I’ve finished part 1, the first 100 pages. I enjoyed it, but I would have enjoyed it far more as a young man yearning for adventure. It’s a young man’s book. That devil may care, “do it for the story”, attitude, to hitch across the United States, pick up a job where you can, find friends and lovers on the way. It would have appealed hugely to me in my late teens or 20’s. Now I just think it sounds like too much work. Why struggle? Why the hunger and depravation? Much better to have a comfortable house and money to spare. I’m an old square now, set in my ways, and comfortable with the same old routines. I can see why it’s a classic and why it changed so many people’s lives, but not for me, not now. Maybe I’ll pick it up again sometime in the future and finish it off?