The Dharma Bums Audiobook By Jack Kerouac cover art

The Dharma Bums

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The Dharma Bums

By: Jack Kerouac
Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
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Jack Kerouac’s classic novel about friendship, the search for meaning, and the allure of nature

First published in 1958, a year after On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful and influential novels. The story focuses on two ebullient young Americans - mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder, and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer - whose quest for Truth leads them on a heroic odyssey, from marathon parties and poetry jam sessions in San Francisco's Bohemia to solitude and mountain climbing in the High Sierras.

©1958 Jack Kerouac (P)2020 Penguin Audio Action & Adventure Biographical Fiction Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Biography Inspiring

Critic reviews

"In [On the Road] Kerouac's heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth...the novel often attains a beautiful dignity, and builds towards a moving climax." (The Chicago Tribune)

"In his often brilliant descriptions of nature one is aware of exhilarating power and originality...the entire cast of characters is presented with that not unrefreshing blend of naivete and sophistication that seems to be this author's forte." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Full of sparkling descritions of landscape and weather, light falling through trees, the smell of snow, the motion of animals...Jack Kerouac is a writer who cannot be charged with dullness." (The Atlantic)

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Beautiful Prose • Vivid Adventures • Lively Narration • Natural Descriptions • Spiritual Journey • Poetic Delivery
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I Enjoy this book every time. Great voice and story momentum. It is a great read or listen.

Always Timely If You Have the Time

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Pure humanistic spiritual experience in prose. Kerouac is king and who better to read him than Ethan Hawke? This is one book I will revisit again and again for the sheer beauty and eloquence of its boyish adventure in these three men and what their kinship in nature brought to them and us through through the voice of this gifted poet. A treasured gem.

What a journey!

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The Dharma Bums had a profound impact on me when I was a teenager.
Really enjoyed Ethan Hawke’s reading!

Loved revisiting this book .

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The narrator brought so much dimension and liveliness to Kerouac's writing, making voices for the various characters (in a very non-annoying way) and giving Kerouac the same emphatic tone with which he writes. Highly recommend.

Stupendous narration!

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I loved the language and the journey and the characters, and the locations.
Oh yes, the narration made the story alive a Jack would have liked.
Blah!

A winding swirling journey to Buddhahood

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Were it not for Ethan Hawke's lively and rhapsodic performance of Jack Kerouac's roman-a-clef about his younger days with his poetic friends, I might not have finished this audiobook. The characters are constantly on the move, riding the rails, hitch-hiking, or climbing mountains--but the story goes nowhere much. For devotees I'm sure it's nirvana.

Kerouac's freewheeling novel, energetically performed

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True medicine for the mind. Ten more words required for Audible- but adds nothing to my review

Wonderful

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On all fronts, this audio book is a work of art, a treasure. Kerouac’s writing flows like fresh air. Ethan Hawk’s narration is an absolute gift. Fully impassioned and brings out all of the juices that embody Jack’s writing. Bravo!

WOW. TOAL PHENOMENAL.

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I loved this performance. I wish all the pronunciations of Sanskrit words were better researched and enunciated (hearing them pronounced incorrectly took me out of the experience). Overall, great!

A classic sorry, well told.

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Absolutely wonderful performance of a transcendent work. As someone who has. hiked and worked in many of these places described in the book, this performance brought me as close to these beautiful and enlightening experiences as I could have imagined. Well done!

I have been to these places, and Kerouac with Hawke reading brings me back.

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