Japhy and I were kind of outlandish-looking on the campus in our old clothes in fact Japhy was considered an eccentric around the campus, which is the usual thing for campuses and college people to think whenever a real man appears on the scene ― colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity which usally finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.”
from Dharma Bums
Levi Asher from "Literary Kicks"
Virtually all Kerouac’s novels are about him and his friends, and ‘Dharma Bums’ is no exception. Japhy Ryder is Gary Snyder, Alvah Goldbook (who reads a poem called ‘Wail’) is Allen Ginsberg (author of Howl), and Neal Cassady makes a few brief appearances, not as Dean Moriarty but as Cody Pomeray. Kerouac himself is represented as Ray Smith. Furthermore, ‘bow-tied wild-haired old anarchist fud’ Rheinhold Cacoethes is Kenneth Rexroth, ‘big fat bespectacled quiet booboo’ Warren Coughlin is Philip Whalen … I could go on and on, but let’s just get to the book already.
