The Dharma Bums in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 26, 2017 marianne rated it liked it

I’d been charmed by this book when I was in my early 20s, and who wouldn’t be inspired by stories of enlightened vagabonding at that age? Kerouac’s rambling across California was so idyllic and dreamy, and his carefree life served as an antidote to all of the serious life decisions looming over me then.

My other connection to the book was Gary Snyder, represented by the character Japhy Snyder, who like me had once been a trail worker in Yosemite. By pure coincidence, some four years after I read I’d been charmed by this book when I was in my early 20s, and who wouldn’t be inspired by stories of enlightened vagabonding at that age? Kerouac’s rambling across California was so idyllic and dreamy, and his carefree life served as an antidote to all of the serious life decisions looming over me then.

My other connection to the book was Gary Snyder, represented by the character Japhy Snyder, who like me had once been a trail worker in Yosemite. By pure coincidence, some four years after I read this book, I ended up on a crew exactly in the area described around the epic hike and climb of Matterhorn Peak. It deepened this romanticized feeling of kinship that I’d developed with the book’s group of free thinkers amidst my own coming of age in the Sierras.

It’s completely wild to me that as a young woman, I didn’t pick up on any of the cringy, repulsive ways these guys related to women, or how they are depicted in the book. This time around, I felt deeply depressed to see the sad irony in the main character and Japhy pursuing truth and enlightenment, only to witness them think of and treat women as nothing more than sources of personal pleasure and favors. I’m genuinely surprised that 25 years ago, I didn’t even pick up on this. I guess it was normal back then.

I also realized that I’d mistaken the Buddhism “lite” practiced in this book as being much more representative of Buddhism than it really was, and that fed into my romanticism of the underlying message of non-attachment in this book. This time around, I saw the main characters’ makeshift spirituality as a very butchered and convenient interpretation of a religion that none of them had yet had any significant exposure to.

There are still aspects of this short novel I love. Kerouac’s writing style is just sublime in all of its poetry, lack of structure, and flow. There is something alluring about all of the careless freedom these young men manifest, day after day, even if I prefer, in my current phase of life, to commit to things like relationships and jobs.

I’ve seen a quote floating around stating that “the cruellest thing you can do to Kerouac is re-read him at 38”. So true. And yet I’m going to keep reading him.
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