   '''''On the Road''''' is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation that was inspired by jazz, poetry, and drug experiences. While many of the names and details of Kerouac's experiences are changed for the novel, hundreds of references in ''On the Road'' have real-world counterparts.  When the book was originally released, ''The New York Times'' hailed it as &quot;the most beautifully executed, the clearest and most important utterance&quot; of Kerouac's generation.Millstien, Gillbert. [ ''Books of the Times''] The New York Times Book Review. September 5th, 1957  In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''On the Road'' 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by ''Time'' magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[ Magazine - ALL-TIME 100 Novels: The Complete List&quot;]  ==Origins==  in Lowell, Massachusetts, summer 2007]] Kerouac often promoted the story about how in April 1951 he wrote the novel in three weeks, typing continuously onto a 120-foot roll of teletype paper.Interview on the Steve Allen Show, 1959 However, although the story is true per se, the book was in fact the result of a long and arduous creative process. Kerouac carried small notebooks, in which much of the text was written as the eventful span of road trips unfurled. He started working on the first of several versions of the novel as early as 1948, based on experiences during his first long road trip in 1947. However, he remained unsatisfied with the novel.Brinkley, Douglas (1998). &quot;In the Kerouac Archive.&quot; Atlantic Monthly. November 1998, 49-76. Inspired by a thousand-word rambling letter from his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac in 1950 outlined the &quot;Essentials of Spontaneous Prose&quot; and decided to tell the story of his years on the road with Cassady as if writing a letter to a friend in a form that reflected the improvisational fluidity of jazz.Charters, Ann (1973). Kerouac: A Biography. San Francisco, Straight Arrow Books  The first draft of what was to become the published novel was written in three weeks in April 1951 while Kerouac lived with Joan Haverty, his second wife, at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan, New York. The manuscript was typed on what he called &quot;the scroll&quot;:Nicosia, Gerald (1994), Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, Berkeley: University of California Press. a continuous, one hundred and twenty-foot scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together. The roll was typed single-spaced, without margins or paragraph breaks. In the following years, Kerouac continued to revise the original manuscript, deleting sections (including some sexual depictions deemed pornographic in 1957) and added smaller literary passages.Sante, Luc. &quot;On The Road Again&quot; New York Times Book Review August 19, 2007 A number of inserts written between 1951 and 1952 were eventually omitted from the manuscript again and went on to form the basis of another work, ''Visions of Cody''.Latham, A. (1973). Visions of Cody. The New York Times, Jan. 28, 1973. ''On the Road'' was championed within Viking Press by Malcolm Cowley and was published by Viking in 1957, based on revisions of the 1951 manuscript.Malcolm Cowley, Thomas Daniel Young, ''Conversations with Malcolm Cowley'' (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1986), p. 111. Besides the differences in formatting, the original scroll manuscript contained real names and was longer than the published novel.   Viking Press released a slightly edited version of the original manuscript on 16 August 2007 titled ''On the Road: The Original Scroll'' corresponding with the 50th anniversary of original publication. This version has been transcribed and edited by English academic and novelist, Dr. Howard Cunnell. As well as containing material that was excised from the original draft due to its explicit nature, the scroll version also uses the real names of the protagonists, so Dean Moriarty becomes Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx becomes Allen Ginsberg etc.  In 2007 Le Devoir discovered, in Kerouac's personal archives in New York, almost 200 pages of his writings entirely in Quebec French, with colloquialisms. The collection included ten manuscript pages of an unfinished version of On the Road, written on January 19, 1951. The date of the writings makes Kerouac one of the earliest known authors to use colloquial Quebec French in literature.  ==Character key==   {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot; |- ! Real-life personSandison, Daivd. ''Jeck Kerouac: An Illustrated Biography.'' Chicago: Chicago Review Press. 1999 ! Character name |- | Jack Kerouac | Sal Paradise |- | Gabrielle Kerouac | Sal's Aunt |- | Alan Ansen | Rollo Greb |- | William S. Burroughs | Old Bull Lee |- | Joan Vollmer | Jane |- | Lucien Carr | Damion |- | Neal Cassady | Dean Moriarty |- | Carolyn Cassady | Camille |- | Hal Chase | Chad King |- | Henri Cru | Remi Boncoeur |- | Bea Franco | Terry |- | Allen Ginsberg | Carlo Marx |- | Diana Hansen | Inez |- | Alan Harrington | Hal Hingham |- | Joan Haverty | Laura |- | Luanne Henderson | Mary Lou |- | Al Hinkle | Ed Dunkel |- | Helen Hinkle | Galatea Dunkel |- | Jim Holmes | Tom Snark |- | John Clellon Holmes | Tom Saybrook |- | Herbert Huncke | Elmer Hassel |- | Frank Jeffries | Stan Shephard |- | Gene Pippin | Gene Dexter |- | Ed Stringham | Tom Saybrook |- | Allan Temko | Roland Major |- | Bill Tomson | Roy Johnson |- | Helen Tomson | Dorothy Johnson |- | Ed Uhl | Ed Wall |}  ==Plot summary== Map of journeys taken by Kerouac in ''On the Road'':  The book begins by introducing the catalyst for most of the adventures of the story: Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). The narrator, Salvatore “Sal” Paradise (Kerouac), is fascinated with the idea of humanity, and particularly his eclectic group of friends, jazz, the landscapes of the United States, and women. The opening paragraph states that &quot;with the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road.&quot;  Soon after Dean arrives in New York City, New York, he meets Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg), Sal’s closest friend in the city. Sal tells us that a “tremendous thing happened,&quot; and that the meeting of Dean and Carlo was a meeting between “the holy con-man with the shining mind [Dean], and the sorrowful poetic con-man with the dark mind that is Carlo Marx.&quot; Carlo and Dean share stories about their friends and adventures around the country. Sal describes his fascination with these two men, and others he will meet along the road, as being part of his overall interest in otherworldly characters.  In July 1947, Sal is ready to begin his first foray across the continent towards the West Coast. His friend Remi Boncœur (Henri Cru) has sent an invitation to join him, with hints of worldwide travels aboard a ship. He sets out with fifty dollars in his pocket.  Sal journeys to Chicago, Illinois. He dates the narrative at 1947, marking it as a specific era in jazz history, “somewhere between its Charlie Parker ''Ornithology'' period and another period that began with Miles Davis,” and it inspires Sal to think of his friends “from one end of the country to the other…doing something so frantic and rushing about.”  In San Francisco, California, Sal takes a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship.  Sal’s aversion to commitment and duty ensure that he does not hold this job for long, and he is soon on the road again, where he meets one of his biggest temptations.  Her name is Terry, and he meets her on the bus to Los Angeles, California. She is Mexican, and has run away from her husband.  They spend “the next fifteen days…together for better or for worse.” Sal spends the better part of a week with Terry and her family in a migrant worker’s camp. The agrarian lifestyle initially appeals to Sal, and he says that he “thought [he] had found [his] life’s work.” Then economic reality sets in and Sal begins to pray “to God for a better break in life and a better chance to do something for the little people [he] loved.”  Sal’s continued journey on the road is entwined with the making of Dean as the epic hero: Dean Moriarty, the “son of a wino”. Dean has spent time in prison for stealing cars. Dean’s imprisonment, according to Sal, is when his heroic personality was solidified. Prison had the effect of fueling his obsession with the road. What makes him heroic to Sal is his free nature, and his reluctance to tie his spirit to social demands. The decline of Dean makes up the second part of the novel, and culminates in the end of Sal’s journeys.  Sal’s travels erode into disappointment. He slowly becomes more dissatisfied with what he finds on the road, and he begins to look back on his previous travels in a more cynical way. His companions begin to be people from lower classes, old African-American men and Mexican prostitutes. Back in Denver, Colorado, and very alone, he speaks in verse, saying “Down in Denver, down in Denver/All I did was die.” We begin to confront the possibility that this journey and Sal’s hero Dean were both failures.  After reuniting with Dean, Sal begins to sense Dean’s decline and labels him “the HOLY GOOF”, when earlier he was called holy in a reverent tone. Dean’s abilities falter. When confronted with his abandonment of wife and child, he is silent. Sal explains, “where once Dean would have talked his way out, he now fell silent.... He was BEAT.”  Sal’s last attempt at finding an answer to his problems is a trip through the Mexican countryside to Mexico City with Dean and a hanger-on picked up in Denver. The travellers perk up as soon as they hit the Mexican border, and some of the novel's more memorable scenes depict their marijuana-infused introduction to Mexican culture, including a vivid (but expensive) sojourn to a bordello offering mambo music and underage prostitutes.  Upon arriving in Mexico City, Sal develops dysentery, and  Dean leaves him behind, feverish and hallucinating. Sal reflects that “when I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.”  The novel ends a year later in New York City. Dean comes back to New York to see Sal and arrange for Sal and his girlfriend to move to San Francisco with him. The arrangements to move fall through and Dean returns to the West alone.  Sal closes the novel sitting on a pier during sunset, looking west. He reminisces on God, America, crying children, and the idea that &quot;nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old,&quot; and ends with “I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.&quot;  ==Reception== The book initially received mixed reviews. In his review for ''The New York Times'', Gilbert Millstein wrote, &quot;its publication is a historic occasion in so far as the exposure of an authentic work of art is of any great moment in an age in which the attention is fragmented and the sensibilities are blunted by the superlatives of fashion,&quot; and praised it as &quot;a major novel.&quot; David Dempsey wrote that Kerouac delivered, &quot;great, raw slices of America that give his book a descriptive excitement unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe.&quot;  Other reviewers were less impressed. Phoebe Lou Adams in Atlantic Monthly wrote that it &quot;disappoints because it constantly promises a revelation or a conclusion of real importance and general applicability, and cannot deliver any such conclusion because Dean is more convincing as an eccentric than as a representative of any segment of humanity.Atlantic Monthly, October 1957.    Kerouac scholar Matt Theado points to the book's multi-layered reputation: &quot;Kerouac's most famous novel comes with many associations that work to inform and mislead the reader before the cover is opened. The book is both a story and a cultural event.&quot;Theado, Matt. ''Understanding Jack Kerouac.'' Columbia SC: University of SC Press, 2000.  David Ulin says in ''Book Forum'' that &quot;even the most frantic of Kerouac’s writings were really the sagas of a solitary seeker: poor, sad Jack, adrift in a world without mercy when he’d rather be 'safe in Heaven dead.'&quot; &quot;Kerouac was this deep, lonely, melancholy man,&quot; said Hilary Holladay at the University of Massachusetts. &quot;And if you read the book closely, you see that sense of loss and sorrow swelling on every page.&quot;[ The New York Times. &quot;Sal Paradise at 50&quot; by David Brooks. October 2, 2007.] John Leland, author of ''Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)'', says &quot;We're no longer shocked by the sex and drugs. The slang is passé and at times corny. Some of the racial sentimentality is appalling&quot; but adds &quot;the tale of passionate friendship and the search for revelation are timeless. These are as elusive and precious in our time as in Sal's, and will be when our grandchildren celebrate the book's hundredth anniversary.&quot;[ Amazon Books. &quot;Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think).&quot; &quot;Questions for John Leland.&quot;]  ==Influence== ''On the Road'' has been a huge influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson and many more. &quot;It changed my life like it changed everyone else's,&quot; Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song, and calling the Beats &quot;father figures.&quot; At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend - Kerouac wrote the introduction to ''The Americans'' - and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel, ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'', had ''On the Road'' not laid down the template - likewise films such as ''Easy Rider'', ''Paris, Texas'', even ''Thelma and Louise''.  ==The scroll exhibition== The original &quot;scroll&quot; still exists. It was bought in 2001 by Jim Irsay (Indianapolis Colts football team owner), for 2.43 million US dollars. It is available for public viewing, with the first 30 feet (9 m) unrolled. Between 2004 and 2005, the scroll was displayed in a number of museums and libraries in the US, Ireland and the UK.  ==Film adaptation==  A film adaptation of ''On the Road'' has been in the works for years. Gus Van Sant owned the rights for many years and was going to emphasize homoerotic undertones in the novel. Russell Banks wrote a screenplay for producer Francis Ford Coppola, who bought the film rights for $95,000 in 1980.Maher, Paul Jr. ''Kerouac: The Definitive Biography''. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 1994, 317. The Brazilian director Walter Salles is now heading the project. After seeing Salles's ''The Motorcycle Diaries'', Coppola decided on Salles and the production is underway. In preparation for the film, Salles traveled the United States, tracing Kerouac's journey and filming a documentary on the search for ''On the Road''. Jose Rivera adapted the book into a screenplay. Coppola's American Zoetrope is producing the film, in association with MK2, Film4 in the U.K. and Videofilmes in Brazil. Sam Riley will star as Kerouac's alter ego Sal Paradise. Garrett Hedlund was cast as Dean Moriarty. Kristen Stewart was cast as Mary Lou. Kirsten Dunst will be playing Camille. Filming started on August 2, 2010. Filming will take place in New Orleans, Montreal, Mexico and Argentina with a $25 million budget. ==Cultural references== In conjunction with the [ manuscript &quot;scroll&quot; tour] stop at Columbia College Chicago Center for Book &amp; Paper Arts in 2008, [ A+D Gallery] of Columbia College presented an art exhibit called &quot;Off the Beaten Road&quot;, curated by Julianna Cuevas and Megan Ross, &quot;a 21st century take on the innovative ways of communication and dissemination in American life put forth by the Beats and encapsulated in Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel, 'On the Road'...through sound, installation, performance, video and fine art...Artists included Greg Stimac, Diana Guerrero-Macia, Dylan Strzynski, Third Coast International Audio Festival, and Jeff Gabel, among others.  