A biography of the founder of Buddhism and a study of Siddartha Gautama's life and works. It recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha's upbringing and his father's wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. It offers an introduction to the world of Buddhism.
Never before published in Kerouac's lifetime, Jack Kerouac's Wake Up is a clear and powerful study of the life and works of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, from the author of On the Road. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Robert Thurman.
Wake Up recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha's royal upbringing and his father's wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. Departing from his father's palace, Siddhartha adopts a homeless life, struggles with his meditations, and eventually finds Enlightenment. Written at the end of Kerouac's career, when he became increasingly interested in Buddhist teachings, and collected for the first time in one book, this fresh and accessible biography is both an important addition to Kerouac's work and a valuable introduction to the world of Buddhism itself.
Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. His first published novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957, that made Kerouac famous. Publication of his many other books followed, among them The Subterraneans, Big Sur, and The Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in Florida at the age of forty-seven.
If you enjoyed Wake Up, you might like Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
'[Kerouac] defines the attitudes of an entire generation'
Guardian
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. Educated by Jesuit brothers in Lowell, he decided to become a writer at age seventeen and developed his own writing style, which he called 'spontaneous prose'. He used this technique to record the life of the American 'traveler' and the experiences of the Beat Generation, most memorably in
On the Road and also in
The Subterraneans and
The Dharma Bums. His other works include
Big Sur, Desolation Angels, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Gerard, Tristessa, and a book of poetry called
Mexico City Blues. Jack Kerouac died in 1969.
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Jack Kerouac
Klappentext
Jack Kerouac was an American novelist, writer, poet and artist. Along with William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is amongst the best known of the writers (and friends) known as the Beat Generation. Kerouac spent many of the years between 1947 and 1951 on the road, inspiring the partly autobiographical and greatly acclaimed novel On the Road. Kerouac's search for a life worth living in the 1950's led him to recreational drug use and to travel, not only across North America but throughout the world. In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible at the San Jose library, which marked the beginning of his immersion into Buddhism. Kerouac's work was popular, but received little critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, he is considered an important and influential writer who inspired others, including Tom Robbins, Lester Bangs and Ken Kesey, and musicians such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Morrissey.
