JACK¹ KEROUAC, ON THE ROAD

 

Published in 1957, Kerouac's masterpiece captured the voice of America's 'Beat Generation', an iconoclastic² group of writers that sprung up in the post-war US as a reaction against mainstream³ social values:materialism, capitalist accumulation, passive acceptance of religious and ethical⁴ codes. On the Road describes the whistle-stop travels of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. The story is enriched by the clarity of Kerouac's spontaneous prose, yet has resounded⁵ with young readers to this day for its underlying⁶ values of exploration, experimentalism, and the (ultimately fruitless) search for true value in life.

 

JOHN STEINBECK, THE GRAPES OF WRATH⁷

 

Arguably Nobel Prize-winning American writer John Steinbeck's greatest work, The Grapes of Wrath follows the fortunes of the Joads, a family of Oklahoman farmers forced to flee their Dust Bowl home during the Great Depression. On the road to California, they encounter hunger, poverty, abandonment, and exploitation, yet also great generosity⁸, sacrifice, maturity⁹, and finally rebirth. Upon publication, the novel's accessible prose and sensitivity to the plight¹⁰ of America's labouring poor both resonated with the country's working classes and aroused the ire of some of Steinbeck's contemporaries. A true paean¹¹ to the power of the human spirit, it is studied in high school English classrooms to this day.

 

ROBERT M. PIRSIG, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

 

Simultaneously¹² a thrilling piece of travel literature and a philosophical¹³ treatise¹⁴, Robert M. Pirsig's 1974 novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance traces the author's bike trip from Minnesota to California. Interspersed¹⁵ with vivid sweeps of the American prairies, each chapter also chronicles a series of philosophical discussions as a father recovering from electroconvulsive therapy gradually tries to reconcile his own worldviews with those of the people around him and liberation from a materialist¹⁶ spiritual vacuum. Drawing on both the Western and Eastern philosophical canon, this challenging read ultimately serves as a platform for Pirsig to introduce his own Metaphysics of Quality.

 

ALICE WALKER, THE COLOR PURPLE

 

Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning epistolary novel The Color Purple won huge acclaim¹⁷ for its sensitive exploration of the lives of African-American women in America's Deep South during the 1930s. Set in rural Georgia, Celie, the novel's protagonist¹⁸, suffers immense abuse and victimisation as a black girl growing up in a racially segregated¹⁹ community. Later, her meeting with Shug Avery, a glitzy singer and magic-maker, helps Celie push back against the repressive society around her and take charge of her own destiny.

 

PHILIP K. DICK, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE

 

A novel of diffuse²⁰ influences and phenomenal imaginative power, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle challenged the foundations of American exceptionalism. Dick postulates²¹ an alternate ending to the Second World War, one which witnessed the defeat of the Allies, the conquest of the American continent by the Japanese Empire and Nazi²² Germany, and the subsequent Cold War 'fought' between the two new Axis²³ Powers. Suffused²⁴ with East Asian philosophy, and featuring passages written in stunning²⁵ Japanese-English creole, the book explores the veracity²⁶ of the reality we live in, how we negotiate 'true' or 'fake' identities in the face of persecution²⁷, and how much true 'value' can be derived²⁸ from any sense of national pride.

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