wrenniesilver 's review for:

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

3.0

adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Kind of writing this review for Both ‘Piers of the Homeless Night’ and ‘Dharma Bums’,
Just cannot get away from the opening of the former:

“

HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH

Before we all go to Heaven

VISIONS OF AMERICA

All that hitchhikin

All that railroadin

All that coming back 

To america 

Via mexican & canadian borders

“

Piers of the homeless night is, in all honesty, what got me into Karouac, it made me see his name scattered everywhere. - I found many a poem that I had read and loved and never fully clocked his name. - It changed how I wrote for a while, it was just exciting. And when I found Dharma Bums in a charity shop for two quid, and I read that it too was about all that hitchhikin and all that railroadin and all that coming back to america via mexican and canadian borders, I thought “Wonderful”.

This is what I had hoped Dharma Bums had been, all this excitement, all this pace and gobbledegook and playfulness and imagery and never slowing down, and never finishing a thought with this kind of biblical ability to recount events only ever separated by “and then”, “and then”. - And he has such an incredible ability to muster up an image, like he does with his poetry, and the telling of his story through the eyes of others so hilariously.

It wasn’t. In parts it was fun, I liked the first hike that they did as a group, all their yodelling and disorganisation, the dramatics of it all as he burrows into the cliff face and the humour as he realised he can't fall off a hill and at most he would just roll down a bit. Mostly though, it was insatiable. Karouac has an amazing ability to reflect upon himself as a character, flaws and all. Honestly, he has a lot of flaws. When he goes off on a half baked Buddhist tangent to a friend of his as she is having a crisis (psychosis would lead her to take her own life the very same night). Upon her death, he seems actively annoyed that no one will just take on board his loosely Buddhist ramblings and decides to go off on his own adventure, (the premise of the book).

I don’t know, I suppose the whole time I was waiting for him to find some sort of reckoning, that might reward the reader for making it through all of that, in the end I just think he is a bit of a narcissist and someone who is apparently very aggravated at his surrounding people’s lack of self reckoning whilst himself being the least self reckoned of the all.

A hypocrite, a fool and a tool.