Jack Kerouac's easy going book describes a year or so in the life of Ray Smith a poet and self professed Dharma Bum as he searches for the Meaning of Life by following the Buddhist Way. Ray hangs out with his friend Japhy and other poets in San Francisco getting drunk, going to poet evenings and generally having a wild Bohemian time. The friends take a trip to the High Sierras to climb the Matterhorn and get in touch with their spiritual side. Next Ray hitch hikes across America to visit his mother for Christmas and then spends three months sleeping in the garden and meditating in a nearby wood. Returning to San Francisco by hitch hiking once again he returns to the partying and womanising (although Ray never seems to get lucky). They have a grand party to send Japhy on his way to join a monastery in Japan and then Ray and Japhy spend a final couple of days hiking on the Marin Trail getting back to nature. Finally Ray spends the summer as a fire look-out in the mountains and enjoys the solitary life. As the friends are all Buddhists the book explores their own Western version of Buddhism. The friends pray, meditate and party and there is nothing they want more than to see a million American kids with rucksacks on their backs hitch hiking their way across the States following the Buddhist Way!
Click here to see the rest of this review...
The review of this Book prepared by John Marcel
