Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" is a semi-fictional novel that has since become the trademark of Kerouac's work. In here the narrator Ray Smith ( based on Kerouac ), a poet and self described "Dharma Bum"  a person who searches for the Meaning of Life by following the Buddhist Way) details a period in his life as he hitchhike across the vast frontier of the West unto San Francisco, where he meets a handful of colorful characters where one stands out in the form of Japhy Ryder (said to be poet, essayist and Buddhist Gary Snyder in real life).

 

 

It was the best of times as Ray Smith hangs out with his friend Japhy and other poets in San Francisco getting drunk, going to poetry readings on evenings and generally having a wild Bohemian time the Dharma way.

The best part of the novel comes when Ray Smith narrates their trip to the High Sierras to climb the Matterhorn. A seemingly simple experience but was given life by Kerouac's "Spontaneous Prose" which has influenced writers from the following generations like Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins and even Bob Dylan.

Finding and knowing his spiritual side seems to hold Ray Smith with utmost importance as it parallels these events to the real life Kerouac whose life took a turn to celebrity status after the publishing of his "Legend Turning" work "On The Road".

Driven by the eccentricity of Japhy Ryder whose allure to the simple life and Zen Buddhism greatly affects those around him, thus savoring a simple meal around a small campfire is an experience much greater than dining in an expensive restaurant, they went on buying clothes in run down used clothing store, carrying rucksacks and spending the night in the woods on sleeping bags. Living life the mountaineer way. Being introduced to the Buddhist sexual rite called "Yab-Yum" .

I know today's generation would credit modern writers like Alex Garland with his work on "The Beach" as something of rekindling the "Backpacking" culture. But truth was, Jack Kerouac has been advocating that lifestyle years and years ahead of his time.

Kerouac though his Ray Smith character as he sets out yet another trip across America to visit his mother, spending 3 months meditating and living almost entirely in a garden and going back to San Francisco as he reunites with the rest of the Dharma Bums including Japhy Ryder who in turn is preparing to make his life defining voyage to a monastery in Japan.

The book ends as Ray Smith spends the summer as a fire look-out in the mountains and enjoys the solitary life. ( Jack Kerouac did served as a fire lookout for the United States Forest Service on Desolation Peak in Washington state. )

Semi-Autobiography?, part fiction? nevertheless it's a wonder how a Kerouac book can make me appreciate life as if it was served in a gold platter. You wonder how much else is out there at the tip of your mind just waiting to be discovered.

Wherein "On The Road" painted us a picture of life literally on the road and the somehow captivating experiences we meet upon a reckless yet determined journey, "The Dharma Bums" offers us in insight on the "beat generation's" romance with the Buddhist influence in searching and building an enlightenment for that inner you, in your inner life. Solitary or accompanied by others, simple or grandeur, poor or rich, 5 star accommodation or a rucksack and a sleeping bag in the cold smoldering piece of lot in the wilds. It doesn't matter as long as you embrace life as it was, as it come to you and appreciate it like "spontaneous prose" telling you a great story.

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The Light Fantastic is the 2nd book of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It's a fantasy tale set in a world consisting of a slightly convex disc atop on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin.

The novel starts where the very first Discworld book "Colour Of Magic" ended, with bumbling wizard Rincewind and the Discworld's first ever tourist Twoflower setting adrift, falling over the edge of the world.

But as the wizards in the Unseen University found out about an impending doom that will cause by the Great A'Tuin walking towards a collosal star, which will set the whole Discworld on fire, the only remaining solution to the end of Discworld lies on one of the so called "eight most powerful spells from the octavo" which turns out to be locked inside the head of Rincewind.

With the help of the magic book, Octavo, Rincewind and Twoflower were saved and found themselves back in Discworld, amid talking trees and giant rocks and being tracked by other wizards led by Rincewind's former classmate Trymon.

They encountered countless close brushes with death (whom Rincewind met face to face in Death's domain) Rincewind, Twoflower with the help of aging superhero Cohen The Barbarian, and the girl they saved from a sacrificial ritual named Bethan and Twoflower's luggage who has a mind of its own described as "half suitcase, half homicidal maniac" and was able to save the duo  in a few occasions.

They all set out for a wonderful and entertaining adventure that only Terry Pratchett and a few writers can provide and as the Great A Tuin gets closer to the burning star, triggering panics by the inhabitants of the Discworld who thinks that the only solution would be for all wizards to die and have their spells and magic completely dissappear.

Rincewind will need to remember the spell and say aloud the great eight spell in order to save the Discworld from a head on collision with the burning star..

It's a short and entertaining read, with lots of Terry Pratchett's trademark humor and lovable characters. It's a must read for everybody.
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Haruki Murakami's "Dance Dance Dance" (my very first Murakami book, per recommendation by my officemate Fae ). Follows the story of a 34 year old unnamed narrator, who spends his time working as a freelance writer, abandoned by his wife who runs off with his friend (ouch that fucking hurts), after battling depression in the past, but by now able to function normally in society in his own words by "shoveling snow" (a term that he describes those who goes on with their own roles in society).

Until a recurring dream compelled him to return to Dolphin Hotel, a seedy and strange establishment in a city called Sapporo. The very same place he shared with a woman named "Kiki" who mysteriously disappeared without a trace 4 years ago.

Upon arriving in Sapporo, the narrator finds out that The Dolphin Hotel has been transformed into a modern and five star hotel, gone are the old seedy image of the said hotel.

He learns that it has been has been purchased by a large corporation and converted into a hip, trendy and a style that resembles the great hotels of the west.

But still no answer to the whereabouts of Kiki.

Here our narrator or protagonists meets a wide array of interesting characters, from the serious, uptight female hotel receptionist who shares a mysterious experience with him, an eccentric famous photographer and her 13 year old daughter with psychic abilities who spends her time listening to 80's era bands like the Talking Heads, a one armed poet, a former classmate now an actor typecast as teacher and dentist in the movies.

And then the strange metaphysical experiences starts to unravel as the narrator finds himself in dark corridors, talking to a man called as the "sheep man", and as people he got in contact with either gets murdered or met an accident, he tries hard to come in terms with the mystery of the sheep man and his dreams and what message Kiki is trying to tell him.

In the process Murakami tells a story of a bond forming with a narrator busy with studying the complexities around him and a seemingly uninterested and aloof but smart 13 year old girl, put in a friendship with the former classmate turned matinee idol, and a budding romantic relationship with the sympathetic hotel receptionist.

Whether he finds what he's looking for, in the person of KiKi or some other life realizations, like whether all of them are connected in one way or the other, this book will keep readers interested to the very end.

*****

One will not find it hard to relate to the narrator, i know i did. Because here, the narrator deals with past alienation, his role in society ( whenever he was ask about his profession he always adds the term "shoveling snow" ) doing your own role without abandonment and also a serious tone to it, there were descriptions of what capitalism can do to a country, the effect of having a Masseratti instead of a simple Subaru in telling a person's level of success to society as a whole.

The absurdity that somehow frolics around human relationship with each other, what do we really need in life? a topic that usually comes up with his conversations with his actor friend. The importance of family as he sees the 13 year old girl Yuki's predicament.

All in all this novel is part murder mystery, "metaphysical" tale ( reminds me of Martin Amis' "Other People" ) and throw in a sci-fi edge courtesy of the sheep man.

Wow is all i can say, Haruki Murami, i bet i will be buying more of your books soon.

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J.G. Ballard's highly controversial novel: famously one publisher's reader returned the verdict "This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish."

****
Well if i have read this book, let's say 5 years ago before i would be accustomed to reading the likes of Chuck Palahniuk, Alex Garland, Irvine Welsh and indulging in the brutal humor of Hunter S. Thompson i would probably come into the same conclusion that J.G. Ballard needs professional help.

But knowing what i know now ( haha ), i see J.G. Ballard's "Crash" as a unique work of fiction, powerful and brutal in a way it challenges our imagination by writing about what he calls "an extreme metaphor for an extreme situation, a kit of desperate measures only for use in extreme crisis"

And that metaphor is technology by way of automobiles, wrecked cars and car crashes serving as the "hellish tableau" in which the book's protagonist Vaughan a mad "TV scientist" experiments the relationship between a seemingly traumatic car accident experience and the forming of erotic atrocities with survivors amidst the lifelong remainder of body scar and injuries inflicted by the violent ordeal.

The Narrator which is named after the author, James Ballard relates his initial experience surviving a near fatal car accident which took the life of another person and left him in hospital for weeks, with countless scars on his body.

After being followed by Vaughan, Ballard develops a fetish for erotic experience in the confines of automobiles, developing a sexual relationship with other car crash survivors including the wife of the person he killed in his own automobile accident, Dr. Helen Remington.

As he gets to know the renegade scientist Vaughan, Ballard founds out more strange intricacies in the weird mind of Vaughan, which includes the grand design of his own death involving a terrifying "union of blood...engine coolant in a head on collision with actress Elizabeth Taylor" ( during which time this book is written circa 1973, is still a very popular Hollywood actress )

As Vaughan prepares for his own judgment day, he and Ballard participates with other willing subjects in more erotic experiments involving car accidents more sinister than the last, the end result is a mixture of blood, gore and acid trip and a surprise ending for Ballard.

****

" Vaughan unfolded for me all his obsessions with the mysterious eroticism of wounds: the perverse logic of blood soaked instrument panels, seat-belts smeared with excrement, sun visors lined with brain tissue...He dreamed of ambassadorial limousines crashing into jack knifing butane tankers, of taxis filled celebrating children colliding head-on below the bright display of windows of deserted supermarkets"....

If these passages doesn't make you cringe, then maybe you can read and enjoy this book.
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This is my first Tom Robbins' novel, fellow multiplier Karl and Aimee has been recommending him forever. I now know why.

"Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" as the title would suggest is filled with humor and hilarious situations and most of all extra terrestrials without becoming a science fiction novel.

The heroine, Filipina stockbroker Gwen Mati ( her father being a Filipino, mother an Irish ) thought she just had the worst day of her young career, as stocks crashed and she tries to cover her ass while awaiting the resumption of the trading over the course of a long weekend she encounters strange happenings around her.

First, her boyfriend's jewel stealing monkey but presumed to be a born again monkey went missing, offering her help in trying to locate the damned monkey her bestfriend Q-Jo a 300 pound psychic went missing too after meeting with a fellow who later turned out to be Larry Diamond, a former stockbroker turned financial renegade who just spent a long time of soul searching or should i say searching for the origin of mankind in a far away place called as Timbuktu.

Over the course of the next few days, Gwen Mati will jerk around from one revelation to another (most seemingly crazy) brought on by the eccentric Larry Diamond ranging from the origins of frogs, mysterious African rituals to outer space sexuality.


There isn't much of an in depth character study that most novels had, some will prove great while others tend to bore you. I think it's Tom Robbins' style to write stories like this, with plots twisting and turning until it becomes a real mystery with killer lines and quotes that will make one ran out of highlighter ink.

For the more serious readers who lack a sense of humor they might find Tom Robbins a disappointment, but knowing what i know now, why most of his books have weird titles and the plot are outrageous to say the least, well at least it gives me joy and enriches my imagination with the things he writes and most of the times he writes it real good.

As for me, there are still two Tom Robbins book waiting on my shelf to be read and I'm sure hell looking forward to reading those books and scoring more Tom Robbins novels...
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Love him or hate him, i'm talking about Chuck Palahniuk.

In my case, i have nothing but love for his work.

Probably America's most nihilistic writer, Chuck Palahniuk once again has tip toed in the world of madness, the grotesque, human sufferings all that plus salt sprayed with endless dark humor.

As one critic would put it "If you're looking for comparisons, I'd say Palahniuk is like a cross between Tim Powers on acid and Kurt Vonnegut gone postal."

Diary takes form as a journal written by Misty Wilmot, a former art student with a once promising future but now reduced to waiting tables at a seafront hotel in an island called Waytansea.

To rub salt to the wound, her husband Peter is in a state of a coma after a seemingly failed suicide attempt. Soon Misty finds herself besieged with phone calls from angry customers, regarding house renovation jobs that Peter did in the past, seems like Peter has a fondness for leaving vile and disturbing messages painted on each of the houses' walls and plastering off whole rooms.

After the intervention of her mother in law, Grace. Misty, in a sudden burst of creativity goes back to painting. After finishing about a hundred paintings, believing her daughter Tabbi is dead, befriending a "handwriting expert", a cop assigned to the nations 'hate crime division' showing up to ask some questions, harboring a connection to painters from the past Maura Kincaid and Constance Baron, Carl Jung theories, Jain Buddhists and a conspiracy that threatens the lives of hundreds, Misty's world is rapidly turned into one frenetic chase for sanity amidst all cynical and unusual twists that only Chuck Palahniuk can deliver.

*****
Most critics take against Chuck Palahniuk was that all of his characters are almost the same, shocking, mad, anger prone, a walking "fuck you" sign all that plus his sick humor.

Which i don't get, why take it against the man whose style is synonymous to spookily imaginative and superbly grim, well in this case in Diary, gone are the Tyler Durden charisma, but for the second time since "invisible monster" it takes form at a female point of view, a girly character although not the usual chick on the block.

Misty Wilmot is the closest you'll ever get to the Tyler Durden type bullshit-philosopher character, in "Diary" Chuck Palahniuk laid out an "in your face" narratives with cool repetition phrases such as "Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit", "bermuda triangulated" when falling short of an explanation.

I can understand the short cuts that Palahniuk makes in his novel, in his own admission he is a minimalist, no need to go into the depths of a scenario, i mean who cares, as long as the character is, as i said before an "in your face" who don't give a fuck about his/her surroundings.

Bottomline: This novel is most of the times hilarious, expectedly disturbing, frightening and poignant at the same time ( thus the association with Douglas Coupland everytime i think Chuck Palahnik ) -- but it's always clever and well-written. Not a book to be missed.

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The novel in which French Novelist and moralist Albert Camus explored what he termed as "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd".

Meursault ( his surname ), narrates the last part of his life, from the opening line of "Maman died today" ( Maman being a child's term for mother ) , Meursault tells with all honesty the events that followed.

Upon returning to Algiers after burying his mother he crossed paths with an old officemate Marie, whom he develops an intimate relationship, life for him is going to work everyday, being loyal to his firm, waiting for each Saturday to spend the day with Marie, dealing with his neighbors in a friendly manner, Salamano and his dog, restaurant owner Celeste and a self described "warehouse guard" Raymond.

Problem arises when Raymond got in trouble with a group of Arabs.

During a trip to an Algier beach side, Raymond, Masson ( Raymond's friend ) and Meursault got in a fight with the Arabs who followed them, Raymond was cut by a knife in the arm and side of the mouth.

Afterwards for no reason, Meursault went back to the beach, at the same spot where he found the Arab in the sun drenched Algiers Beach, in what he narrates as

"I knew i had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where i'd been happy. Then i fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness".

Meursault, an ordinary man now unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder.

Meursault then narrates the investigation that follows, the trial and the sentencing all with cunning and honest description of his feelings, the freedom, the life that he lost and the eventual acceptance of his fate.

******
Originally written in French, translated into English countless times, the new English version by Matthew Ward is called as the most truest Camus English rendition ever.

"Mother died today" was aptly replaced by "Maman died today" as one of the example of being true to Camus' version.

Albert Camus is considered as a moralist, a philosopher among being a great novelist, among his works are the non-fiction philosophical essay "the Rebel" and fiction like "the Plague", "the Fall" and "exile in the kingdom" all dealing with Man's inner senses and nature, with the Plague being a parable of Man's moral resonance.

In the Stranger, Camus writes in a fast faced manner, short in details of the surroundings, more cut to the chase with regards to the Narrator's feelings of himself and those who are around him.

"I explained to him, however, that my nature was such physical needs got often in the way of my feelings, the day i buried Maman, i was very tired and sleepy"

In explaining to his lawyer the reason for his seemingly "insensitivity" during his mother's funeral.

It was a book that lets readers an inside spot in the mind of a person as Camus stated "faced with the absurd", dealing with his actions, getting use to life with no freedom and eventually accepting the fate that awaits him.

"When i was first imprisoned, the hardest thing was that my thoughts were still those of a free man, for example i would suddenly have the urge to be on a beach and to walk down to the water...all of a sudden i would feel just how closed in i was by the walls of my cell...but those lasted a few months...afterwards my only thoughts were those of a prisoner"

****
It was a short read like a long essay, 123 pages in all, it will just take up an hour of your life, but i tell you its one hour you would never ever regret losing.
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