Club de Lectura Enjoy Reading 09/03/2017: We are going to read ...
Jack Kerouac,(1922
– 1969) was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. He became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.In 1969, aged 47, Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-term alcohol abuse. Since his death, Kerouac's literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published. All of his books are in print today, including The Town and the City, On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody, The Sea Is My Brother, and Big Sur. Source: wikipedia.org
The Dharma Bums (1958) 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! Source: allreaders.com
To know more: -
Biography & bibliography Seven minutes with the author Review october 5, 1958 The New York Times The Beat Generation