Customer Reviews

The Dharma Bums

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Kerouac may be best known for On The Road, but this is by far my favorite of his books. Looking back, it has probably been the most influential book on my life. The story is just so honest and original and beautiful, it confirmed my desire to be a writer when I read it as a sophomore in high school. But not just a writer. It made me want to live my life without shackles, free like Kerouac's character Japhy (Gary Snyder), climbing mountains and writing poetry. It captures the Boho 50's era like no other, especially in the Bay Area. Finally, it inspired me to learn more about Buddhism and eventually spend a year in a Buddhist monastery. I've never met someone who has read The Dharma Bums and hasn't loved it. It's one of the best books of the 20th century.

By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha

_When I reread this book after so many years I found myself wondering if we were ever really like this. The innocence, the lack of pretention, the sincerity - it is so totally alien from what this society has become. Sure Jack Kerouac had his problems with booze and relationships, but at his core there was somehow this absolutely blinding glare of innocent purity. Here was a man whose primary concerns were always the meaning of life, the nature of god, the suffering of innocents, whether he was boozing it up in a bar, hopping a freight, or hold up in a look-out cabin on top of a mountain. Jack Kerouac was a true poet in a world were poetry was in abysmal decline both before and after. Jack Kerouac's life was a spontaneous living poem- the dionysian poem of the living holy fool.

_This is my favorite of all Kerouac's novels. I've had people comment about how I must have patterned a huge part of my early life on this book. I remember thinking so too, except all my wandering and wondering took place before I even heard of Jack or his books....