I have very mixed feelings about On the Road.

On the one hand, it was written in the 50s and you can tell. It is rampant with sexism and out of date derogatory language. Mexicans are either exoticized or outright fetishized. The noble savage is a constant theme. Dean's paedophilia that is never exactly enacted on but also not at all subtle is for some reason just continously glossed over by Sal. Though that might be because he has zero issues with sleeping with teenagers. On top of all that, Sal is so painfully, clearly in love with Dean, but in the way of someone who's so deeply closeted that even while he's insisting he's a heterosexual man who can't possibly be any kind of gay, he's also writing about the women he claims to love in the most passive, surface level way while writing about Dean and his other bros with so much detail that it borders on worship about how great and attractive and well endowed he is and I'm just sitting here going, "uh huh. Tell me again about how straight you think you are."

AT THE SAME TIME, I understand why this became a classic, especially with white men bored with their mundane lives. Kerouac does have a knack for description and he writes in the way of that charismatic guy at the party telling you about all his adventures and it makes you want to go on one yourself. It's also very much a love letter to the beatnik era and a reflection of wild, reckless youth ending in the quiet settling down that most people fall into. The way Sal and Dean part for the last time is a great depiction of the people who just fall in line with that settling and the people who are eaten up by it. Sal will clearly be ok as a settled 30-something, Dean will forever feel restrained by it.

I'm glad I read On the Road even with all its flaws. I won't say it's my favorite by any means, but I won't fault the people who do because in a way I get it.