Customer Reviews

Some of the Dharma

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I agree with most of my fellow reviewers that the Kirkus review is rather harsh. To attack Kerouac on the basis of his alcoholism, his Catholic upbringing, and his lack of being able to live up to the aspirations of Buddhism is more a critique of him as a person rather than him as a writer. This book (if you read the foreword) was more a series of personal notes to Allen Ginsberg, rather than a finished piece of work for publication. To compare it with, say, 'On the Road,' is like comparing Camus's 'First Man' with 'The Stranger'- one is a preliminary sketch, the other a polished novel. If you read this, read it as a study of someone who was struggling to understand buddhism within his own personal context, not as a manual to buddhism. Read it as poetry, not scripture. Value it as a personal journey, a personal struggle. If you want to view it as a text on buddhism primarily, view it as something which enriches your own faith and desire for liberation.

Learning to benefit from all things, good or bad, is part of the path to liberation. Learn to benefit from this, and you WILL benefit from it.

By way of providing a balance to Kirkus' rather grouchy review of Kerouac's "Book of the Dharma":

Kerouac's being unable definitively to seperate Buddhism from Hinduism and Taoism is hardly his fault. Early Hinduism is the religion which lies behind Buddhism, and all Vedic faiths. Tibetan Buddhism adopted and adapted Mongol imagery and concepts, and Sino-Japanese Buddhism is infused with Taoism and Confucianism. As for its connection with Catholicism, this is the religion Kerouac was brought up in, and which he struggled to reconcile with Buddhism for many years. It left him, perhaps with an overexaggerated sense of the first Noble Truth: "All life is suffering". The Buddhist text that Kerouac first encountered, Dwight Goddard's "A Buddhist Bible," is an eclectic collection of scripture drawn from all of these Buddhist traditions.

Christ claimed a path to redemption from suffering - so did Buddha - room for comparison at least?

Attacking Kerouac for his alcoholism is rather below the belt - can't a drunk be religious? Can he not aspire above his own weakness? Anxious and neurotic this text may be, even interminably confused, but then so is John Bunyan's "Confessions": at least it's vexedness indicates Kerouac's engagement with serious metaphysical questions.

Even so, one for die hard fans, I should imagine. B.Moderate.

This is one of my all time favorite books. It's a journal that spans years, with thoughts that are illuminating. Not a book to be read cover to cover, it's a companion in a journey, and it will spark the light of truth in you...it's certainly added to my life and growth, for which I'm thankful. No one is perfect, and Kerouac never claimed to be. This is a record of his struggle and search for enlightenment. Should those who judge his method and life ever attain 10% of what this man achieved, it will surprise me. "The Book of Pure Truth consists of a bunch of mirrors bound in a volume". You tell 'em Jack !

Obviously "kirkus" translates to incompetent moron. I have never witnessed a more inept, bungling, and egocentric review as the editorial review above. Obviously this writer is an authority on religion. Perhaps he/she could enlighten us all with the actual origin of life. Religion is based on interpretation, and those that criticize others only display there own insecurities and arrogance. Kerouac is best experienced when read or viewed with an open mind. His sense of freedom and spontaneity are felt in his words and his life. He is one of the most widely read and profoundly influential writers in the American canon. While it is an assumption, the aforementioned critic is not such a celebrated writer, and his review gives too much credit to himself, and it gives too little to Jack Kerouac. {I just felt the need to defend Kerouac from opinionated, insubstantial, religious criticism}

He did not realize these notebooks would be published, so this is Kerouac at his very core. I have been an avid, hungry devotee of Kerouac's work not since reading On the Road, but since getting my hands of a copy of THIS BOOK. Some of the Dharma is the most inspirational book I own - dare I say even more inspiring than my Bible - his random poems about everything ranging from vulgar liquids all conjoined in your earthly body, to the serious issue of the Boddhisatva... Every writer, reader, English teacher, English learner should all read at least parts of this book at some point in their lives.

Some of the Dharma, a maze of journal entries, prayers, thoughts, meditations set in a typeset facsimile of the original manuscript by the author is so vast and informed, it is hard to key in on the text with just a perusory glance in time for the hasty review written anonymously by Kirkus.What it does is reveal Kerouac for the wandering soul he truly was. He was set apart from the writers of his time (other than his fellow Beat writers),so that his Buddhist texts were rejected in 1950's America.They are every bit as profound, mystical, and holy as those who practice Buddhism on a lifetime basis. Kerouac was an experimenter in his prose, his life, and his faith. That all religions tie into one Universal belief succintly displays Kerouac's objective in this book. It develops Kerouac's vast grasp of intellect in ways that On the Road doesn't. That is the true heart and gem of this book

Wow! I am soooo glad that this book was finally published- and that it was executed so well! This is more than perhaps the all time best example of personal spiritual exploration by a major writer- it is a storage battery of spiritual energy. I've never seen a work this dense with meaning- both in terms of what is in the lines, between the lines, and in mystic juxtaposition between the two. It is a shame that probably not one American in thousand will "get" it- and even fewer outside the culture.

It is obvious to me that Jack understood the Dharma. He also had the concept of Tao intuitively nailed. I just can't understand why he said that he wasn't a Mahayana Buddhist- a person with his great heart and soul was hardly "cold enlightened." It also hit me for the first time that "beat" means "extinguished" in the sense of approaching Nirvana.

I had thought that I had read everything that Kerouac had published (except for that first straight-jacket of a Wolfe-clone novel) but this is perhaps the best of all. Think of it as _The Scripture of the Golden Eternity_ raised to the third power. Every time I pick this book up I find something new. It is no doubt going to occupy me for years and years to come.

I will agree that the Kirkus review is HARSH. It is sad to see someone with little "heart" for Kerouacs work. The main thing we must look to is the complete GENIUS behind Kerouacs works. One thing that will LAST is Kerouacs ability to FEEL everything around him--creating--amazing--almost believable fiction. ...And maybe I will indulge in reading On the Road...AGAIN!

In all consideration, this Kirkus fellow sees Jack's work as something to be embarrassingly indulged in. I disagree wholeheartedly. Jack Kerouac could not be more insightful. He seems to express all the random feelings one would have in life. He explores language and snakes through the river of life in a completely authentic way. Some of the Dharma is just one example of his many masterpieces. To read any one of Kerouac's books is an adventure into a mind that not only wants to experience life but wants to be drunk and sick with it.

What is so unusual and valuable about this book is that it represents a prolonged experiment in inventing fresh ways to express metaphysical ideas in English prose and poetry. Most philosophers are poor prose stylists and most prose stylists steer clear of weighty metaphysics. But in this book we find a passionate, inventive prose stylist deeply engaged with pondering such topics as the One and the Many, substance and the composite nature of objects, time and space, the relation of thought and perception to reality, the nature of desire and happiness, mortality and immortality. He approaches these topics through a starting point in Buddhism but going wherever his mind takes him. The book contains many gems of expression as Kerouac pours his ponderings into his strange, striking prose. To criticize this book because Kerouac's scholarship is weak is to miss its point.