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nickburdick 's review for:
The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac
I read "On the Road" several years ago, and I really didn't like it. It just seemed to ramble on and on, unfocused and without any point. Maybe I was just too young to grok it, or maybe it was because I was reading it on the beach and there were good-looking women in bikinis nearby distracting me from really focusing on it (really, how does any book compete for a hot-blooded 20-something male's attention in that situation?).
Whatever the reason, I'm glad I gave Kerouac another chance. The Dharma Bums resonated deeply. Kerouac is ostensibly searching for wisdom through buddhism, wilderness, and meditative ecstasy, but really he's searching for freedom, casting away the expectations of family and society to pursue his own standard of living unfettered by convention or habit, just like Thoreau. The writing is obviously more improvisatory and wild than the transcendentalist's, more pagan orgy than devoted prayer, but the ecstatic wonder at one's aliveness and at the overwhelming beauty of being a part of the world is the same.
The book is also an ode to Kerouac's friend and guru, Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder). Where Walden celebrates fierce independence, the Dharma Bums is more conflicted: Kerouac rejects the advice of family in one chapter and desperately seeks Japhy's approval in the next. But his love of Japhy is what gives the book it's wonderful humanity. Walden is the better book, yes, but I suspect that Kerouac's was the more fulfilling life.
Whatever the reason, I'm glad I gave Kerouac another chance. The Dharma Bums resonated deeply. Kerouac is ostensibly searching for wisdom through buddhism, wilderness, and meditative ecstasy, but really he's searching for freedom, casting away the expectations of family and society to pursue his own standard of living unfettered by convention or habit, just like Thoreau. The writing is obviously more improvisatory and wild than the transcendentalist's, more pagan orgy than devoted prayer, but the ecstatic wonder at one's aliveness and at the overwhelming beauty of being a part of the world is the same.
The book is also an ode to Kerouac's friend and guru, Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder). Where Walden celebrates fierce independence, the Dharma Bums is more conflicted: Kerouac rejects the advice of family in one chapter and desperately seeks Japhy's approval in the next. But his love of Japhy is what gives the book it's wonderful humanity. Walden is the better book, yes, but I suspect that Kerouac's was the more fulfilling life.