Two thousand miles away, it lays open like a road

[sovay]

Driving is a way for men to be together without the need to answer questions about why they want to be together. (Drinking is another way for men to be together, and there is a lot of drinking in "On the Road." There is a lot of drinking, period.) In this sense, "On the Road" is a little like another sensational road novel of the time: Humbert and Lolita drive obsessively back and forth across the continent because that is the only public way for them to be together. As long as they're driving, they're not doing anything they shouldn't be doing.

—Louis Menand, "Drive, He Wrote" (The New Yorker)

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting piece. I'd never thought of Lolita as a road novel before. Thanks for posting!