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Paul Bryant's Reviews > The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums
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That's a completely nostalgic four stars of course. Has there been a writer whose reputation has plummeted quite so much between the 70s and now as jolly Jack and his tales of merry misogynism? But like Bob Dylan says
While riding on a train goin鈥� west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had
With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin鈥� and singin鈥� till the early hours of the morn
With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could ever get old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one
As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split
Well that was me and my pals. I know where each of them are to this day, but we don't see each other. The choices multiplied and it became no longer easy to tell black from white.
Back then we built a whole galaxy of heroes up from wild trips to the art house cinema to quarry Bergman or Pasolini from the granite cliffs of existentialism, or raids on libraries and second hand bookshops when we got to hear first about Kerouac and Kesey, not to mention Tolkien and Mervyn Peake, not to mention Emily Dickinson and Captain Beefheart and folk music and Alan Lomax and Alan Watts and John Fahey and Buffy Sainte-Marie. In those days every discovery hit like an express train and every bookshelf held high explosives. Life is not lived at that intensity for too many years. So forgive me for my four stars for Kerouac, the old bum, the old broke down disgraced beat with his typing not writing and every other reviewer on this site liking to put the boot in, and justified too, really, they're not good books - would I recommed any young person with any marbles to read nearly the whole of Kerouac's pile of typing as I myself did? NO!! Read almost anything BUT Kerouac! But my half damp eyes are staring back to that room. It was on Willow Road in Carlton. You can find it on Google Earth but some other people live there now.
While riding on a train goin鈥� west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had
With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin鈥� and singin鈥� till the early hours of the morn
With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could ever get old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one
As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split
Well that was me and my pals. I know where each of them are to this day, but we don't see each other. The choices multiplied and it became no longer easy to tell black from white.
Back then we built a whole galaxy of heroes up from wild trips to the art house cinema to quarry Bergman or Pasolini from the granite cliffs of existentialism, or raids on libraries and second hand bookshops when we got to hear first about Kerouac and Kesey, not to mention Tolkien and Mervyn Peake, not to mention Emily Dickinson and Captain Beefheart and folk music and Alan Lomax and Alan Watts and John Fahey and Buffy Sainte-Marie. In those days every discovery hit like an express train and every bookshelf held high explosives. Life is not lived at that intensity for too many years. So forgive me for my four stars for Kerouac, the old bum, the old broke down disgraced beat with his typing not writing and every other reviewer on this site liking to put the boot in, and justified too, really, they're not good books - would I recommed any young person with any marbles to read nearly the whole of Kerouac's pile of typing as I myself did? NO!! Read almost anything BUT Kerouac! But my half damp eyes are staring back to that room. It was on Willow Road in Carlton. You can find it on Google Earth but some other people live there now.
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The Dharma Bums.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
July 27, 1975
–
Finished Reading
September 25, 2007
– Shelved
December 16, 2007
– Shelved as:
novels
May 5, 2021
– Shelved as:
autobiographical-novels
Comments Showing 1-50 of 57 (57 new)
Well i think Ginsberg usually gets respectful nods, maybe Ferlinghetti too. And Burroughs a Modern Master. Jolly Jack was the big pop hit of the bunch & didn't hide behind the artful obscurities of his brother beats & so gets the critical caning. This is of course just my take on the whole beat thing.
What a stunningly beautiful review, especially the last paragraph.You can't find what you found in that room with Google Earth.
Good Reads maybe.
BTW, Spicer dreams of retiring to some pub in Nottingham in the film of "Brighton Rock" (the Blue Anchor in Union Street?).
Is it fictitious or have you had a pint there?
It was disguised, he was probably referring to the Corner Pin on Parliament Street. And thanks for the kind words...
Paul wrote: "It was disguised, he was probably referring to the Corner Pin on Parliament Street. And thanks for the kind words..."Thanks, that's one I'll look up on Google Earth, you never know when I'll need a pint in Nottingham.
Remind me to tell you about the mate I learned a lot about everything musical from.
The son of a Dutch baker.
Well, granted that this is the first of Kerouac's books that I've read, but I don't get any feelings at all of him being misogynist ...? Unfair label there, I think ...
P.S. I understand that you were being somewhat facetious - I'm merely remarking on the trend to superficially use this label, too often and unfairly, as is the case with Kerouac, I dare suggest ...
yes, I was kind of acquiescing to the generality there, but certainly women do not feature much except as pit-stops along the way, as I recall. I may be remembering wrong.
They seemed to segregate Boys Own Adventures and Girls Own Adventures in those days.
I think this is the best and most heartfelt review I have yet seen here on 欧宝娱乐 - and this book deserves it.
thanks for that Unigami....
I agree with Unigami. You captured perfectly my reflections on the times, the friends and the book.
I also talk about the overwhelming nature of nostalgia in my review of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.
I shall check out that review. I like your writing, and taste in books.
As far as plummeting reputation, might I suggest Jerzey Kosinski? He went from a National Book Award to all those allegations of plagiarism and ghostwriting. Then there's this quote from some blog post I was reading along with Steps: "Not even props from David Foster Wallace have been capable of counteracting the rapid devaluation of Kosinski's literary reputation..." On the other hand, all the black marks on Kosinski's reputation are potentially gossip, whereas Kerouac's 'merry misogynism' is right there on the page, so you may be right. Anyway, I can't stand Kerouac but I do like this review.
Thanks Drew - I encountered JK a year or so back, when I read The Painted Bird - you may be interested in my review which discusses the plagiarism and other very interesting stuff which comes out of that bizarre novel. I wonder if any others are in this plummeting reputation group...
Paul wrote: "I wonder if any others are in this plummeting reputation group..."I haven't read it yet, but James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" might fall into this category.
It's interesting that some of these falls surround the veracity of memoirs or autobiographical content.
Is it because the author implied that the work was more than fiction?
Tom Wolfe is another author whose reputation seems to have rollercoasted all over the place.
possibly also John Steinbeck?
Was Steinbeck a personal reputational thing or just a decline in readership?Humour can go all of the place.
Does anyone read James Thurber any more?
Somerset Maugham? Rudyard Kipling?
Captain W.E. Johns?
if you look at authors before 1900 it stands out a mile that there were huge sellers with great reps who didn't outlive their period - Bulwer Lytton, Aphra Behn, etc etc.
You both are way out of my reading sphere to date. I invested quite a few years with my head buried in Taylor Caldwell and Sidney Sheldon. I have a "to read" list that I have slim hope of getting through in this life. Somerset Maughm and Jame Thurber to mention only a couple on my list. I am inspired by your comments and reviews. Can't say that I think too much of Frey. By putting the autobiographical tag on his work he likely caused some folks real harm.
Steinbeck's reputation somewhat took a hit in my eyes when I read a very credible article exposing that many parts of "Travels with Charley" was fictional.
Judi - just to mention that I have not read people like Bulwer Lytton, but I know that he was big in his day and he coined the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" much used by Snoopy in later years. Never read Somerset Maughan either.
Thanks for your reply, Paul ... and I'm not sure yet - maybe sometimes the accusation of misogyny is warranted, after all - not that this changes how much I'm enjoying JK - just been reading this: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15... ...
... and what really bugs me about Kerouac's writings is his constant analogies/connections between sex and death - if I could have a conversation with him, I'd like to point out that 'lower' organisms also die, but never developed sexuality as we know it - even life forms that replicate by mitosis still die - therefore, sex might be a relatively late development, certainly not any sort of *cause* of death ...!
P.S. I also still absolutely love Kerouac's style of writing, his beautiful flow-on sentences, and his concept of attempting to capture brilliance in writing in the first draft/without extensive editing ...
When I first read Salman Rushdie I thought he was a hyperintellectual Indian version of Kerouac, his prose has the same magical rush to it. I regret that Kerouac fixated on a particular subject (his "generation" and their thing) and never tried to write about the rest of the world.
I haven't even read this book (was planning to after reading On the Road, which was slightly boring but had a wonderful after-taste, if you know what I mean), but I really enjoyed your review! I think a little bit of your teenage reading list influenced your writing style. :P But would you really not recommend this to a teenager? I'm a high school senior who, thanks to J. D. Salinger, is interested in Buddhism. I thought I might read this book once I finally got around to it.
well, I would recommend one single Kerouac book to anyone especially anyone under 25 - it hardly matters which one, so this one is as good as any and better than most. If you've read On the Road you've done enough, time to move on, life too short for TWO Kerouac books.
They were all inspired by the same lives, anyway, weren't they?
Oh, okay. Maybe if I just read it really fast...:P
Insightful and meaningful review Paul, I must admit to being a Kerouac doubter but you had me at Dylan, thank you.
although I'm not sure I want to recruit any Kerouac doubters... I'm a doubter myself - see where I listed him here...!http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Why is the only question. Yall are going way to deep on a man that liked to hang on the beach (on occasion) and drink wine and eat beans out of a can. Dont go overboard or you will miss the bost. The books lays it out in the title "dharma BUMS". Sheesh
And to add cred to this take- he says "why, why" multiple times. He is exploring and not making a statement. Either way, the book is notable and we can agree- leads to discussion. Good stuff
You're an old bum. You're not worthy of carrying Kerouac's shoelaces.
" In those days every discovery hit like an express train and every bookshelf held high explosives. Life is not lived at that intensity for too many years."Truth. Sometimes I regret that I can't recapture the intense feelings and excitement of discovery that I had when I was young. Then I realize that if I had continued on that path, I would have been dead years ago. Though there have been some who have chosen to go out that way.
your writing sounds like karouac
I just clicked by chance on your review and now feel like you're one of the few people in the entire world that would understand me. Does that make any sense?
well, that could be. Maybe me, Kerouac and Bob Dylan.
thanks Caroline - I will sojourn onwards in hope
I loved Dharma Bums and On the Road but I can see how one could reach Kerouac overload. Luckily for me, there was a Beat Generation expo at the Pompidou Museum here in Paris last year, and it helped me put them in context. I nearly creamed myself seeing the ENTIRE original draft of OTR laid out end to end on a table that must have been 70m long!
even now I would probably have trembled in awe to see that famous toilet roll scroll...
I can relate. But Gary Snyder's poetry holds up. Hay for the Horses is still a favorite. Plus, I have a story about my highschool age daughter in the insipid 90s finding an anthology of poems and picking out Hay for the Horses on her own and the best.
it's all true. Also, like Dylan sings, it's all good.
The best part of my Dharma Bums experience was to stumble upon this review by Paul Bryant.
one of the first I wrote 鈥� almost 13 years ago now.Thanks Vlad
Great review--Jack would approve from his perch in the Catholic-Buddhist purgatory slurping down a big jug of Tokay and awaiting his next incarnation. Loved the Dylan song interjection. But, damn you, I own a LOT of Dylan's music but your "Bob Dylan's Dream" song made me log onto Amazon and ITUNES and buy even more. If you ever make it to Cleveland to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (frankly, I can't see you going there), there's a great letter written by a teenaged Bruce Springsteen--"Mom took me to see Bob Dylan tonight. She said, 'He can't sing," but I knew she was wrong!"
I'm only guessing but hasn't that happened to all those Beat guys?