I fail to enjoy a fiction book without a few good, strong insecurities thrown in there, especially a book about something I can relate to so easily – travel, spending time alone, and – well, really – just living life.The Dharma Bums is a novel (1958) by Jack Kerouac He remembers just the grand, the great, the swell parts of the trip – the great people he met (not how bad they smell), the great food he cooked (not how unsure he was if it actually finished properly before sharing it with his new friend), the cool bag he got (not how heavy it was), and the ample alone time he had on the top of the mountain (now how lonely it got sometimes, not how unsure he was about whether or not he’d do the job one-hundred-percent correctly). Perhaps, in the end, Kerouac just has the optimism and the positivity that I can’t grasp no matter how hard I’ve been trying as I’ve been traveling around the world for months. His travel portions, in particular, fall to describe in detail some of the worst spots – standing for hours, waiting on a car to pass in the middle of the Deep South.
He tries to make his lifestyle look easy by only writing the surface thoughts, even just the surface memories. He leads the reader on with his carelessness, his carefree thoughts. When the girl jumps to her death, Kerouac spares not a whole lot of space to her fate, its causes, and his role in the whole ordeal. Still, though, I feel like there must have been more to the situation – life can’t be as simple as he writes it to be.
When he describes his argument with his friend over whether to go to the Buddhist lecture or just to go out and get drunk, he throws is a few personal thoughts, a bit of some internal conflict within him in relation to his friend.
Kerouac’s tone feels real and easy to relate to he misleads the reader with his one-dimensional thoughts, though. Somehow, though, I found this book over-the-top, overdone, and almost a bit smug. I’m a bit on the experienced side when it comes to independent travel. I’m fascinated by all the Buddhist talk I love the thought of living on the edge of society in a wildly simple manner. As for myself, I can’t decide if I love Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums and want to reread it right now or if his idealistic, pleasant-sounding story comes off as a bunch of unrealistic fluff that doesn’t amount to much in the world I feel that we all live in (then and now). I can think of a few friends in particular for whom I believe this book must have been life-changing.
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