Ray Smith arrives in Berkeley, California, where he lives with Alvah Goldbook and hangs out with Japhy Ryder. I hate to try to define this word, but it basically means ‘your spiritual duty,’ or ‘your place in the universe.’ A Dharma Bum is a bum because it is the right thing for him to be, because by being a bum he is fulfilling a spiritual duty greater than himself.) (NOTE: ‘Dharma’ is one of the most important words in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. This is the first of several Dharma Bums we will meet.

He shares a boxcar with a hobo who shows him a slip of paper containing a prayer by Saint Teresa. It begins with Ray Smith bumming a ride to the San Francisco Bay Area on a freight train. Furthermore, ‘bow-tied wild-haired old anarchist fud’ Rheinhold Cacoethes is Kenneth Rexroth, ‘big fat bespectacled quiet booboo’ Warren Coughlin is Philip Whalen … I could go on and on, but let’s just get to the book already. Kerouac himself is represented as Ray Smith. Japhy Ryder is Gary Snyder, Alvah Goldbook (who reads a poem called ‘Wail’) is Allen Ginsberg (author of Howl), and Neal Cassady makes a few brief appearances, not as Dean Moriarty but as Cody Pomeray. Virtually all Kerouac’s novels are about him and his friends, and ‘Dharma Bums’ is no exception. Published in 1958 by Viking Press as the follow-up to that very successful book, The Dharma Bums is a gentler and more spiritual work about a group of writers on the cusp of literary fame and flying on a Buddhist kick, inspired by Zen lunatic Japhy Ryder, who is to ‘Dharma Bums’ what Dean Moriarty is to ‘On The Road’. A lot of people, myself included, consider this Jack Kerouac’s second best novel (after You-Know-What).

The dharma bums sparknotes