Independent Reading, Post #16For my independent reading project, I have chosen to read Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I think it relates perfectly to Ernesto Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries.
On the Road is autobiographical, just like TMD. It details Kerouac's adventures as he embarks on several cross-country road trips with his friends. It was the defining work of the "Beat Generation" of the 1950s, and marked a change in American literature.
The two books share many common themes. One would be that of a quest for identity: Che finds his political and moral ideals, while Kerouac is searching for what it means to be a young American. The idea of being on a journey is very powerfully used in both of the books.
Though Guevara and Kerouac grew to be known for very different reasons, it is intriguing to watch them grow through their similar autobiographical novels. They started out in the same place: young, disillusioned men searching for something else.
For Che, that "something else" was his Marxist revolution. For Jack Kerouac, it was the cultural revolution that took place in 1960s America.
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