{"id":2482,"date":"2017-09-07T15:22:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=2482"},"modified":"2021-06-16T10:59:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T09:59:23","slug":"60-years-of-on-the-road-whats-happened-to-the-spirit-of-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/60-years-of-on-the-road-whats-happened-to-the-spirit-of-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"60 years of On the Road: what\u2019s happened to the spirit of travel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Butcher explores the legacy of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel On The Road 60 years after publication.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Sixty years ago this September Jack Kerouac\u2019s iconic novel On The Road was published. The spirit of Kerouac\u2019s crazy travels back and forth across the USA, in search of \u2018it\u2019, influenced a newly mobile generation of students looking to the counterculture for inspiration.<\/p>\n

The book, legend has it, was typed frantically on a single 120 foot manuscript (single sheets cut to size and taped together) over a three week coffee and benzedrine fuelled writing binge in 1951. Six years later, following edits and the changing of names to mask identities (partly due to the publisher\u2019s fear of being sued), On The Road was published. Kerouac became \u2018Sal Paradise\u2019, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (author of the iconic poem Howl) became \u2018Carlo Marx\u2019 and their crazy muse Neal Cassady became \u2018Dean Moriarty\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of stories and legends surrounding the book and Kerouac\u2019s life. One thing is certainly true \u2013 the jazz-like improvised stream of consciousness writing style he developed, and his search for meaning \u2018on the road\u2019 rather than in the American dream, resonated with the emerging vibe of the counterculture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kerouac inspired non-conformism, and the Beat\u2019s influence was cited in moral panics around declining values on both sides of the Atlantic. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said that beatniks, along with communists, were two of the greatest threats to American culture. Bob Dylan claimed Kerouac as a radical influence. One UK newspaper blamed the influence of Kerouac and the Beats on British youth for the 1961 \u2018Beaulieu Jazz Riots\u2019 –\u00a0 a set to about preferred styles of jazz, with beer and punches thrown. Kerouac was labelled the \u2018Hobo prophet\u2019, a \u2018talented writer\u2019 who \u2018prefers to devote his talents to exalting the bums and jazz maniacs of the New York jazz cellars\u2019. The paper pointed to British beatniks travelling abroad, especially to France, where \u2018the atmosphere is somewhat more lax, and they can let themselves go\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Beat mode of travelling, in which an outer journey was a catalyst for inner enlightenment, influenced the Hippies. The Hippy Trail across Asia, undertaken mainly by relatively well healed students and musicians in search of spiritual inspiration, was an expression of the countercultural mood. In 1973 two adventurous travellers, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, out of cash on their travels, typed out and stapled together copies of Across Asia on the Cheap. It contained advice on quality marijuana and bribing Afghan border guards. Thirty four years later the Wheelers sold up seventy five per cent of their Lonely Planet empire for some sixty four million pounds.<\/p>\n

Now, six decades on from On the Road, youth travel is heavily marketed as ethical gap years, adventure travel and \u2018voluntourism\u2019 to young people with time on their hands and the means and inclination to travel.<\/p>\n

Whilst Kerouac and assorted B<\/span>eats and Hippies dropped out of the mainstream in favour of an open ticket to nowhere in particular, today\u2019s youth are encouraged to sign up to meaningful and character building experiences for their CVs. So what has happened to the spirit of travel?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Greater wealth, infrastructure and cheap flights are among the developments that make many far more mobile that in the past. But an opening up of geographical freedom seems to have been accompanied by a closure of a certain existential freedom associated with On The Road. Travel narratives today come with defined outcomes \u2013 global citizenship, CV building, portfolio developing. Young travellers\u00a0 are encouraged to reflect on their\u00a0 privilege and complicity in the problems of the world: to \u2018tread lightly\u2019 and to \u2018give back\u2019.<\/p>\n

But there may be something to be said for reviving the spirit of freedom and experimentation associated with the Beats. For Kerouac, the world was an expanding realm of freedom within which to meet the word head on, unencumbered by the heavy moral baggage of others. Such footloose ambition is today challenged by the threat of terrorism, and also through well intentioned but ultimately conservative counsel to \u2018check your privilege\u2019 and avoid \u2018cultural appropriation\u2019. \u2018Mass\u2019 and \u2018alternative\u2019 tourists alike are subject to criticism that they damage cultural diversity and the environment, or that they are simply na\u00efve if they believe that they can help others or change themselves.<\/p>\n

By contrast, in Dharma Bums Kerouac writes \u2018I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted\u2019\u00a0 – not a bad motto for students who seek to make their mark in the world sixty years on from On The Road.<\/p>\n

Jim Butcher is a Reader in the School of Human and Life Sciences<\/a>, and the author of 3 books on the politics of leisure travel<\/p>\n

He will be speaking in a debate on travel and Kerouac\u2019s legacy at the Battle of Ideas<\/a> on October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Butcher explores the legacy of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel On The Road 60 years after publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":2486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,3902,1357],"tags":[2013,2005,2009,2001,1210,1997],"class_list":["post-2482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-research","category-society","tag-gap-year","tag-jack-kerouac","tag-on-the-road","tag-road-trip","tag-tourism","tag-travel"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Jeanette Earl","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2017\/09\/American-road-trip.jpg","postExcerpt":"Jim Butcher explores the legacy of Jack Kerouac's iconic novel On The Road 60 years after publication.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8001,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482\/revisions\/8001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}