Review of "Dharma Tramps" by Jack Kerouac

I recently finished Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Tramp. A book of 385 phone pages, which took almost two years.

A book without a story, without a beginning and without an end. Just a description of wanderings, nature, people, thoughts. But what language... The language is beautiful: “waters ... like the eyes of the heavens beyond the cold ages.” The language is simple, strange, but so precisely gives to feel the world: “comfortable pine”, “peaceful cup of tea”. The language is harsh: “comparisons ... odious,” the father of one of the heroes is “absolutely energetic and crazy.” Language is illogical, delusional, poorly connected. So, waking up on the shore in the middle of the night, the hero wonders: “Where is this me, what is this basketball of eternity, which girls play here, next to me, in the old house of my life, and the house is not on fire yet?” If you read it without full attention, it seems: “Well, nonsense.” And you go away with your head, in Kerouac "you get it", - you will feel the emotion, respectfully poke your lower lip and begin to nod your head understandingly. And the language is already a confession, a bright stream of consciousness of the hero-author.

The book is an inspiration for spiritual search. Two years ago, I had the idea of getting rid of emotional addiction. And here, very conveniently, came the vagrants, building their way above earthly passions, with the third “noble truth of Shakyamuni”: “The suppression of suffering can be achieved”, with the prayer of the hero: “I sit down and say: I enumerate all friends, ... all enemies, one after another, without any offense and gratitude, without anger, without anything, and say like this: “Jafi Ryder, equally empty, equally beloved, equally coming Buddha.”.

The book is one big meditation. When you read, clean your head and open it. I remember coming off the book and going into the sea, and when the wave came, I exhaled loudly, "Fooh," and instead of the usual stiffness, I felt free. Stopping reading, you begin to pay attention to the little things around, you want to share them with the world, to convey in words the sensations that you experience. So the legacy of the Tramps was a notebook of Kerouac quotes and their own “finds”.

Love of wandering. Interest in small things. Contemplation. Attention people. Admiration for the individuality of each. This is the world of Kerouac for me, and this is how I learned to see my world.