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The Dharma Bums  By  cover art

The Dharma Bums

By: Jack Kerouac
Narrated by: Allen Ginsberg
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Publisher's summary

Two friends in 1950s San Francisco Bohemia explore Buddhism Zen - hipster style. On the road to finding Dharma, or truth, the story's narrator, Raymond Smith comes to a spiritual roadblock. Smith, based on Kerouac himself, discovers a role model in his friend Japhy Ryder, modeled after the real poet-Buddhist Gary Snyder. This autobiographical novel is one of Kerouac's most popular, and has served as an inspiration to the beat culture, hippies, and dharma seekers since the 1950s. This program is narrated by legendary poet Allen Ginsberg, a friend of Kerouac's and an early fan of his work.
Recording (P)1991 by Audio Literature; ©1958 by Jack Kerouac

What listeners say about The Dharma Bums

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Don't buy abridged versions of novels.

This is just not the true Kerouac experience. You need the whole thing. It is a waste of money.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Audio Quality is Terrible

I love this story but this is a really old copy so it sounds terrible. It actually hurts your ears to listen to it. Such a shame because this is an incredible book.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great book needs to be recorded by someone else.

The book is great and hearing Allen Ginsberg read it should be awesome but with all of Allen's talents, his voice and reading this at his age when he recorded this just does not match the manly bravado which was Jack Kerouac. It would be great to get a more representative voice that feels like Jack telling me his story.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

As it should be done

What made the experience of listening to The Dharma Bums the most enjoyable?

Brilliant story, brilliant narration

Have you listened to any of Allen Ginsberg???s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Ginsberg is the perfect narrator for this piece. There are probably narrators more qualified with better voices and better meter, but Ginsburg lived with Kerouac, danced and sang and sprouted mad poetry with him, he is Alvah Goldbook is the book.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

jack at his best

on the road part two. with lots of buddism in the mix, just enough humor to keep it from being boring. mind expanding beat litt at its finest.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

This is not

And I hated Ginsberg's overly accentuated reading. It's a short book but I simply could not get through it. Beware!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Abridged?

Where does it say that this is an abridged version of the book? That doesn't help me at all since I buy audiobooks for school to listen to as I read along in the actual book. It kept skipping sections, some that were kind of important.

And as much as I love Allen Ginsberg as a poet in his own right, it was very distracting to have him reading Kerouac's work. I kept picturing Ginsberg as Ray Smith when it should have been Kerouac himself. I had to turn it off and finish the book without the audio.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration was hard

Great book but the narration was really hard to listen to. I wouldn’t listen to it again.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Classic BS

What would have made The Dharma Bums better?

A time machine. Maybe this work was cutting edge back in the day but now it just sounds like some hipster doofus babbling on about drinking hooch on the street and chasing tail with his "art" friends. Please, man, I live it, I don't need to hear about it from the sorry likes of you. LAME!

What could Jack Kerouac have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Stop it with the crystal meth already Jacky! Where's the arc? How 'bout a little element of story thrown in to your jibber-jabbering? Oh that's a stylistic thing? Why the F didn't you say so?

Would you be willing to try another one of Allen Ginsberg’s performances?

I like his nasally old man voice. I'm not sure if I downloaded in the wrong quality or what but it sounded like he was at the bottom of a tennis balls tube with the lid still on it.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom. After 1.5 hours I was just saying to myself repeatedly "I think I can, I think I can...finish this stupid book"

Any additional comments?

Bleh!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Hmmm

I picked this book up after hearing it mentioned in another book, and I guess I was expecting something different. There wasn't really a story so much as a wandering account of the main character's life. The Buddhist concepts seemed rather vague and the narrator was difficult to listen to. I found myself struggling to get through it. I'm sure this is a great fit for some but it wasn't my cup of tea.

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1 person found this helpful