On the Road: Jack Kerouac (Post 1)

Throughout the book, Sal sought a chaotic perfection in his cross-country journeys but rarely had the experience he expected. From the first moment away from home when he gets stuck out in the rain and uses up a lot of his money on a bus ride, Sal fails to fulfill his original dream of constant wild exciting fun. Only one passage in the book truly represented his first dream and this was the passage describing the car ride down into the San Joaquin Valley (pp. 167-168). The drive embodied the wild fun and companionship Sal craved of both his travels and his time with Dean. The drive was perfect; all the things that had gone wrong throughout Sal's journeys were absent. They rode using only momentum (no gas and therefore no money), there was no tension in the car, only team spirit, and Dean was exciting and reckless without being disturbing, dark, or lost. The language here had a certain light, golden feel;  you felt the motion of the car as it followed curves and bumps. Kerouac meant the passage as a reflection of Sal's original dream, and used it to both contradict and agree with the idea that things never turn out as you first expect or want. The passage was an example of true fulfillment, while at the same time was too rare a perfection to overwhelm the change-in-plans feel of the book. So it became just a small moment in Sal’s journeying, but one that lingers with the reader to remind them that not all life is unpredictable or disappointing.