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    Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
    Unavailable
    Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
    Unavailable
    Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
    Audiobook5 hours

    Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha

    Written by Jack Kerouac

    Narrated by Danny Campbell

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In the mid-1950s, Jack Kerouac, a lifelong Catholic, became fascinated withBuddhism, an interest that had a profound impact on his ideas of spirituality andlater found expression in books such as Mexico City Blues and The Dharma Bums.Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first time in book form, WakeUp is Kerouac's retelling of the life of Prince Siddartha Gotama, who as a youngman abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong searchfor Enlightenment. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Upserves as both a penetrating account of the Buddha's life and a concise primer onthe principal teachings of Buddhism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2008
    ISBN9781440613050
    Unavailable
    Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha
    Author

    Jack Kerouac

    Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) es el novelista más destacado y emblemático de la Generación Beat. En Anagrama se han publicado sus obras fundamentales: En el camino, Los subterráneos, Los Vagabundos del Dharma, La vanidad de los Duluoz y En la carretera. El rollo mecanografiado original, además de Cartas, la selección de su correspondencia con Allen Ginsberg, y, con William S. Burroughs, Y los hipopótamos se cocieron en sus tanques.

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    Reviews for Wake Up

    3/5

    40 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      In 1955, roughly the time he was working on The Dharma Bums, our first beatnik also wrote this biography of Prince Siddartha Gotama, the Shakyamuni Buddha. Like all biographers, Kerouac filtered the narrative through his own lens, and this is a thoroughly Westernized version, addressed to potential converts. It stresses the abandonment of materialism and the search for meaning, a veritable primer of Buddhist thought. This new edition is being issued by Penguin to coincide with the release of the 50th anniversary edition of The Dharma Bums. It includes an introduction by renowned Buddhist philosopher Robert Thurman, which provides some historical context for Kerouac’s study and embrace of Buddhism, as well as placing the sutras and texts Kerouac used for the book in the context of the rest of the Buddhist canon. It will be an intriguing read for Buddhists, and will no doubt fascinate Keroumaniacs.
    • 2/5
      This reads like the KJV and is about as clear as a mason jar full of mud.

      If you're trying to decide between this and Siddhartha, go with Siddhartha. It's much more informative and uplifting.
    • 1/5
      The one star might not be a true reflection on the writing or Kerouac's efforts to tell a story of the Buddha, but it is a reflection of my enjoyment of the book.
      When I first picked up this story - about a year ago - I was intrigued about both the story of Gautama and also Kerouac's take on retelling the story of the Buddha.
      When I first picked up the story I had not yet read Hesse's Siddhartha nor had I yet had an opportunity to discuss Buddhist concepts with practicing Buddhists.
      Over the last year, both of this changed, and having picked up the book again this weekend to finish, it just no longer held my interest.


    • 3/5
      i hadn't read this much about the life of Gotama Buddha until now so i learned quite a bit biographically but Kerouac's version seemed to be fairly standard in the enlightenment department. i didn't see anything extraordinary about it, thus 3 stars.
    • 2/5
      Jack Kerouac gets to me after a while. He's interesting to listen to for a while, but at a certain point you have to turn him off. Love his books, but just couldn't get through the last bit of this one :/
    • 2/5
      To be completely honest, I didn't really like Kerouac's Buddha. He was far too Catholic. With every "thee" and "thou" and every "lord" and "savior" I became a little more disenchanted. His Buddha was very personal, and, for that reason, largely inaccessible.While I feel somewhat certain that Kerouac might have considered this to be one of his greatest works, as he always seemed to be enthralled by his religious experiences, but it really wasn't. This, I think, was more of a personal reflection on his idea of Buddhism and a connection to a Buddha he could love. By blending together his lifelong beliefs with this Eastern philosophy, he was able to create a religion that he could believe in. A place where his guilt, perhaps his most defining characteristic, meant something greater than himself. His voice was missing with all its great unending sentences rambling long into the night like some sad locomotive barreling across the Nevada desert screaming its way into oblivion with every chug and pull and ache. But I digress. Reading this, I could not hear Kerouac. I could hear love and adoration and awe combined with the regurgitation of some prominent Buddhist texts. I cannot fault him for this single scholarly work, but it falls among the ranks of Pic and Orpheus Emerged, which, while not terrible works, were simply not Kerouac.Still, I cannot give Ti Jean a bad review. He is still closer to my heart than any writer has ever been, and for that I would love his grocery lists.