I'm still reading On the Road and it's still not boring, so that's a good sign! I'm such a slow reader but I have really been putting some time into reading every day, and I am trying to finish it this weekend because I am doing a project on Jack Kerouac.
So far in the book, Sal, the main character, has been traveling around to a variety of cities. Every time a city becomes monotonous to him (which happens often), he moves on to a new city. He is perpetually low on money, and although I feel he is trying to convey a message of self-reliance and general independence, he certainly depends on the little money he has, and is always borrowing money, stealing groceries, or compromising his comfort for the sake of saving money so that he can have more--to spend mostly on whiskey. Right now he has a job picking cotton for which he gets paid $3 per 100 pounds of cotton or something equally as meager. In those days, I suppose the dollar had greater value, but even then it was a low sum. At this point, it seems he would do anything to earn a buck. Perhaps I should explain why: he is in "Frisco" and has met a girl named Terry whom he thinks he loves. They are bored of Frisco and want to move on to another city (the name of that city is escaping me right now but I think it's another big city that would not easily bore the average Fort Wayne resident) but neither of them have any money or a place to stay, since their last business venture involved selling manure with some sketchy friends of Terry's. So now they live in a tent for $1 a day and pick cotton from dawn until dusk (some locals shared with them that the early morning dew makes the cotton heavier and therefore more lucrative). I hope soon they will make enough so that they think they can leave this boring arrangement, because I don't foresee there being much to write about in this particular situation.
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