Product Description

Two ebullient young men are engaged 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, a lesson that has a hard time surviving their forays into the pagan groves of San Francisco's Bohemia with its marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, experiments in "yabyum," and similar nonascetic pastimes.

This autobiographical novel appeared just a year after the author's explosive On the Road put the Beat generation on the literary map and Kerouac on the best-seller lists. The same expansiveness, humor, and contagious zest for life that sparked the earlier novel ignites this one.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31624 in Books
• Published on: 1976-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

Amazon.com
One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac, published in 1958. The story's narrator, Raymond Smith, is based on Kerouac himself, and the poet-woodsman-Buddhist, Japhy Ryder, is a thinly disguised portrait of the poet Gary Synder. The book contains a number of other characters who are drawn from actual poets and writers. The plot unfolds when Smith, who is suffering spiritual conflicts amid the emptiness of middle-class American life, meets Ryder, whom he immediately recognizes as a spiritual model. The novel tells of the growth of their friendship and Smith's groping toward personal understanding. Much of the story occurs on the American West Coast.

About the Author
JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969) was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He attended local Catholic schools and eventually Columbia University, becoming in the 1940s and 1950s a member of what was to be called "the Beat generation." His first novel appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road (1957) that epitomized to the world the Beat philosophy.

Customer Reviews

Tresure Found
As bad as it may sound I had not heard of Jack Kerouac until very recently. In my defense he died a year before I was born and although I have always been a reader it took until now for my reading interests to expand and give me this opportunity. I am enjoying Dharma Bums a lot as it speaks of things that are just as important today as they were when it was written like living a simple life is more free than living a consumer driven one. I have even started looking into Jack to know more on who he was and those he references in the book (look online to find who the real people are compared to the character names; one being Poet , author Gary Snyder). I also plan on buying the book "on the Road" scroll version which is the recomended version.

Back to the future
Now in 2008 I'm older then Kerouac ever became. But that's not important. When I first read the book I was nineteen, now I'm fifty nine. I still love the book and the writer and the characters. Of course Japhy and Han Shan and Ray. The search for wisdom, love, poetry, nature , living a pure life is from all times: Han Shan, Garry Schnyder, Jack Keouac in his best periode, no alcohol, no paranoia.

Beatizen
This is a great example of the Beats' beautifully naive fascination with Buddhism. It is probably in my top 2 or 3 favorite Kerouac books. I would recommend it to anyone who likes the Beats, Poetry, Buddhism, backpacking, simple pleasures, etc.