"Grim land, dim land, oh, how the vastness calls!
Far land, star land, oh how the stillness falls!
For you never can tell if it's heaven or hell,
And I'm taking the trail on trust;
But I haven't a doubt
That my soul will leap out
On it's Wan-der-lust."- Robert (The Wanderlust)
Title: On the Road
Author: Jack Kerouac
ISBN: 0-014-24-243725-5
I don't know what made me decide to walk home in the rain the other day, and I'm not sure why I ducked into one of the many used-book stores littered up Young street on the way, but I did. Now I'm the proud owner of my second copy of Kerouac's On the Road
It's a book I've read before and would have read again long ago, if it weren't for the fact that I'd buried my only copy in a time-capsule in a small island on the North Channel of Lake Huron.
I'm not usually one to re-read a book, no matter how good; but this one is somehow different. Evidenced by the fact that this website's name comes directly from a passage in it, it's safe to say that this is a book that has affected me. I think of it often; it's a novel that makes me want to run out there, seize the day, and live, live, live!
As far a picking my first book to read on trip, this one seems like an obvious choice. It's bound to work me into frenzy and help get me out on the road. It portrays the sort of reckless sense of adventure that we used to chase when we were younger.
"Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there."If you're looking for that extra little push to action, skip right past the self-help section of your bookstore and straight to this novel. His passion for living life 'in the now' is obvious... and infectious.
"Where we going, man?"
"I don't know but we gotta go."
