I'm not a huge Kerouac fan, but when I saw this softcover edition of Dharma Bums with the distinctive cover-art by Jason, I couldn't resist - even though I realized that Jason's contribution was limited to the covers and flyleaves {wry grin}. [Jason's style is a blank-eyed/deadpan one, and I adore his work, including Why Are You Doing This?, Werewolves of Montpelier, and Isle of 100,000 Graves.]

As for this book, it's another of Kerouac's somewhat-fictionalized accounts of his travels, this one occurring after On the Road. And I enjoyed it more than I expected to, in part because much of the narrative deals with a hiking/climbing trip up Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra Nevada - I'd associated Kerouac with riding the rails and hard partying in Mexico or San Francisco, but somehow never thought of him going off into the wilderness! [In the book, his avatar character rejoices in the booze-free mountain air - for a while - and does seem to have relished the expedition vastly, but even though it inspired him to take a brief job as a fire-watcher in a remote part of the Cascade range in Washington State, he didn't stick to the outdoor life.] As one might expect from the title, there's a strong theme of Buddhism here, and I enjoyed the give-and-take in the discussions between the characters; their conversations during the hiking trip ranged from silly/giddy to poetic to immensely thoughtful. While I didn't love the book enough to want to read more of Kerouac's work, I did get the appeal.

The main characters here are Jack himself (aka Ray White), poet Gary Snyder (aka Japhy Ryder), and Allen Ginsburg (aka Alvah Goldbook), with lots of other real-world poets and authors represented as well. [Cover-artist Jason chose those three characters to illustrate; I've added a photo of the cover-flap panels that feature these characters and some lines of dialog from the book. The bearded one is Japhy, the spectacled one is Alvah, and the plaid-shirt is Ray.]

There's also a thoughtful introduction by Ann Douglas, especially useful for me as I didn't know that much about Kerouac to begin with!

[There's a TV Tropes page on Kerouac and his works, including this one.]

I left this book, bagged against the weather, at Kerouac's grave in Lowell's Edson Cemetery at about 2:30. Hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released as part of the Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes Challenge, for the embedded "arm" and "bum" in the title. ***

Update, 8/1/2015: Just wanted to thank the anonymous finder for journalling the book; it's great to know where it's been all this time!

Met a gentleman while working on Deer Island N.B. Canada. We got to talking about reading among other things . He spoke of this book which he removed from Kerouc"s grave 3 years ago . I read the book and will be passing it on . Quite a story . Hope it gets read and passed on .

Book is on the move , gave it to my friend ,Donna who plan's to read it and pass it on .

Happy Trails !!