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Some of the Dharma
Written during a critical period of his life, Some of the Dharma is a key volume in Jack Kerouac's vast autobiographical canon. He began writing it in 1953 as reading notes on Buddhism intended for his friend, poet Allen Ginsberg. As Kerouac's Buddhist study and meditation practice intensified, what had begun as notes evolved into a vast and all-encompassing work of nonfiction into which he poured his life, incorporating poems, haiku, prayers, journal entries, meditations, fragments of letters, ideas about writing, overheard conversations, sketches, blues, and more. The final manuscript, completed in 1956, was as visually complex as the writing: each page was unique, typed in patterns and interlocking shapes. The elaborate form which Kerouac so painstakingly gave the book on his manual typewriter is re-created in this typeset facsimile.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
53 people are currently reading
1242 people want to read
About the author
Jack Kerouac
359 books11.5k followersJean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.
Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 9, 2009
This book is always around and I’m always thumbing through it . For it’s little meditative Pearls . If you’re down with Jack. This book is for you. Jack’s’ Paradox between Catholicism and Buddhism, is what I really dig about it. But its got everything from fragmented letters to his sketches.
July 14, 2010
This book is "my bible". I have reread it several times, always finding a new and startling truth in it. Anyone that has read Kerouac would really enjoy this; it is a book to own and read over and over, to cherish and to return to as ones' life situations change and mature.
July 7, 2014
Amazing...as someone mentioned, a chaotic voyage through Kerouac's mind!
A happy dream!
A happy dream!
November 21, 2009
i guess this book is pretty much for people who have made an intense study of Kerouac's work. it isn't really a text. it is a struggle, a long chaotic voyage through Kerouac's mind, over a lengthy period of time.
I treat it aphoristically. I treat it like a field of free association and do not read it methodically--i think that would be counter-productive.
I treat it aphoristically. I treat it like a field of free association and do not read it methodically--i think that would be counter-productive.
April 19, 2020
Will I ever finish this tome? But I did! Seven years later. When I ordered this book in 2010 from Amazon, I was surprised at the size of it. A small brown telephone book arrived at my door. While I polished off a few of the ten 'books' of it earlier on in the piece, life got in the way and it languished on the bookshelf waiting for opportunities of vast time spans to complete it. Which rarely came.
So I picked book after book off in close to a decade. I'm truly amazed at how some reviewers appeared to have treated it like a normal sized book. Neither was it normal sized nor was it normal. I needed to complete this in order to have completed everything Kerouac had ever written. This book is crucial to this, not simply because it was written by him but because it gives the reader so much more of the writer than almost any other book of his he'd written. While book of dreams gave us his subconscious, Some of the Dharma showed us his day to day thoughts on spirituality, a great underpinning of most of his novels and therefore an important viewpoint. It was written prior to his breakthrough with On the road and gives the reader insight into the suffering Kerouac was going through as a rejected artist.
There are so many things to like about this book; the typescript for starters is visually entertaining. Kerouac typed it into various shapes and patterns which form individual thoughts and sentences, giving the reader a sense of the playfulness and experimental character of the author as well as the private aspects of this particular book. The writing is a very candid, very personal journey. He seems to give no mind to ensure that what he writes is accurate to Buddhism, instead churning out his own nihilistic versions and ideas on it. There are many Buddhist ideas straight out of sutras and religious texts mixed in with his own interpretations. Sometimes you find yourself cringing at some of the things he writes, but that is also what makes it important. It's an honest account of his personal exploration into Buddhism and gives an internal viewpoint of important books (Diamond Sutra for example) he was reading in his novels.
I was often laughing at a lot of things he wrote. He doesn't take himself too seriously, even when he does. It is filled with his ideas on writing, friends plans, disillusionment and even his battle with alcohol.
Sometimes his reiteration on Buddhist thought got a little boring, coupled with the sheer size of the work and its total lack of structure. It is after all a set of ten notebooks bound into one.
I'm glad I read it, happy I finished it but would never read the thing cover to cover again. There is just too much to read out there. I may take one 'book' at a time and read it as it is enjoyable and refreshing to read, but only in small amounts. And this is a big book.
Would probably only recommend it to die hard Kerouac fans.
So I picked book after book off in close to a decade. I'm truly amazed at how some reviewers appeared to have treated it like a normal sized book. Neither was it normal sized nor was it normal. I needed to complete this in order to have completed everything Kerouac had ever written. This book is crucial to this, not simply because it was written by him but because it gives the reader so much more of the writer than almost any other book of his he'd written. While book of dreams gave us his subconscious, Some of the Dharma showed us his day to day thoughts on spirituality, a great underpinning of most of his novels and therefore an important viewpoint. It was written prior to his breakthrough with On the road and gives the reader insight into the suffering Kerouac was going through as a rejected artist.
There are so many things to like about this book; the typescript for starters is visually entertaining. Kerouac typed it into various shapes and patterns which form individual thoughts and sentences, giving the reader a sense of the playfulness and experimental character of the author as well as the private aspects of this particular book. The writing is a very candid, very personal journey. He seems to give no mind to ensure that what he writes is accurate to Buddhism, instead churning out his own nihilistic versions and ideas on it. There are many Buddhist ideas straight out of sutras and religious texts mixed in with his own interpretations. Sometimes you find yourself cringing at some of the things he writes, but that is also what makes it important. It's an honest account of his personal exploration into Buddhism and gives an internal viewpoint of important books (Diamond Sutra for example) he was reading in his novels.
I was often laughing at a lot of things he wrote. He doesn't take himself too seriously, even when he does. It is filled with his ideas on writing, friends plans, disillusionment and even his battle with alcohol.
Sometimes his reiteration on Buddhist thought got a little boring, coupled with the sheer size of the work and its total lack of structure. It is after all a set of ten notebooks bound into one.
I'm glad I read it, happy I finished it but would never read the thing cover to cover again. There is just too much to read out there. I may take one 'book' at a time and read it as it is enjoyable and refreshing to read, but only in small amounts. And this is a big book.
Would probably only recommend it to die hard Kerouac fans.
June 26, 2008
When a (fairly) straight guy uses religion to conflate sex and death--"pretty girls make graves"--you just end up with (the most boring kind of) misogyny. You'd think throwing some gay handjobs in there would help, but it's just depressing. They may be from people he allows more than a sexual humanity, but he still isn't able to come (figuratively). The result then is just some infarcted, grandiose, Buddho-babble in a really nice binding.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Moksha is for pussies. If you are so bent on locating desire as the wellspring of all suffering, and upon escaping the cycle of death and rebirth--KILL YOURSELF. It is so simple. If to live is to desire, and to desire is to suffer, well, don't. And spare us the interstitial scribblings.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Moksha is for pussies. If you are so bent on locating desire as the wellspring of all suffering, and upon escaping the cycle of death and rebirth--KILL YOURSELF. It is so simple. If to live is to desire, and to desire is to suffer, well, don't. And spare us the interstitial scribblings.
August 1, 2008
Far and away the most amazing Kerouac published. Facsimile pages of his journals over 10+ years. This was during his Dharma Bums period when he was studying and practicing buddhism.
Pure gifts and beatific poetry and appreciations to the higher spirit. Amazing book.
Pure gifts and beatific poetry and appreciations to the higher spirit. Amazing book.
February 10, 2008
i've been reading this off and on for years. its a valid type of inspiration, both spiritually and creativly.
June 17, 2008
Kerouac tries to work his way through Buddhism, can't stop drinking, quits Buddhism instead of drinking - takes 420 pages to figure it out. Worth it for the haikus alone.
August 1, 2013
If you're interested in both Kerouac and Buddhism, then the book is decent but tedious at parts. There are gems and dross. Some of it is just Kerouac's journal, which is at times both good and bad. The journal aspect combined with the time of writing, the years immediately prior to the publishing and wide spread acceptance of On the Road offers some fascinating insights into his other works.
It's a slog, I think it was worth it but can understand why others would disagree.
It's a slog, I think it was worth it but can understand why others would disagree.
March 8, 2007
the text in this book is a little hard to read because we are all conditioned (in america anyway) to read left to right. my advice is to read the first words you see on the page no matter where they are
March 22, 2007
if you like karouac you'll love it.
January 12, 2008
This is really creepy. It is too much like reading someones personal diary and letters. Great work though.
August 28, 2008
100 pages from the end and I gave up.
If one is interested in Buddhism there are more comprehensible books out there.
If one is interested in Buddhism there are more comprehensible books out there.
October 6, 2010
This one is not a cover to cover read, but its fun to pick up here and there and read a few passages. Its a bunch of Kerouac's musing about Buddhism.
February 4, 2008
reading this was like looking into the mind of jacky boy... enjoyed it more than his novels.
December 27, 2017
A bit scattershot- to be expected of a collection of Kerouac's notebooks- this is, nevertheless, a pretty good portrait of his vision of Buddhism.
June 27, 2018
Beautiful book
January 8, 2020
Everytime I open a random page (which I recommend) I get a quote to chew on for the rest of the day. Interesting reading for any fan of Kerouac.
June 19, 2020
بینهایت این کتاب رو دوست داشتم. همیشه دوست داشتم حداقل یه مدت اینطوری زندگی کنم
Want to read
July 10, 2022Acquired Jun 3, 2000
Chapters, London, Ontario
Chapters, London, Ontario
December 4, 2025
A sprawling epic of personal reflections on doubt, insecurity and being lost threaded with joy and kicks all through the prism of the dharma…
March 19, 2008
tell lax bird died laughing at a juggler... i really liked this, it's an incoherent diary about the search for enlightenment which concludes with kerouac deciding it's not worth it. you can't really read this start to finish. it's a coffee table book about being a drunk and intelligent. i'd probably want to make out with kerouWACK if i met him.
March 25, 2008
I took another look at this the other night. I get the feeling I'm reading something I'm not supposed to read. It's a slippery slope. What do I consider acceptable reading? Why not this?
Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it can't reel me back in once in a blue moon, yellow moon. No moon too.
Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it can't reel me back in once in a blue moon, yellow moon. No moon too.
March 31, 2010
As much as I love Jack Kerouac, this book was kind of like pulling teeth. Mostly poems and notes on Buddhist practices, the book follows kerouac as he delves deeper and deeper into his study of Buddhism. It's definitely an intriguing book from a human behavior study viewpoint but i found it hard to read more than 20 pages at a time.
May 28, 2013
Flashes ... flashes of a LOT of things. Some brilliant, some thought provoking, and a lot of ... "WTF? And thank you please for sharing your train of thought..." went through MY train of thought! At least, at this time, reading this entire tome is not for me. I seem to fall into despair when I read it. Maybe just in small doses. Like on the coffee table. Under some other things. Small flashes.
September 22, 2016
Published after death this is a great collection of his works that were put together by his family in one big book.
If you can get a copy of it still I would highly recommend grabbing it and reading through with all the drawings and everything else that it has inside of it. It's well worth the read.
If you can get a copy of it still I would highly recommend grabbing it and reading through with all the drawings and everything else that it has inside of it. It's well worth the read.
October 15, 2007
This is a more intense look at the religion and philosophy Kerouac explores in the rest of his fiction.
Read
January 22, 2008A boy bought me this book. I will never read it.
Read
May 5, 2008still absorbing
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews