"I definitely imagine that everybody has the sense of what On the Road is about even if they haven't read it, even if they haven't read about it or talked to someone who's read it. But maybe I'm projecting, 'cause I think that's the case for me. I figured it was about somebody being on the road a lot, probably being relatively profound 'cause I'd certainly gotten wind of this with his rich autobiographical compilation of his earlier life.

That's certainly to me exactly what it is, and therefore it's about nothing except about Jack Kerouac. He criss-crosses the country two or three times, 2½ times, whatever it is exactly from I think New Jersey to San Francisco and grappling with what it means to try to find purpose to allow yourself to remain free and not get into the routine of American capitalism. It's an interesting book.

I actually, I confess, listened to this book with Matt Dillon as the narrator. A relatively mediocre narrator, but he was good I think at naturally conjuring up the sort of mouthpiece, the sort of voice and emotional voice of Jack Kerouac. I guess the main thing I didn't like or enjoy about the book as a reading experience — or for me a listening experience in the car appropriately enough — that's where I listened to the whole thing. The book is very long, and it feels very meanderingish not that that doesn't befit the nature of the story that he's telling; but I could see a lot of people reading this book and not necessarily finishing it.

If you have any interest at all in sort of struggling to fit in your feeling of what American cultural trajectories have been since the turn of the century, I would recommend it to you. Being asked to rate On the Road is of course —"

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