The Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac · first published 1950
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Loose, episodic road-and-mountain novel with vivid nature writing about solitude, hiking and fire lookout life, plus a Zen-tinged look at Buddhism. It is ranked above On the Road.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The basis for the novel's semi-fictional accounts are events occurring years after the events of On the Road. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based on Kerouac, and Japhy Ryder, based on the poet and essayist Gary Snyder, who was instrumental in Kerouac's introduction to Buddhism in the mid-1950s. The book concerns duality in Kerouac's life and ideals, examining the relationship of the outdoors, mountaineering, hiking, and hitchhiking through the west US with his "city life" of jazz clubs, poetry readings
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What a delightful article. On my first visit to City Lights I bought a copy of Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island if the Mind” and a copy of Dharma Bums (Kerouac’s best book). I didn’t really know what Lawrence looked like (pre-internet days). I asked how often he came into the book store, the clerk said: “He is upstairs now”. I walked up that narrow…
on “Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Enduring San Francisco” ↗…climb of Matterhorn Peak, I wrote this in my trip account (see link in my original comment): "No other book has shaped my youth—and much of my adulthood, for that matter—as much as Jack Kerouac's 'The Dharma Bums.' [...] In particular, I always remembered how Kerouac said that the performance of these three guys on Matterhorn Peak, Morley who stayed down at the lake, Kerouac who gave up just below the summit,…
on “Nabokov in Utah” ↗In _The Dharma Bums_, Jack Kerouac actually describes one such time when he was in a fire lookout tower. It's a lovely part of the book, evocative of solitude and natural beauty but also informative of the pleasant things…
on “The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around” ↗Thanks for sharing. Just wanted to add that I too think Dharma Bums is Kerouac's best book, I really enjoyed reading every page.
on “Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Enduring San Francisco” ↗Here's my list of mainly non-fiction. The Blank Slate - Stephen Pinker Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher Straw Dogs - John Gray Godel Esher Bach - Douglas Hoffstader The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac Path with a Heart - Jack Kornfield
on “Ask HN: Life Changing Books?” ↗The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff Both offer a fictitious and simplistic introduction to eastern philosophy. Growing up as an atheist in Western Europe, I never realized just how deep the…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗All great books but missing some important items: - Candide - A Peoples History... - Manufacturing Consent - Dharma Bums - Naked Lunch/Western Lands - Infinite Jest - Something Thompson, Campaign Trail '72 maybe.
on “The Mensa Reading List for Grades 9-12” ↗…It's been a while, but I remember enjoying a lot the very early writings that were collected posthumously in Atop an Underwood, very easy to pick up arbitrarily. Other good ones - Desolation Angels, Dharma Bums, The Town and the City, Subterraneans, Satori in Paris. Those are all formative. There was another posthumous release And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks which was just a funny and ridiculous retelling…
on “Jack Kerouac's 37 metre-long, first draft scroll of On the Road to be auctioned” ↗Dharma Bums is my favorite Kerouac book, and I've read most of his. Bonus points if you have even a passing interest in Zen.
on “Jack Kerouac's 37 metre-long, first draft scroll of On the Road to be auctioned” ↗Adding in: read Dharma Bums, which partially involves fire watching.
on “Being Bored Is Good” ↗I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think…
on “Lost Jack Kerouac story found among assassinated mafia boss' belongings” ↗Exactly the same. I loved Dharma Bums much more as a book, but On the Road certainly changed the course of my life. I'd always been made to wander, but never fully understood it.
on “Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Cowley, and the difficult birth of On the Road” ↗…people travel around nowhere for no reason and do bad things" is to completely misunderstand the context and purpose of them. Most of Kerouac's other works deal with this pretty extensively (see The Dharma Bums), but since the Slate Star Codex guy (and most middle-class technocratic people like him) often have a real aversion to anything that isn't strictly scientistic, they end up missing the forest for the…
on “The Accidental Book Review That Made Jack Kerouac Famous” ↗Zen Mind, Beginners Mind The Dharma Bums - kerouac Desolation Angels - kerouac Wake Up - Kerouac Mindfulness in plain english 10% Happier Big Sur - kerouac ... Yeah I'm on a Buddhism and Kerouac kick right now
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…that their restless wandering is really a pursuit of narcissism of sex, jazz and drugs to fill up their empty inside. Look at the real personal lives of the Beatniks and Kerouac's later readings (e.g., Dharma Bums) for the confirmations or disconfirmations. Or look to the spiritual children of the Beatniks, the Western backpackers or the spiritual seekers to Mexico or Thailand (privileged, naive and ultimately…
on “The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel” ↗