On the Road – Jack Kerouack

"Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there."
"Where we going, man?"
"I don't know but we gotta go."

I had this quote written on a post-it note and placed on my wardrobe in Italy ever since I was a teenager. It took me a dozen years, and countless hopeless tries that usually stopped at around page 14, before I was actually able (mature?) to read the book.

Much to my surprise, by the time I was 27 I was actually able to read On the Road and, even more surprisingly, I didn’t find it dated at all. The story is made even more interesting by the fact that so many of its characters are actually disguised real-life artists (including Burroughs – and the fact that I really didn’t like Naked Lunch doesn’t mean I didn’t find his life fascinating).

Some of Sal’s trips are more exciting than others, but I had the feeling that, ever since crossing into Mexico for the first time in the fourth part, the quality of the books rises to new heights. And the final scene is a coming-of-age and end-of-an-era realization of epic proportions.