“On The Road” is a movie now. Will you see it?

POSTED BY tolly ON September 11, 2012

… because I will.

It’s not as though the book is without flaw. On the one hand, it’s an American classic. On the other, it’s misogynistic. On the one hand, the Beats were people I’d desperately like to have been friends with. On the other, I know that this friendship would have culminated with them trashing my house, swinging from the ceiling fans, and not cleaning up after themselves. Things would be broken. Somebody might get pregnant.

All the same, the story from TIFF is that the film is just so gorgeously shot, with sun-drenched California and Colorado zipping by out the window. The reviews are all over the map, but I don’t care. I remember how bold I felt reading that book in high school, and how it still makes me fantasize about taking a long, reckless road trip of my own someday. There’s a line in there that, once read, you can’t un-remember: “The only people who interest me are the mad ones.”

Kerouac fan or not, don’t you long for that measure of passion in your life sometimes? Not a Facebook like … not a retweet … but MADNESS?

I’m going to go see it, and I’m curious if you are too, book lovers. If so, and you’ve never read On the Road before, read it now!  All the things I said before are true, but it’s one of those books That Matters. You know? You can love something, and have conflicted feelings about it. Just ask my cat, who still hasn’t made up her mind about catnip.

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