![]() ![]() The “dharma” of the novel’s title refers to Buddhist absolute truth or reality, and the “bums” to the early Chinese mendicant philosophers and their contemporary incarnations-the narrator of this novel, Ray Smith (equals Hooray America?), his pal, Japhy Ryder, and their circle of “simple poet bums.” They hope, by avoiding the values and uses of middle-class, industrial society, to arrive at dharma there is also some talk about their setting out as “rucksack wanderers” to proselytize America. I should add that Kerouac has also had the wit to call his molasses mountain “Buddhism.” And without instruments-his only Geiger counter his heart. To judge by his fourth novel, Jack Kerouac has at last managed to find the mountain of solid molasses which was thought to exist somewhere between Hollywood and San Francisco and which not even the combined talents of Heidi, Pollyanna, John Steinbeck, and William Saroyan had been able to locate. ![]() Not, to my recollection, since the good ship “Lollipop” let fall its praline anchor into the fondant waters of Peppermint Bay has such a cargo of sentimentality been delivered to the waiting world. ![]()
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