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Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
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Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha Paperback - 2009

by Jack Kerouac; Introduction by Robert Thurman

In the early 1950s, Kerouac became fascinated with Buddhism, an interest that would have an impact on his ideas of spirituality. As a compendium of the teachings of the Buddha, "Wake Up" is a profound meditation on the nature of life, desire, and suffering.


Summary

Jack Kerouac?s profound meditations on the Buddha?s life and religion

In the mid-1950s, Jack Kerouac, a lifelong Catholic, became fascinated with Buddhism, an interest that had a significant impact on his ideas of spirituality and later found expression in such books as Mexico City Blues and The Dharma Bums. Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in paperback, Wake Up is Kerouac?s retelling of the life of Prince Siddhartha Gotama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong search for enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha?s life and a concise primer on the principal teachings of Buddhism.

From the publisher

Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.

Details

  • Title Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
  • Author Jack Kerouac; Introduction by Robert Thurman
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 224
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books
  • Date 2009-10-27
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Illustrated, Price on Product - Canadian
  • ISBN 9780143116011 / 0143116010
  • Weight 0.37 lbs (0.17 kg)
  • Dimensions 6.12 x 4.78 x 0.6 in (15.54 x 12.14 x 1.52 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Religious Orientation: Buddhist
  • Library of Congress subjects Gautama Buddha, Buddhists - India
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews

"[Wake Up] contributes significantly to the fascinating picture of Kerouac's spirituality."
-Jonah Raskin, The Beat Review

About the author

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His first novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady, that epitomized to the world what became known as the "Beat generation" and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of "one vast book," The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.
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Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
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Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha

by Kerouac, Jack; Thurman, Robert [Introduction]

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