On The Road - Post 2

2. Can you tell Kerouac loved language? Reflect on where in the novel this love-of-language is most evident and explore its impact on the telling of the story.

Kerouac's love and passion for language is apparent throughout this text. Although he speaks bluntly and with a matter-of-fact tone much of the time, "Sal" takes every appropriate opportunity to use rich, descriptive language. Thus, he is able to balance honest writing with colorful language to keep the truth from being boring. The following is an obvious example: "Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries." This description, especially "love and Spanish mysteries" is bordering on forced, and even sounds almost overdone, to the point of being overindulgent for his obsession with adjectives. However, it perfectly exemplifies Kerouac's love for description. I can almost picture him hurriedly scribbling down sentence after sentence; he is never at a loss for words.

Kerouac's writing often brings to mind a child excitedly telling a story, in that he is desperate to recount his story and get on to the next thrilling part, and the next, and so on. His technique often entails a plain introduction sentence followed by a much more descriptive account of the already mentioned event. The sentence "Meanwhile, everything began to collapse with Remi and Lee Ann and me." is followed by a romantically embellished paragraph. The paragraph could function perfectly well on its own, but Kerouac seems to be anxious to get the message across first.

Time seems to speed up and suddenly slow down in this text. Kerouac finds places to go overboard with adjectives, and then moves on and speeds past other moments to find another opportunity for colorful description. This alternating style keeps this honest writing from getting monotonous.