I have always found the hitchhiker's story to be an interesting one, or at the very least entertaining. For this reason I think I am going to enjoy On The Road, but as of right now I am a bit disappointed. I want to care about the main character- to be fascinated and inspired by him, but regardless of how I picture the narrator standing in various weather conditions waiting for a ride I seem to only care about the situation he is in and never the narrator himself. I attribute this in part to the fact that the narrator is barely characterized thus far, not even being given a name, and at a certain point the narrator actually says "I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me", telling us that he is a follower- he is the supporting character who follows the main character around. This gives me the impression that he is less interesting than those around him, and may continue to be. I do think that him being a writer might make for some interesting commentary or interaction or hopefully characterization later on in the work, but right now I am far more interested in Dean. Dean is clearly meant to be the interesting character, in fact I am tempted to say that Dean is meant to be seen as the main character, and the narrator is just the lens we see him through. If that is the case, this book would be a pretty fun read; it would be interesting to read a book in which the reader sees the main character through a boring supporting character.
So over the course of writing this response to what I have read, my thinking has evolved, I am now less disappointed in the work for having an uninteresting main character with an interesting story, and I am now more hopeful that the main character is actually Dean and this is Dean's story told through a mundane supporting role's eyes. If that is indeed the case, then I am greatly looking forward to what is yet to come; if that is not the case, I am looking forward to how the author makes the narrator more interesting. Either way I think I am going to enjoy On The Road, but I do hope it is the former.
I completely agree with Felipe on the point that Dean Moriarty and Carlo Marx are more interesting characters. However, I would not call the narrator an uninteresting character. I believe that an uninteresting person would not be traveling across the country. In my opinion, someone who is uninteresting is a person who sits at home all day doing nothing. The narrator, on the other hand, is an avid writer with an obvious interest in exploring America’s west. Though his friends may be more interesting than him, that does not make him a boring character. Moreover, I do not believe that the novel would be that much better if Dean Moriarty ends up being the main character in the novel. If anything, I believe that the narrator can be a dynamic character that changes as a result of his trip far west. However, in saying that, I would love to see Dean Moriarty and Carlo Marx come back into play, as they took major roles in the first two chapters of the novel. Hopefully, On the Road will continue to exceed my expectations by offering the audience an interesting point of view of a man who travels alone out west. To continue, I do not really understand how Felipe could consider a spontaneous character like the narrator of On the Road to be uninteresting, but I do see how he could find Dean and Carlo to be more compelling characters.
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