The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Dharma Bums
Book Review: Eeeha! That dharmy-boy Jack shore can smith them words.
Summary: 5 Stars
Eeeha! That dharmy-boy Jack shore can smith them words. They bounce and spin, leap and unfurl in a cacophony of tremulous abandon in your mind's ear.
The pleasure in reading Kerouac is that he is such a remarkably good, wonderful person and he is so joyous and full of zealotry and surprise. And he loves everyone, unconditionally. But there is not a hint of treacle; it is all vividly authentic but awash in kindness.
THE DHARMA BUMS was written in the late 50s, and was a quick follow up to Kerouac's ground-breaking best-seller ON THE ROAD. Both are less experimental than others of Kerouac's works, but are jaunty displays of Kerouac's famed spontaneous prose.
As with most of Kerouac's work, the novel is written in first person and closely follows events in Kerouac's life, with the identities of his real-life beat friends disguised by pseudonyms (at the insistence of his publisher).
The book begins in southern California in 1955 with Ray Smith [Jack] struggling to hop a fast train to San Francisco. He arrives in The City after overcoming some difficulties and meeting a good-hearted hobo. Once in the city, there is a quick chapter--not calling much attention to itself--about Ray's attendance at a poetry reading, which is noteworthy in that it is a fictionalized account of the most famous poetry reading of all time: when Allan Ginsberg first read "Howl." [In the novel the poet is named Alvah Goodbook and his poem is titled "Wail."]
Quickly, though, Ray [and the reader] meets the central character of the book, Japhy Ryder. [It is fun to know that Japhy is based on the Pulitzer-winning poet Gary Snyder and the project Japhy/Gary is up to at the beginning of the novel is to draft the first Chinese-to-English translation of Han Shan's "Cold Mountain." Shan's epic poem is the inspiration of the current best-selling novel of the same name, set during the Civil War.] Ryder is the ultimate, ebullient frees!pirit who whisks Ray off on an adventure, a climb up the Matterhorn (a peak just outside the current-day borders of Yosemite National Monument). At all times, Japhy and Ray engage in happy dharma banter, swapping tales and lessons learned. And back at Japhy's shack of a home there are orgies, jazz and meditation, exceptionally tasty plates of beans and bottles of cheap ruby-red port.
The book continues with fascinating similar events, all written in a lusty, swashbuckling style, full of dharma and comradery. At the novel's conclusion, a final mountain is climbed--both figuratively and literally--and the experience left me fully satisfied.
Unlike almost all other novels, DHARMA BUMS and others of Kerouac's tales are not driven by a careful, classic plotline. There is no achy tragedy that you read your way into the heart of and then hope for a nifty, surprising conclusion. The book barrels forward from the lust-for-life of its characters and the supreme genius of Kerouac at his craft of threading words.
Book Review: Excellent follow-up to "On the Road"
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Dharma Bums" is an excellent follow-up to Jack Kerouac's famous second novel, "On the Road," a must-read for all Kerouac fans. Pay special attention to the infamous mountain climb by Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and John Montgomery--lots of great imagery, language, and central themes of life there. This book changed my life forever. It also contains the famous poetry reading (where Allen Ginsberg read "Howl") at 6 Gallery in San Francisco (Oct. 7, 1955).Book Review: Failed to be powerful...or even interesting
Summary: 2 Stars
One might expect an interesting, down-to-earth account of one poet's buddhist discoveries and spiritual growth, but this wasn't done right: the characters are one-dimensional, contrived, and act like buddhist wanna-bes. (Is a person a real Buddhist if he is proud of his Buddhism?)What was a powerful and introspective journey for Kerouac, is not for the reader. I can tell that it's there, but Kerouac just doesn't get it all the way across. I found myself rolling my eyes, but still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
If this will be your first Kerouac read, as it was for me, choose something else or it may forever turn you off to Kerouac, who could be an otherwise fabulous story-teller.
If he is, let me know.
Book Review: Finding freedom at last
Summary: 5 Stars
Jack Kerouac and his friends were a part of a group of individuals who were known in the early 1950's as "The Beat Generation." They were the precursors of the hippies of the 1960's. As expounded in Kerouac's wonderfully expressive and liberating book, the beats loved to write and to recite poetry, drink wine, laze around, hike and camp in the woods, sleep under the stars with their rucksacks nearby, and go rock climbing. Many of the beats road the rails (as celebrated by Woody Guthrie in the 1930's) or would hitchhike to get to their destinations. Ray Smith, the hero and narrator of _Dharma Bums_, does all of these things; he even criss-crosses the country by thumbing rides. Like many of his comrades Ray is a practicing Buddhist. He integrates Buddhism and meditation into all aspects of his life, whether in his relationships with people or in seeking a oneness with nature. Ray shares in many of these activities with his best friend, Japhy, who recommends to Ray that he seek a summer job as watcher (preventer of forest fires) with the U.S. Forest Service. Following Japhy's advice, Ray finds work at Desolation Peak in the Great Pacific Northwest. It is there that Ray, tasting of the elemental forces of nature, recognizes that "The vision of the freedom of eternity was mine forever." Like Ray's unique experience, _Dharma Bums_ is a revelation.Book Review: Flat Kerouac
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm amazed at how many people find the Dharma Bums worth reading. It's Kerouac at his flattest. The sentences lack his usual energy and lyrical beauty, there is virtually no action and the Buddhist philosophy feels pasted on and contrived. This is definitely not a Kerouac book to recommend. Readers would to better to pick up a copy of Desolation Angels or (excepting the 140 pages of transcribed conversation in the middle) Visions of Cody. If you've already read lots of Kerouac and you want to move on to a modern counterpart, pick up Vincent Czyz's Adrift in a Vanishing City ... lyrical, experimental, hot-house writing that takes a quick-talkin drifter out of his native Kansas as far afield as Berlin, Mexico City and Paris. And through it all, he never loses his vernacular, even when waxin metaphysical. You might also try sliding over to Henry Miller ... not Tropic of Cancer, which is his most popular, but Sexus, which is far better written.