TRAVEL | THE BOOK SHELF
Summer Reading ON THE ROAD Jack Kerouac
THE SHELTERING SKY Paul Bowles
The highly anticipated film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road is scheduled for release this summer. With a cast of young stars like Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, it is assured that legions of young people will spend their allowances and summer paychecks being introduced to the beat philosophy of the fifties, perhaps by default. Released in 1957, On The Road was a freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness style reaction to the buttoned-up conformity of the fifties. Traveling across America by the seat of their pants, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty lived for the moment and traveled wherever life took them. Desperate for meaning and fulfillment, they had nothing to lose by diving deeply into the liquid “now” of life. Similar to the beats, young people today are disenfranchised by the false promises of the American Dream. College graduates can’t find jobs, the economy has exposed deep systemic corruption and our country is polarized by politics. There is no longer fulfillment in contributing to old belief systems and ideologies. Young people are “occupying” their lives and searching for deeper meaning. On The Road is an existential escape, a break from reason and a perfect read for summer.
The “sky” is the vigilant companion in Paul Bowles 1949 novel, as three young Americans, Port Moresby, his wife Kit, and their friend, Tunner, travel aimlessly through North Africa after World War II. Kit and her husband Port are trying to rekindle their 10-year marriage. Perhaps travel will fix things or at least make them forget. Tunner, the ugly-American type, is along for the ride. As they drift through Morocco, Tangiers and eventually the Sahara desert, they slowly become disconnected from the trappings of civilization. Western belongings are lost and discarded as they travel deeper into the desert. A descent into madness, The Sheltering Sky, is an allegory of American myopia and arrogance in a foreign land and the inability to comprehend, which ultimately leads to destruction. Not even the sky can shelter us. This is a summer read that will wash over you like gauzy sheets layered one at a time. If you choose to keep reading, you will be forced to think about the fragility of your own life. But, unlike your fellow travelers, you will have the luxury of a beach chair to clutch when the emptiness become too much to bear.
PHOTO: ARENA CREATIVE
44 GREEN DOOR | SUMMER 2012