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Apr 25, 2011

Paul rated it:

That's a completely nostalgic four stars of course. Has there been a writer whose reputation has plummeted quite so much between the 70s and now as jolly Jack and his tales of merry misogynism? But like Bob Dylan says

While riding on a train goin’ west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afterno More...

23 comments like (26 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2011

Nate rated it:

So I only just started this, but just look:

"And who am I?"
"I dunno, maybe you're Goat."
"Goat?"
"Maybe you're Mudface."
"Who's Mudface?"
"Mudface is the mud in your goatface. What would you say if someone was asked the question 'Does a dog have a Buddha nature?' and said 'Woof!'"

Fortunately Kerouac's Proxytagonist du jour acknowledges this as "silly Zen Buddhism", but even so, More...

7 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2007

Leile rated it:

This was really a pleasant surprise. After making my way through "On the Road" and a few other things by Kerouac, I had come to the conclusion that the dude is a hack, and that the other Beats were really on some way better shit. I just couldn't feel that "rambling" ass style that he writes in, even though I acknowledge that it was a conscious decision of his to write that way.

I get it -- he writes the way he travels, making quick decisions and trying to be spont More...

5 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

tony rated it:

consistently one of my favorite reads. i've bought this book three times now and i still haven't been able to hold on to it. the kerouac estate will forever be the recipient of my hard earned dough.

i have to say, it's one of my top ten. not for its far-reaching insights, kerouac's intimate style, or it's lively presentation of a man who was the embodiment, precursor, exemplification, and antecedent to all those to follow dubbed 'heads' or less acurately 'hippies,' but for it's d More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2008

Selena rated it:

I got my copy in Chicago for a dollar
My friends frienzied onward toward the train
I had the whole thing read by Indiana
and I had been forever changed.

I started, for some time, to weep
about the beauty in a lonely life
stumbling back to his shade tree, Jack found
a magic trap door in his mind.

The nature, she beckons, relententlessly
dewy sweaters on sweet, green leaves
taste like tripping the child right out of me
to d More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2009

Brad rated it:

So many people I trust and respect love Jack Kerouac. They consistently praise his work to me, recommend books that I should read and even buy me his books, hoping I'll love him like they do, but try as I might I still haven't found what they find in Kerouac's work.

But I do try. Every couple of years I crack out another one of his books that I've started and never finished (which is all but The Dharma Bums and Mexico City Blues), and start reading it again. I rarely get very far.
More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2007

Daniel rated it:

So we unpacked our packs and laid things out and smoked and had a good time. Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads.

'They're so silent!' I said.

'Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sitting there More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2008

Joan rated it:

Too much bum, not enough dharma.

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2010

Ms. Fenn rated it:

Dharma Bums is for the hiker/outdoorsman, the aspiring buddhist sage, and the lover of beautifully woven syntax. Ray thumbs his way across the continental U.S. two, almost three times. In his travels, he meets hobos, family, friends, yabyum partners, Zen Lunatics but mostly he discovers a love for the essence of nature and the power of it's awesomeness. Ray overcomes some personal demons with the help and guidance of Japhy Ryder. Eventually, he decides to take a post as a fire watcher on top of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2008

Keleigh rated it:

Kerouac is innocent and rowdy and loco, unjaded and earnest, a real goodfellow. I tried reading On the Road as a high schooler and was unimpressed, I was too serious and uptight. I lacked experience. This time around I get the Zen stuff, yo, I was put off at first by his attempts at telling what is impossible to tell, but he reveals himself, he risks ridicule to show how sincere he feels, and how arrogant too, like when Rosie dies and he thinks if only she had listened to him, if only she knew w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Iz rated it:

So this is what started the "backpack revolution". Great. Except it was less backpacking, more Buddhism preaching. The main character (Ray?) comes across as a patronizing nutcase with his combination of drunken bumhood, Christianity, and Buddhism.

So he is a buddhist - correction: he thinks he is Buddha - and he also thinks he is a "crazy saint". He believes he can perform miracles, namely cure his mother of allergies, but then decides he won't perform miracles an More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2010

Abailart rated it:

Also, read. A long time ago and I gave it five stars from memory. My stars are based on fondness and not literary judgment. I had an urge to read it again. It's a part of my youth reading, so maybe nostalgia takes me back to one of the key texts of that youth.
I'm nearing the end of it. I am not convinced at all that Kerouac is a great writer in some monolithic sense (which would be imbued with all sorts of dubious moral-aesthetic imperium) but he is very good at what he does well, very hon More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2007

Brian rated it:

My first introduction to Kerouac was "On the Road" in Dr. Kaylor's Humanities II class at UNI. I found a kindred spirit whose writing style seemed to be my own (see any of my tucked-away journals of those days)...the rambling, stream-of-conscience style that people either got it or they didn't. That was in 1992. I reread it again in 1994. So it has been a while...

Kerouac isn't for everyone. Most everyday readers might find it to be a breath of fresh air but others will be s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 05, 2007

Morgan rated it:

A good read, although I did find it to be a bit pretentious and hypocritical, at least on the part of the main character (whom I can only assume is an extension of the author). While I do appreciate the struggle towards enlightenment, I feel that there are two problems with the book.

Firstly, the main character's attitude towards Christianity is the same attitude he receives from others about his Buddhism, yet he does not see the parallel, and does not see his own closed-minded natur More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 14, 2007

Brian rated it:

If you've read "On the Road", then you know what you're getting into with this one. Lots of half ironic wine-steeped philosophy, casual flings with sexually liberated females, and aimless epic adventures fueled by poetry and hip flasks of port. I read it to get a bit of perspective on the whole "On the Road at 50" media frenzy, and all my impressions Kerouac's style of writing still hold in "Dharma Bums".

The plot is loose, but the VOICE is key. As Kerou More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2011

Brian rated it:

9/25/04 - 7/10

Dharma Bums is very similar in vibe to On the Road. The narrator is a lot like Sal, and Japhy is 'mad' like Dean. This is a bit more upbeat, spiritual and nature focused. It's all about seeking truth through Zen Buddhism, poetry, nature, drinking and sex - all in great abundance. The buddhist stuff can be a bit much at times, but I appreciate the quest for truth and the focus on living life to the fullest. I liked a lot of the nature passages. The Matterhorn description made me wan More...

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Mar 19, 2009

Troy rated it:

My one-phrase rundown: vaguely interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

I should acknowledge the likelihood that I’m just not smart enough for Kerouac. It took me longer than it should have to power through the book, and there were numerous places I almost threw up my hands in exasperation and quit.

Tellingly, the most difficult parts for me were the turgid and pretentious discussions of, well, the nature of everything. Which of, course, is nothingness. Except that nothing More...

0 comments like

Feb 11, 2012

Tim rated it:

Kerouac was a groundbreaking author. He wrote stories about drugs, bums, and sex at a time when this was unheard of. He hung out with the beat poets, proto-hippies who were into rambling prose and crazy new ideas like Buddhism. And that's what Dharma Bums is mostly about, a group of beatniks in California who throw wild parties, recite poetry and discuss eastern philosophy. In between Kerouac goes off on long, painfully detailed journeys across America.

And that's probably the worst par More...

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Oct 03, 2011

James rated it:

Jack Kerouac said that "On the Road" was just the story of two Catholic boys searching for God. Maybe so, but it is a bastardized homo-erotic version of Catholicism (more so in the original 'scroll' edition). Not content to bastardize Christianity, Kerouac tells this tale of his exploration of Buddhism (semi-autobiographical novel).

I liked this book better than "On the Road." It is less rambling and more crafted. Of course Kerouac is trite and simplistic in his cha More...

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Sep 20, 2011

Sam rated it:

The book starts off well with Kerouac meeting a young student of Zen Buddhism called Japhy Ryder and the two decide to climb the Matterhorn. I've been out to the Sierras myself and enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery, it reminded me of my time up there, sleeping in the forest, waking up in my sleeping bag covered in snow. It's really beautiful writing, and the story (a rarity for Kerouac, having a story) rushes forwards. There's also a nice buildup with Kerouac hopping freights, sleeping on More...

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Aug 19, 2011

Kate rated it:

I gave this book a five-star rating. I read it when I was fourteen, my dad had a first edition paperwork (where is that book today?) and it profoundly effected my outlook on everything from that point forward. Kerouac chronicles, in his usual fantasy way (people have money but seem free from the trappings of earning it -- how do they live? We don't know save for Kerouac describing getting odd day jobs here and there). He aptly described the Beat generation that he was so much a part of and wh More...

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Aug 02, 2011

Sterling rated it:

The Dharma Bums wasn't my favorite Kerouac novel; its flow was a little too choppy for my tastes.

I did, however, love a number of pieces of wisdom I found interlaced throughout the book included this:

"Everything was fine with the Zen Lunatics, the nut wagon was too far away to hear us. But there was a wisdom in it all, as you'll see if you take a walk some night on a suburban street and pass house after house on both sides of the street each with the lamplight of t More...

0 comments like

Jul 25, 2011

Tim rated it:

A shot of strong coffee, a slug of wine, and a splash of mountain water for the soul. Funny, sad, wise and puzzled, Kerouac's narrator/alter-ego leads us along an endearingly open hearted, generous and wisely-naive search for meaning, wisdom and beauty in contemporary America through a delightfully erratic and personal take on Buddhism (of varying kinds)as practiced to varying degrees by himself and his diversely wise/eccentric cast of characters, above all the zen mountaineer Japhy Ryder. Altho More...

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Jul 12, 2011

Anthony rated it:

I find that The Dharma Bums is a tad more mature than On the Road, with Kerouac’s protagonist mindfully aware of the contradiction in his need for the dichotomous living of wild city parties and rural escapes as mirrors to the basic human needs for connection with mankind and soul-searching solitude. This mindfulness has much to do with the Buddhist philosophical theme that pervades the story’s motivation. Though I am not Buddhist, I do connect with the need for the peace of solitude and the s More...

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Jun 20, 2011

Christopher rated it:

Jack Keroauc's 1959 novel THE DHARMA BUMS is a lightly fictionalized account of the author's friendship with the poet Gary Snyder among an underground literary scene fascinated with Buddhism.

In the mid-Fifties, the nomadic writer Ray Smith comes to San Francisco and meets the Buddhist hipster Japhy Ryder. Their backgrounds could not be more different, as Smith is an alcoholic, urban East Coast figure while Ryder grew up in the forests of the Northwest and finds his highs in nature. Ryd More...

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May 24, 2011

Judy rated it:

I first read The Dharma Bums in about 1969. It was our instructional manual on "how to be a hippie." The long, late-night drug and alcohol fueled parties, the disdain for money and suburbia and middle class life, the simple foods and hanging out on the floor. Hiking in the woods, free love, earth mothers and footloose uncommitted men.

As soon as my first husband and I reached San Francisco after driving and camping our way across America from Michigan, we climbed up to Mount More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 08, 2011

Will rated it:

A story of Ray Smith--inncuous name-- who travels the coutnry high on Zen Buddhism, wine and moutnain climbing. Read our a cross-country trip from Philly to Sisters, OR.
* Found the book to be a bit manic and haphazard.
* Lessons: all of people's search for God comes in a variety of packages--the friend who kills herself as a form of contrition for flushing the names of her friend's down a toilet is comical, farcical.
Japhy Zmith's BFF who finds his Nirvana in a whimsical lifestyle More...

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Dec 06, 2010

Andre rated it:

"You don't realize it's a privilege to practice giving presents to others." -Japhy Ryder

For the last year I've carried this book with me everywhere I've went. Once, I picked up the book and read the first 30 pages and put it back in my bag that holds my laptop. But that was months ago and I was a different person, probably more optimistic about where I was at and where I was headed.

Lately, I've decided to start reading again. Now that I look back on it, I didn't More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 19, 2010

Mateo rated it:

An empowering book in a mad sort of way. I felt so inspired by Kerouac's accounts of his adventures with the poet Gary Snyder's stand-in Japhy that I had to sit out back in the rain on a soaked-gray swing 'til I had been covered with too many drops of water to count, 'til I was wet enough for every bit of the storm to have tapped me and I felt a bit mad myself, wondering what the folks in their square of the green behind me thought of the young man just sitting, sitting for the storm or the ligh More...

0 comments like

Jun 12, 2010

John rated it:

I liked this book more than 'On The Road'. Kerouac could write a decent narrative when he was focused. The big plus of this book over '...Road' is that it had an actual plot line that moved from point A to point B in a manner that engaged me. The descriptions of his travels, the people he meets, and his environment, especially the mountains, are interesting, well-done, and offer a valuable window into the USA of the 1950s.
Unfortunately, it also clearly shows Kerouac as immature, confused, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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