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Alvah Goldbrook
Henry is an alias for the eccentric writer John Montgomery. Henry is the librarian, occasional mountaineer, and “actual madman” who accompanies Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder on their trip to Mount Matterhorn early in the book. In reality, Japhy and Ray just invite Henry along because he has a car and is willing to drive them. Like his close friend Rheinhold Cacoethes, Henry talks in a very peculiar and extremely annoying way: he rambles nonsensically about unrelated topics, like transforming into a gnome, the medieval city-state of Ragusa, and California’s high-quality milk. He also yodels at inappropriate times, brings a lot of unnecessary mountaineering equipment on their trip, and inexplicably disappears after just a few minutes of hiking to go do unnecessary maintenance on his car. He eventually catches back up with Ray and Japhy but fades into the background for the rest of the book. Beyond serving as comic relief, Henry highlights the way Ray sees most people and relationships as useless annoyances. Indeed, Ray’s confused indifference to Henry is most notable because it contrasts so strongly with his intense love for Japhy.
Henry Morley Quotes in The Dharma Bums
The The Dharma Bums quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Morley or refer to Henry Morley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
Every time he said something he would turn and look at Japhy and deliver these rather brilliant inanities with a complete deadpan; I couldn't understand what kind of strange secret scholarly linguistic clown he really was under these California skies. Or Japhy would mention sleeping bags, and Morley would ramble in with “I'm going to be the possessor of a pale blue French sleeping bag, light weight, goose down, good buy I think, find 'em in Vancouver—good for Daisy Mae. Completely wrong type for Canada. Everyone wants to know if her grandfather was an explorer who met an Eskimo. I'm from the North Pole myself.”
“What's he talking about?” I'd ask from the back seat, and Japhy: “He's just an interesting tape recorder.”
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Chapter 9
Quotes
“I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like ‘Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,’ then I run on, say, to ‘David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha’ though I don’t use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words ‘equally a coming Buddha’ I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think ‘equally a coming Buddha’ you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy’s eyes.”
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Henry Morley Quotes in The Dharma Bums
The The Dharma Bums quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Morley or refer to Henry Morley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
Every time he said something he would turn and look at Japhy and deliver these rather brilliant inanities with a complete deadpan; I couldn't understand what kind of strange secret scholarly linguistic clown he really was under these California skies. Or Japhy would mention sleeping bags, and Morley would ramble in with “I'm going to be the possessor of a pale blue French sleeping bag, light weight, goose down, good buy I think, find 'em in Vancouver—good for Daisy Mae. Completely wrong type for Canada. Everyone wants to know if her grandfather was an explorer who met an Eskimo. I'm from the North Pole myself.”
“What's he talking about?” I'd ask from the back seat, and Japhy: “He's just an interesting tape recorder.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9
Quotes
“I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like ‘Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,’ then I run on, say, to ‘David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha’ though I don’t use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words ‘equally a coming Buddha’ I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think ‘equally a coming Buddha’ you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy’s eyes.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
