Dharma Bums and On The Road....

Why is On the Road and The Dharma Bums the only Kerouac books people talk about?

 

I read on the road last year and now started dharma bums. I think I'm liking dharama bums better. Well system orange, it seems on the road is his big famous booik, and dharma bums is often seen as the spiritual sequel to it, I guess.

 

I haven't read dharma bums yet... well, I have read maybe a hundred pages or so into it but had to stop for school and such. I've been meaning to go back to it for a while but I'm sure it'll happen eventually

as for on the road, I read it first a couple of years ago towards the end of my senior year in HS... I felt it right but I didn't, I just wasn't ready for it to click yet or something like that. I decided to read it again a few weeks ago and it hit me just right. It was much better the 2nd time around and I just loved it

 

On the Road was about adventure.
The Dharma Bums is when he is looking to find the truth through Buddhism.

Both excellent books.

 

I'm currently reading On The Road. It's been great so far. I havn't read the Dharma Bums yet. I'm trying to find a copy though.

 

go to your library and request it thats what I did other wise you can fork out a good 13 or so bucks for it

 

That's what i'm gonna do pretty soon. Just as soon as i finish On The Road

 

I've read a couple of the Kerouac books and he and his friends make it very obvious that they aren't really out to /respect/ women.

 

The Dharma Bums was truly an inspirational read. I enjoyed it much more than On the Road, but they both point in the same direction - the freedom of movement!

 

they seem to be dealing with post-world war (anti)culture and the development and birth of the "hip-dom" movement of the mid-to late sixties.

 

I read both on the road and the dharma bums in the 70's and then lived it. I even ended up working on a lookout tower for the forest service in southern New Mexico. I did more hitchhiking than riding the rails, but I did catch a freight train from Van Horn Tx. to San Antonio in 76'. Reading it was fun, but living it was funerer.

 

I've yet to read the original version of On the Road, however, I have read the Original Scrolls version which was not published until just recently and contains MUCH more text and even keeps the names of the original characters (Jack, Neal, Bill, etc.). I can honestly say that it was one of the most entertaining and enlightening books I've ever read. Actually, I'm almost afraid to read the original in fear that it may not compare the Original Scrolls version.

 

neither are about anything really

 

Not in a traditional sense, but it (On the Road) is a fine documentation of the Beat movement's pioneers who planted the seeds for a counter-cultural revolution that changed our nation forever.