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The Dharma Bums (Penguin Modern Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jack Kerouac
Creator: Ann Douglas
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £3.62
You Save: £5.37 (60%)
New (25) Used (6) from £2.50
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 12016
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0141184884
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780141184883
ASIN: 0141184884
Publication Date: August 3, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
great September 18, 2008
Ms. L. Smith (lancashire, uk)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it doesn't have an explosive story line but I don't think by any means that that makes the novel weak. I even envied Ray Smith's views on life and fearless attitude. Kerouac shows us how important it is to enjoy 'the simple things' in life, the things that don't cost money, and the things that are most beautiful. For me, The Dharma Bums was a really heartwarming read that let me escape reality for 204 pages!
''like a little girl pulling her brother home on the sled and they're both singing little ditties of their imagination and making faces at the ground and just being themselves before they have to go in the kitchen and put on a straight face again for the world of seriousness''
 Watery Buddhism and hippy ideals March 5, 2008
Rusty (London, UK)
The energy of this novel flows along like electricity when Ray Smith is hitch-hiking, drinking or bumming around Mexican backstreets. Kerouac writes feverishly and captures people, sights, sounds and smells so vividly that you really ache to experience them alongside him.
If only he'd stuck to this tried and tested recipe.
When Kerouac obsesses about Buddhism - the central and weakly rendered theme of this book - things lose their spark and his prose gets bogged down in inarticulate drivel. If the narrative had offered any true understanding of Buddhist teachings, I may well have embraced it more. But The Dharma Bums simply hand-picks elements from an ancient religion and turns them into a half-baked American excuse for sloth, self-indulgence and the worst kind of cultural conceit.
Witness how Japhy - the supposed prophet, genius and sage - uses the Tibetan practice of 'yabyum' (not even given a cursorary explanation in the text) purely to seduce as many girls as possible. Witness how Ray Smith seeks unparalleled purity but drinks, smokes and abuses drugs. The Buddhism portrayed in these pages is a Buddhism of convenience that anyone can dip into and out of whenever they please; that anyone can use to denounce the actions of another; that gets anyone out of difficult intellectual scrapes with a few mystic-sounding riddles...
Frankly, it began to annoy me and I suspect a true Buddhist would view this as a gross contamination of his/her core values. I almost laughed out loud when Ray Smith became so enlightened (by sitting in his mother's yard, unemployed for months) that he thought himself capable of miracles (because his mum's sore throat goes away) - but decides not to heal anyone else: "...because I was afraid of getting too interested in this and becoming vain. I was a little scared of all the responsibility." What humility!
What with the many passages of badly coined language and all these watery attempts at getting to the root of profound philosophical subjects, I found the novel ultimately to be childish and cringe-worthy.
But as I said at the start, when he's bumming around and chronicling the highways and byways of 1950s America, Kerouac's style is impeccable. That's why this offering is so amateur and polished by turns. I did enjoy it, but man - if you're going to preach, learn your subject!
 American Buddhism November 10, 2007
Rasmus Oerndrup (Copenhagen, Denmark)
In this book Kerouac deals with his own unorthodox american Buddhism and that's Kerouac at his best. "Dharma Bums" is better than "On the Road", since the author has a lot more to express in this book.
Bloody great :D June 11, 2007
D. Gwynne (Leicester UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Please don't expect an overview of Buddhism from Kerouac! This is not meant as an instructional manual.. However, if you enjoy a fantastically-paced, exciting novel from one of the 20th Century's most revered artists, look no further. Personally, I just cannot help but be moved by this book, be that in sadness or otherwise! Half the time I have a huge grin, the other a huge frown. In my opinion this is a much more entertaining read than 'On The Road', and I can't understand why it was not required reading at GCSE or A-Level. Go on, buy it!!
Worth every penny! March 26, 2004
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Man, I don't know where to start. "The Dharma Bums" is a masterpiece of the Beat Generation and a novel I will not soon forget. After The Loser's Club by Richard Perez, this is the best book I've read all year.Jack Kerouac wrote this story about his days as a Zen Buddhist and rucksack wanderer. His alias in the book is Raymond Smith, and he is living in Berkley with his good buddy Alvah Goldbook(Allen Ginsburg). Ray meets a Zen Lunatic named Japhy Ryder(Gary Snyder), and together they travel the mountains and pastures of Central California trying to find themselves and find the true meaning of life. Ray also journies to Desolation Peak in Washington and lives there alone for the summer, which is just another chapter to this amazing piece of literature. Another part of this book that impressed me was the beginning, when Kerouac wrote about his experience at the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, and spoke of Alvah Goldbook's first reading of his poem "Wail", which in reality was Allen Ginsburg's legendary first reading of "Howl", which to this day is a Beat Literature classic. While reading this book, I was constantly marking lines and passages, because some of the descriptions and poetry Kerouac included in this novel are simply amazing. "The Dharma Bums" is one of those books I will treasure forever and read over and over again.
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