On The Road Post Three (Post Six)

I’m almost finished with On the Road, and yet, despite all of the experiences which Kerouac describes in this book, the one which has really stuck with me is Kerouac’s time with Bea and her young son. Ever since Kerouac’s time with Bea ended, I’ve been wondering; what is it about this part of the book which strikes me? Maybe the answer is obvious; maybe the simple number of pages which Kerouac dedicates to this part of his journey which struck me. It may seem like a stupid reason for a part of On the Road, which has so many dynamic scenes/characters. However, when one compares the amount of time which Kerouac spends describing his travels with Bea and his eventual separation from her to the amount of time which he spends recounting other experiences which he had, the numbers seem to be highly disproportionate. After all, as a writer, Kerouac certainly has a low attention span, bouncing from subject to subject – often switching to another topic before he has fully finished discussing the first. In the case of Bea, Kerouac treats these memories with “respect”, taking care to describe each moment he spends with her and, when the two finally separate, taking the time to slowly transition to the next topic, rather than simply jumping to his next adventure on the road.

I read the “original scroll” which seems to be far more heavily influence by Kerouac’s own emotions/thought process than the constraints of the English language. Because of this, I tried to read On the Road as if I were reading Kerouac’s own thoughts. As I mentioned before, Kerouac tends to lend only small sections of the books to various escapades, preferring instead to switch topics quickly. If we’re going by the assumption that Kerouac’s words in the original scroll are simply his thought on paper, we can assume that he might just have little interest in these topics. However, Kerouac breaks this cycle with Bea. Even if this part of the book is not the only section of the book which Kerouac dedicates special attention to, we can infer that Bea and her son were very special people to Kerouac from the amount of description which he lavishes on them in On the Road.

This post was really ineloquent /redundant. I'm just throwing ideas out there...