution also at the bottom: Do not expect to follow the stories of young people with long hair fascinated by Oriental mysticism ... It will be twenty years later.
The action takes place much earlier, just after the Second World War. Jack Kerouac and his friend cross the American continent extensively, penniless, sometimes hitchhiking, often driving old bangers that Neal Cassidy manhandles unscrupulously. They do a lot of meetings: the 'hoboes' (you know the song from Charlie Winston - thank you, Mr. ;-), the 'Okies' (itinerant farm workers from Oklahoma), girls, many girls! This little world has not a penny, pick up from time to time odd jobs to survive, living in slums, starving, drinking heavily, taking substances ... But the atmosphere is total freedom, that his desire to follow the moment to discuss the whole night on the meaning of life, try any kind of sexual relationship, to write poetry (one crosses legendary poet of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg).
Puritan America of the 40s and 50 is not visible, yet its straitjacket that youth want to emancipate the 60s inspired by this seminal book that celebrates the great American, the friendship unconditional and absolute freedom.
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