Chris's review
The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac
Chris's review
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
Chris's review
rating:
recommended for: the frenzied
I am in a Kerouac mood at the moment. The 50th anniversary of On The Road, which is perhaps my favorite book, has made me curious about his other books. When a friend said he liked Dharma Bums better than On The Road, I took him up on it.
It's not the kind of book I would at first glance enjoy. It's about nature, and I need Claritin to go into the yard. It's about finding the inner peace of Buddhism, something that I'm more likely to scoff. But this book caught me at the right time, when I'm trying to find a little more inner peace.
Jack Kerouac's alter ego, Ray Smith, looks to his friend, Japhy Ryder, for the peace he's seeking, and he follows Ryder up the Matterhorn in California, to a friend's cabin outside of San Francisco, and eventually, to Ryder's lookout spot in the Cascades where he spends the summer alone. It's just him on top of the world with only nature and his thoughts to keep him company. I get the feeling that without Japhy he would have never been able to accompl...more
It's not the kind of book I would at first glance enjoy. It's about nature, and I need Claritin to go into the yard. It's about finding the inner peace of Buddhism, something that I'm more likely to scoff. But this book caught me at the right time, when I'm trying to find a little more inner peace.
Jack Kerouac's alter ego, Ray Smith, looks to his friend, Japhy Ryder, for the peace he's seeking, and he follows Ryder up the Matterhorn in California, to a friend's cabin outside of San Francisco, and eventually, to Ryder's lookout spot in the Cascades where he spends the summer alone. It's just him on top of the world with only nature and his thoughts to keep him company. I get the feeling that without Japhy he would have never been able to accompl...more
