The Dharma Bums

I read it, I guess, when I was in the seventh or eighth grade, and I have no idea how I got hold of it, or why I decided to read it. Probably Kerouac was one of the authors featured in the publisher's promotional material in the backs of the other books I read in those days, or he was getting an endorsement from one of my bookish friends. reading was a haphazard affair in those days.

...

Possibly I never read this book after all; I took a copy out of the library and nothing about it seems familiar. On the other hand, I know a minimal amount of trivia about On The Road, but I am pretty sure that is mere cultural leakage and not genuine familiarity. I remember an orange cover; did The Dharma Bums have an orange cover?

Whatever the truth (and we all know there is no truth), I probably stepped sideways into Kerouac, however briefly, because he bore a vague resemblance,at least in the eyes of publishers, to Richard Brautigan, whose books I read enthusiastically in those days.  A family resemblance, maybe second-cousinish.

Brautigan's The Abortion certainly had an orange cover. I have a copy on one of these shelves.

Burr

My recollection is that I read Burr voraciously forty years ago, and I am hard pressed to figure out why. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Today I find a competently written, intelligent, readable historical novel. The Jacksonian period is a good one, though not vividly portrayed; but the real appeal of the story is not in that time but in the Revolutionary reminiscences of iconoclastic, cynical Aaron Burr.

In the last few decades, I've read a lot of historical novels with iconoclastic, cynical protagonists, and a lot of them had much more verve and humor than Burr. Of course, the last few decades were a good season for iconoclasty and cynicism, in literature, history, and politics. Gore Vidal may deserve credit for putting his plow to the ground first, and coming up with a decent book.

From bygone days, I remembered only a couple of things about Burr; first, that Martin Van Buren was in it. Actually, talked about some, but not a major character. Second, that there was a surprise ending. I remembered the surprise by page two, and was surprised mainly by its irrelevance to the plot.

Introduction

I started this blog for a more specific purpose than usual. I have been a reader for about forty years now, forty years of reading books for adults. I read some of them then, as a teenager; occasionally I find myself reading the same books, or authors, again, now, as an aging but still immature man. I have noticed how my impressions have changed, and I started this blog to record them.

I doubt that I will manage to hold to this purpose, any more than I have to any other, but that's the idea.

I am currently reading Burr, by Gore Vidal, which I first read when it was a best seller, in 1974. In all the years from then to now, I have never had any inclination to read anything else by Vidal, or reread Burr.