Rating: 
Summary: Worth every penny!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: One word "Amazing"
Review: Many a time an author decides a novel, should refelct one's life. And we see that Kerouac contains this belief. "Dharma Bums" was a beautiful description of Kerouac's interaction with Gary Snyder, one of the great Beat poets located in San Francisco. This book, not only amazed people about with it's writing, but launched an entire idea of American Buhdism. Many say that On the Road is Jack's best book, but my opinion is that On the Road is a pop version of Dharma Bums. But that is my educated opinion, my personal opinion is that I love this book. Kerouac has been a large influence on my life. As a child my mother and cousin would read me poetry and novels from the beat generation, naturally the older I got the more I started to appreciate the writing. But through it all Dharma Bums is still my favorite (W/ Cassidy's letters to Jack a close second). I recommend this book whole heartly to any individual who truly loves literture, too often this generation gets written off as a bunch of drunks, but Hemmingway and Lost gen members are remembered as a group of talented writers, they had a couple in their day. So give these writers a chance, and start with this book.
Rating:
Summary: A cool drink
Review: DHARMA BUMS came out a year after ON THE ROAD. While the latter is the beat manifesto celebrating the peripatetic lifestyle, BUMS focuses on the beat romance with Buddhist enlightenment and the building of an inner life. ON THE ROAD was an instant, memorable success, and while BUMS no doubt fed a desire for more of the same, it stands apart, its own satisfying work of art, its own way of sending telegraphs from the heart of the beat movement. Many of the episodes are based on actual events and experiences that were still fresh memories as the book was written. Ray Smith is the first person narrator of DHARMA BUMS, a look alike for Jack Kerouac. For most of the book, he slyly puts Japhy Ryder at the center of attention. Ryder is a stand-in for poet Gary Snyder who survives, who as a young man in his twenties was already a natural leader. Surrounding them are other familiar figures from the era, including Alvah Goldbook (translates to Allen Ginsberg). They all write poetry and love jazz, women, and a casual lifestyle. They seek spiritual enlightenment. They delight in trolling for clothes in the Good Will and Army and Navy stores, they savor the simplest meal over a campfire. They are the Dharma Bums, rejecting the paralyzed emptiness they ascribe to middle class life. I really like this book. The prose is clear and concrete, even when sorting through abstract notions. It is often funny. Kerouac had extraordinary insight into individual nuances and desires, and plays them into the tension of the journey and the sorting out. He had a gift for seeing how outsiders might perceive him and his crowd and how history might come to interpret the present he was portraying. Though he is legendarily perceived as a spontaneous artist, there is extraordinary control and shape imposed on these pages. Only twice does he momentarily break his world: once, in my edition, he slips and refers to Japhy as Gary, and another time, slipping out of the immediacy of the action, he pays a compliment to a simple meal on the road, noting that even as a lionized young writer in New York, he had not had a better meal in an upscale restaurant. Those curious nanoseconds can be forgiven, however. This book is a joy.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book On Zen And Adventure.
Review: I read Kerouac's novel The Dharma Bums & I must say I liked it very much! The story is about two young men as they set out in search of truth. They are Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder (Jack Kerouac & Gary Snyder). These two meet up in San Francisco, California at Berkeley. They attend a bohemian party and poetry jamming (The Gallery Six Reading). This was the beat generation of the 50s & 60s. Japhy Ryder liked reading Zen books such as Diamond Sutra and also works by D.T.Suzuki. He was seeking his Bodhisattvas in everyone he met. Japhy would often quote Buddha: ("All life is suffering".) Their goal was to climb Desolation Peak. The solitude was their Satori. Dharma Bums is a great story of adventurer. I also recommend On The Road by Jack Kerouac as well.
Rating:
Summary: one of kerouac's finest
Review: I've heard it said that this is Kerouac's greatest novel. I still say that honor is held by On the Road, but this book is just as good. And it is his most spiritual novel. Kerouac combines his talent at writing with his philosophy of life and what you have is a powerful tool to enlightenment. This book should be read on at least two levels, as a work of great literature and as a theological tool. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating:
Summary: the kerouacian
Review: dharma bums by far kerouac's best work. a wonderful display of his spontaneous prose style and immense compassion for others.
Rating:
Summary: Finding freedom at last
Review: Jack Kerouac and his friends were a part of a group of individuals who were known in the early 1950's as "The Beat Generation." They were the precursors of the hippies of the 1960's. As expounded in Kerouac's wonderfully expressive and liberating book, the beats loved to write and to recite poetry, drink wine, laze around, hike and camp in the woods, sleep under the stars with their rucksacks nearby, and go rock climbing. Many of the beats road the rails (as celebrated by Woody Guthrie in the 1930's) or would hitchhike to get to their destinations. Ray Smith, the hero and narrator of _Dharma Bums_, does all of these things; he even criss-crosses the country by thumbing rides. Like many of his comrades Ray is a practicing Buddhist. He integrates Buddhism and meditation into all aspects of his life, whether in his relationships with people or in seeking a oneness with nature. Ray shares in many of these activities with his best friend, Japhy, who recommends to Ray that he seek a summer job as watcher (preventer of forest fires) with the U.S. Forest Service. Following Japhy's advice, Ray finds work at Desolation Peak in the Great Pacific Northwest. It is there that Ray, tasting of the elemental forces of nature, recognizes that "The vision of the freedom of eternity was mine forever." Like Ray's unique experience, _Dharma Bums_ is a revelation.
Rating: 
Summary: Kerouac is not that great
Review: Maybe I am not as enlightened as all of you, but I don't think this book is all that great. Kerouac is often completely incoherent. Much of what is said is nonsense. Further more I don't understand why everyone wants to be a Dharma Bum, they are nothing but leaches living off what others earn. It is a decent read, especially the mountain climbing scene, but not as great as some make it out to be, definitely not life changing.
Rating: 
Summary: Zen Man On a Mountain
Review: Westerners tend to have under-adjusted encounters with Buddhism, because they are usually attached to the 'idea' of their being detached-- a fallacy because Buddhism asserts the 'end of self' altogether. Thus, it is difficult to write about Buddhism in a western context, especially in a first person narrative, which is what Kerouac rather successfully has done. Kerouac is self-aware of this dynamic and creates two characters (Ray and Japhy) who start off traveling together, but become more adverse as their philosophies clash. Japhy becomes deeply attached, almost smug, to his spiritual evolution, while the more modest Ray continues the search for self, without the stringent belief system of his former companion. Readers may find it a tad convenient that Kerouac appropriate himself as the closer to truth Ray. Whatever the case, the polarity is an affective device. Similar to On The Road, Kerouac writes with ease and eloquence, and at times, profound insights. Some of the more predictable scenes in the book feature hippy parties, road trips, and drug use, for which the author is famous. However, the book is just as full of sweet, quirky, and new ideas on Zen Buddhism that are slipped in between the sentences, along with a dozen or so lovely haikus. The crucial redeeming quality with this book is that Ray doesn't become too heady or obsessed with his philosophical inclinations. He simply goes about his way, making light comments about things without becoming the author's mouthpiece, an unfortunate aspect of many books. From Oregon, California, Ohio, and the Carolinas (to name a few), Ray ends up home with his family, a failure in the context of the bohemian life he strived for. It is at this unlikely place he undergoes an experience that perhaps is as close and earnest as one can ever get to a selfless experience. Kerourac manages to write a book about truth and God without being pedantic or self-righteous. Ray is humble and friendly, so readers are not intimidated, rather, they are that much more eager to join the quest. This is a warm, hope filled, and youthful novel written by an author who embodies the search in all of us.
Rating: 
Summary: Beat Buddhist at Large
Review: This is probably one of the best samplers of the religious beliefs and lifestyle experimentation as practiced by the Beats. This so-called novel is actually another one of Kerouac's mini-autobiographies, in which he is calling himself Ray Smith. His good friend Japhy Ryder in the story is based on Kerouac's real-life cohort Gary Snyder. Rather repetitively, Ray, Japhy, and their fellow slackers spend much of the story getting drunk and discussing the very elementary Beat religion, which was merely a fractured collection of misunderstood Buddhism, counter-cultural irony, and a little under-utilized anarchism. Sure it was a weak "religion" but here it is for all to dig. We also learn a lot about how to live the unconventional life of a drifter, which may still be possible in a few isolated corners of America. The end of the story is a very impressive treatise on communing with nature and is the true treasure of this book, though it reveals a strange obsession with Gary/Japhy. This installment of Kerouac's philosophy isn't quite mind-blowing, but it can still be an enlightening read in this day and age. [~doomsdayer520~]
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