The Dharma Bums

Two ebullient young men are engaged in a passionate search for Dharma, or Truth, the Zen way. The plot unfolds when Richard Smith (Kerouac), who is suffering spiritual conflicts amid the emptiness of middle class American life, meets Japhy Ryder, whom he immediately recognizes as a spiritual model. The novel tells of their friendship and Smith’s groping toward personnal understanding as they tour the American West Coast, going from marathon wine drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, and “jabyum” in San Fransicso’s Bohemia to solitude in the high Sierras and a vigil atop Desolation Peak in Washington State. Published just a year after ON THE ROAD put the Beat Generation on the map. THE DHARMA BUMS is sparked by Kerouac’s expansiveness, humor and a contagious zest for life. “A descriptive excitement unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe. (New York Review of Books) This book is recorded on 5/1.5 hr cassettes