Latching onto Book, Film, the Road, and Obsession

I’VE been reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and I can’t seem to latch onto it. I was all set to like the book, which is my first venture into the intriguing Beat Generation (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, McClure, and the like). But instead of being hooked, I find myself drifting every time I try to settle down to read it.

I don’t find Dean to be anything close to the intriguingly rebellious character that I think we’re supposed to idolize. I don’t really get Sal’s deal, either—and to think, we’re looking at everything through his point of view. All the other characters keep slipping my mind.

Maybe I’m just not at a point in my life where I feel like vicariously living a life on the road. But if the book truly spoke to me, would that even matter? Wouldn’t the writing draw me in?

I’m sure I’m just distracted with other stuff going on. All the times my mind wander while reading, they wander to the same places, to the same people. It’s beyond Kerouac’s writing, which I want to come around to appreciate eventually.

I’m going to finish the book; I bought it so might as well. Then I’ll read it again in the future, when scrapping for money, driving cross-country, and finding another girl to hit on become the all-consuming elements of my life.

As for now, my working class allowance merits little complaining considering the many struggling in poverty, public transportation remains as my way around the city, and as for girls…well…OK, the book got one out of three.

…………

THOUGH it was nice to see Martin Scorsese turn away from epic proportions (Gangs of New York, The Aviator) to latch back onto the raw street stuff of his earlier years with his latest, The Departed, the best film I watched this sem break was Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige.

I heard a lot of good things about the film before watching it. Nolan’s great filmmaker (Memento, Batman Begins), but I’m not one for period films. Scarlett Johansson was the main draw for me.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually liked it. The look of the film was superb and everything, but it was undoubtedly a film driven by an intelligent script. As Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman were locked in a deathly intense rivalry, we latched onto the dark depths of an obsession with greatness.

The Prestige is a definite must-see this year.