Ray fawns over him as well-he frequently expresses his deep admiration and almost romantic love for Japhy, who teaches him about the history of Buddhism and the spiritual value of spending time in the wilderness. Women also fawn over him, although he arguably mistreats his girlfriends Princess, Polly, and Psyche. In particular, they look up to his physical fitness, survival skills, and masculine self-confidence. In fact, because of this vision, Japhy’s friends (especially Ray and Alvah) view him as a kind of heroic messiah figure capable of transforming the world. Similarly, whereas Ray views Buddhism in strictly individual terms, Japhy is interested in how it can change the world: he disdains American culture’s consumerism and dreams of launching a “rucksack revolution” against it by getting thousands of young men to live as Dharma Bums, traveling around and meditating. In fact, near the end of the book, his dream comes true: he leaves to go study Buddhism in a Japanese monastery. He reads and translates Chinese and Japanese poetry, including the works of Han Shan, and he dreams of going to Japan. Whereas Ray really only cares about Buddhism as a spiritual practice, Japhy is far more interested in its historical and literary traditions, especially in China and Japan.
Then, he started writing poetry and living as a Dharma Bum, wandering around the vast open spaces of the American West and living off the land while studying and practicing Buddhism. Raised in a remote corner of the Oregon woods, Japhy studied Zen Buddhist philosophy and American Indian mythology in college. In fact, even when Japhy isn’t physically present, he’s almost always in Ray’s thoughts. But in wildly Bohemian San Francisco, with its poetry jam sessions, marathon drinking bouts and experiments in 'yabyum', they find the ascetic route distinctly hard to follow.Japhy is an alias for Gary Snyder, the poet, mountaineer, and scholar of Buddhism whose relationship with narrator Ray Smith (Jack Kerouac’s alias) is arguably the novel’s central focus.
Ray Smith and his friend Japhy, along with Morley the yodeller, head off into the high Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude and experience the Zen way of life. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Ann Douglas.įollowing the explosive energy of On the Road, the book that put the Beat Genration on the literary map - and Jack Kerouac on the bestseller list - comes The Dharma Bums, in which Kerouac charts the spiritual quest of a group of friends in search of Dharma, or Truth. Jack Kerouac's classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of natureĪ witty, moving philosophical novel, Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums is a journey of self-discovery through the lens of Zen Buddhist thought.
0 kommentar(er)
