At long last, I've finished my re-read of "The Dharma Bums." It was interesting to read with Joel's critical comments punctuating the reading (I also got to talk more about Kerouac with Joel at the New Years Party).
Whether because of those comments or because it would've happened anyway, I got really frustrated with Kerouac around the middle of the book. He goes home for Christmas, stays with his parents, and gets into stupid arguments with his older siblings. That's fine, if not in keeping with my vision of Kerouac the wanderer. It gets annoying when he tries to re-cast these struggles, including his own immaturity, as a deep spiritual quest. I realize that all young folks (myself included) tend to see all their problems as being writ large; my suffering as the suffering of the world (shout out to Ben Mazer, who made this plain to me when he described Tchaikovsky as "angsty teenager music"). That being true doesn't make it any more enjoyable to read.
The ending of the book, however, returns to all the things I loved about "The Dharma Bums" when I first read it. It may have been those last chapters alone that sold me on this book to begin with. Kerouac finds himself encamped alone as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and he communes with nature, which makes for lovely prose:
"In the middle of the night while half asleep I had apparently opened my eyes a bit, and then suddenly I woke up with my hair standing on end, and I had just seen a huge black monster standing in my window, and I looked, and it had a star over it, and it was Mount Hozomeen miles away by Canada leaning over my backyard and staring in my window."
It's that, coupled with Kerouac's pure religious sincerity, that I found enjoyable and meaningful in "The Dharma Bums" this time around. A lot of today's hipster/ironic culture takes its cues from the Beats, who, it must be admitted, could be incredibly ironic. What I love and, on my initial reading, embraced about this book was its sincerity. Nowhere does Kerouac seem to think that he is not on the true path to the Dharma, always becoming a Buddha. Everything in the book, even the annoying Christmas interlude that makes plain his privilege, is mapped onto this spiritual quest, which is never doubted or satirized. I find that admirable, and worth imitating.
I close with one of the book's last paragraphs, one of my favorites:
"Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said 'God, I love you' and looked up to the sky and really meant it. 'I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other.'"
1 comment:
Greg, this post has inspired me to want to take another look at the end of "Dharma Bums." I think I would probably still find Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism facile, but maybe that's beside the point. If Kerouac sincerely believes he's on a religious quest, then that may be more important than any kind of doctrinal purity. Buddhism is ultimately about self-discovery, so perhaps Kerouac is the truest Buddhist there is.
But, he's still a privileged white guy.
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