"A vivid evocation of a part of our time." -New York Post
"The Dharma Bums, with its mystical, environmental, and cultural messages, is a meaningful and relevant piece." -Library Journal
"A poetic celebration of life...a fine, clear narration by Parker. Sound quality is excellent." -KLIATT, magazine of book reviews for schools and libraries
Two ebullient young men are engaged in a passionate search for dharma, or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen way, which takes them climbing into the high Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude, a lesson that has a hard time surviving their forays into the pagan groves of San Francisco's Bohemia with its marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, experiments in "yabyum," and similar nonascetic pastimes.
This autobiographical novel appeared just a year after the author's explosive On the Road put the Beat generation on the literary map and Kerouac on the best-seller lists. The same expansiveness, humor, and contagious zest for life that sparked the earlier novel ignites this one.
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