I snagged a copy of this book last year during its 50th anniversary, which I didn't know at the time, from a trendy bite-sized version of a mainstream bookstore in a Seattle airport after three days of job interviews. Never got around to it cause I ended up moving to Seattle so the book sat on the shelf for a year waiting for me to return. After reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" I needed a change of pace so I decided to read "On the Road" which turns out to be the exact literary opposite of "The Road" cause Jack likes to write in drawn out long sentences that can sometimes go on for pages and you find yourself reading and reading till your eyes are watery and then it's time for a cup of java, or an Ornette Coleman record, whichever comes first. So after re-reading the book I decided it was one of the best damn books I ever read and yeah I know there are types that won't get it but the best things in this spinning world are the ones that belong to the hearts of a few, at least that what Dean says but you can only trust Dean so much cause Dean has this way of saying things that can have two completely different meanings. But this book is about time and place and capturing the energy and commotion of the 50s cold war era where society was uncertain about it's future, the moral fabric of society was about to crack, beatniks would eventually become hippies, and so on and so on. Like Jackson Pollack or John Coltrane it's about capturing the commotion, the vibe, the speed at which life was then moving, faster than it ever was before, and all of this progress was made but it didn't matter cause the Cubs still hadn't won a World Series and even now I'm skeptical cause even though it's been a hundred years and Lou is managing them it still doesn't change the fact that the Cubs are born losers with a goat on their back. At least that's what Dean says and I tend to believe him cause Dean used to raise goats back in a farm around Des Moines about ten years ago before the floods kicked in and tore up the land. And so on and so on and so on....
Great Book. It really really is.
