Big Sur

“Big Sur” by Jack Kerouac. This was one of the more interesting stories I have read all year. I read just an excerpt, but now I want to go back and read the whole thing. At times I felt the story was a little hard to follow, but that is simply based on the writing style. This was a story written during the 1960's when the group known as “the beat writers” were becoming popular. The beat writers had a distinct writing style, which was in part due to their alternative lifestyle.

The story, as far as I could tell from the excerpt, was about the author (Kerouac) taking a road trip with a friend to visit another friend. This sort of story always appeals to me. This is because traveling has always been an interest of mine. Ever since I was young, I have been venturing across the the globe. The next book I plan on reading, after I finish John Grisham's “The Firm” is John Steinbeck's “Travels with Charley”. I think stories which center around traveling have a higher chance of appealing to the masses because when someone travels, there is a lot that goes on as opposed to when someone remains within one location such as a city. When a character takes a journey, they go to multiple places, meet a lot of interesting people, and through the process of moving from point A to point B, the character is involved in a series of very interesting adventures. The movie “Easy Rider” comes to mind when I think of interesting adventures. There is a movie chalked full of interesting tales from the road.

I had never read anything by Kerouac before, but I had heard a lot about him. I had no idea his writing style was so incoherent and difficult to follow. This fact has not discouraged me from wanting to read more works by Kerouac though. His style is just different from others and in this case that is a positive thing.