Travel • Culture • Stories
If
On the Road was Jack Kerouac’s ecstatic hymn to youth, movement, and rebellion,
then The Dharma Bums is its quieter, more contemplative sibling. Published in
1958, just a year after On the Road transformed Kerouac into a reluctant icon,
The Dharma Bums trades the open highway for the high trails, the jazz-inflected
chaos of cities for the peace of mountaintops.
A magical, wicked story about Richard Mayhew, whose life is forever changed after he helps a bleeding girl on a London sidewalk. That single act pulls him into a reality far different from the world he thought he knew. Once again, Neil Gaiman vividly conjures a “world within a world” setting—strange, shadowy, and brimming with imagination.
“The Marquis scratched the side of his nose. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘understand this: there are two Londons. There’s London Above—that’s where you lived. And there’s London Below—the underside—inhabited by people who fell through the cracks in the world. Now you’re one of them.’” —Neverwhere
Leaving behind the familiar streets of London Above, Richard embarks on a strange journey through London Below, meeting a colorful and unforgettable cast: the mysterious girl named Door; the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas; Hunter, a fierce bodyguard with a legendary reputation; talking rats; and a hilariously unhinged yet bloodthirsty pair of villains—Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar.
Through secret passageways, nonexistent (in London Above) subway stations, a floating market, hidden doors, questionable angels, cloistered friars, foul sewer systems, monstrous beasts, and places governed by bizarre physics, Neverwhere takes readers on a wildly imaginative, uplifting, and thrill-packed ride.
Think Harry Potter meets Alice in Wonderland meets Peter Straub and Stephen King. That’s the strange alchemy of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
My book haul in India. Got these at around 200-350 Rupees (150-260 PhP). Would have bought more if I got extra space on my backpack. (the two fictional Theroux books were set in India) and the one from Rabindranath Tagore (whose former house - now turned into a museum, we visited in Kolkata) is a collection of short stories.
The opening chapter of "The Granta Book of India" titled "Blood" is a gripping account of the infamous "Partition" event between Pakistan and India. I've a lot to learn still and I regret not buying more India-related literature.
"The Postmaster" - Rabindranath Tagore
"A story of Mughal India" - Timeri N. Murari
"The Great Railway Bazaar" - Paul Theroux
"A Dead Hand in Calcutta" - Paul Theroux
"The Granta Book of India" - Ian Jack
"The Elephanta Suite" - Jack Kerouac
My book haul at the National Bookstore warehouse sale. I got all for just under 750 pesos.
How vital it is, for some of us, to encounter On the Road not as the edited novel the world came to know, but in its raw, unbroken form, in its legendary scroll, typewritten by Jack Kerouac on a continuous, 120-foot roll of tracing paper, sheets cut and taped together by hand to form a literal and figurative road. Composed in a fevered, three-week burst of creative energy in April 1951, the scroll stands as a pure artifact of Kerouac’s “spontaneous prose,” a manifesto of movement and momentum, uninterrupted by paragraph breaks, unfiltered by convention, and brimming with the restless urgency that defined a generation.
Let me start this review by quoting Harlan Ellison “anyone who misses this milestone event in the genre of the fantastic is a myopic dope.”
I’m glad that after reading Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” i am not a myopic dope anymore. For some they ask the question “Why comic books should grow this far?”
They say this comic book was the driving force behind Heath Ledger’s brutal portrayal of Joker in the movie “The Dark Knight”. It might be the case, because Joker, in this book was at his most brutal ever. Alan Moore left no inhibitions at how violent and mad Joker can be.
