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 scenes portraying nature are perfect in their simple descriptiveness and ignite my desire to get out of San Francisco and head for the hills and be under the stars. For example, this passage describes the peace that Ray Smith (the protagonist) receives as he goes to sleep in the desert night:

“The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I always identify with the diamond of wisdom, the mysterious roaring of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you’ve seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth.” (119)

The something we have forgotten is something I have forgotten, and I’m thankful to Kerouac for reawakening thoughts of peace in my mind. During my reading I was inspired to climb a hill that overlooks my San Francisco neighborhood and take a moment to just sit and breathe in the cold winter air on a peak away from all the busyness of the city and the things I must do. This reading has reminded me that there is sadness in this life that all our wants are in wanting of what is only fleeting and passing, like the closing of good novel that ends to be placed on the shelf, no more.

“Are we all fallen angels who didn’t want to believe that nothing is nothing and so we are born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved? … where would it all lead to but some sweet golden eternity, to prove that we’ve all been wrong, to prove that proving itself was nil …” (183)