With the rain, comes the threat of mosquitos breeding in stagnant pools of water.

That's what I keep hearing:  "stagnant pools of water".

As one who loves simile, metaphor and everything inbetween, this phrase is a gas.

To me, it relates to everything:  history, culture, friends, family and books.  All of which can become quite stagnant over time, leading to the multiplication of blood sucking vermin in the form of angst, repression and just plain boredom.

While rereading Kerouac (I've read "On the Road" five times during the past month) I came to realize that the author - as cool and hip as he was - simply does not hold up.  Kerouac has become stagnant.

One's maturation and experience kills Kerouac, dead.

I wanted to love it - again! - each time I read it.

In fact, I kept rereading it with the hope that whatever it was that caused me to aspire to beatdom (in my mind, at the very least) during my youth would somehow resurface. 

Yet, it didn't happen.

The entire narrative seemed so bloody false and contrived.  Is it possible that a vanguard novel like "On the Road" can become so powerfully overwrought that it, too, morphs into cliche?  If so, how sad!

There was not one point in the novel where I believed  a word or experience being related by Sal Paradise.

Of course, it is fiction.  I understand that.