Product Description

From the author of "On The Road" comes this story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the high sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #502121 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

Review
Less well-known than On the Road, this is a similar but funnier document about the Beat Generation. Its influence, too, on the drop-out ethos of the 60s is huge, dealing as it does with drifters and Buddhism. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Glorious and Uplifting
I feel the need to point out, before i begin, that all of my Kerouac books have been lent out to various friends of mine, and none show any signs of returning soon.
not having the text in front of me, and not having read it in a while, i can really just give my impressions; this book is a glorious and uplifting one, on the road may have been seminal, but the dharma bums is beautiful. rife with orientalism before it became a dirty new-age word, the sense of calm and direction inserted into kerouac's jitterbug style makes for a remarkably rewarding reading experience.
i read this book at a time when the whole world seemed to be conspiring against me, and it became little less than a shoulder to cry on.
ps: to anyone (not directed at reviewers of this book, but on the road certainly) who judges a book by how likeable the characters are, particulalry when said characters are real people, is rather missing the point; so dean moriarty is an alcoholic bum, why does that make on the road in any way an inferior novel?

great
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it doesn't have an explosive story line but I don't think by any means that that makes the novel weak. I even envied Ray Smith's views on life and fearless attitude. Kerouac shows us how important it is to enjoy 'the simple things' in life, the things that don't cost money, and the things that are most beautiful. For me, The Dharma Bums was a really heartwarming read that let me escape reality for 204 pages!


''like a little girl pulling her brother home on the sled and they're both singing little ditties of their imagination and making faces at the ground and just being themselves before they have to go in the kitchen and put on a straight face again for the world of seriousness''

Watery Buddhism and hippy ideals
The energy of this novel flows along like electricity when Ray Smith is hitch-hiking, drinking or bumming around Mexican backstreets. Kerouac writes feverishly and captures people, sights, sounds and smells so vividly that you really ache to experience them alongside him.

If only he'd stuck to this tried and tested recipe.

When Kerouac obsesses about Buddhism - the central and weakly rendered theme of this book - things lose their spark and his prose gets bogged down in inarticulate drivel. If the narrative had offered any true understanding of Buddhist teachings, I may well have embraced it more. But The Dharma Bums simply hand-picks elements from an ancient religion and turns them into a half-baked American excuse for sloth, self-indulgence and the worst kind of cultural conceit.

Witness how Japhy - the supposed prophet, genius and sage - uses the Tibetan practice of 'yabyum' (not even given a cursorary explanation in the text) purely to seduce as many girls as possible. Witness how Ray Smith seeks unparalleled purity but drinks, smokes and abuses drugs. The Buddhism portrayed in these pages is a Buddhism of convenience that anyone can dip into and out of whenever they please; that anyone can use to denounce the actions of another; that gets anyone out of difficult intellectual scrapes with a few mystic-sounding riddles...

Frankly, it began to annoy me and I suspect a true Buddhist would view this as a gross contamination of his/her core values. I almost laughed out loud when Ray Smith became so enlightened (by sitting in his mother's yard, unemployed for months) that he thought himself capable of miracles (because his mum's sore throat goes away) - but decides not to heal anyone else: "...because I was afraid of getting too interested in this and becoming vain. I was a little scared of all the responsibility." What humility!

What with the many passages of badly coined language and all these watery attempts at getting to the root of profound philosophical subjects, I found the novel ultimately to be childish and cringe-worthy.

But as I said at the start, when he's bumming around and chronicling the highways and byways of 1950s America, Kerouac's style is impeccable. That's why this offering is so amateur and polished by turns. I did enjoy it, but man - if you're going to preach, learn your subject!