Bukowski

filthymcnasty · 24-09-2011 1:25am #1

Did a boards search before I posted this but nothing in a year plus.

Whats the opinion of Charles Bukowski, I'm re-reading his stuff after 10 years.
Finding it bleak to say the least, I think I enjoyed it more the first time (was a teenager then).

Red Hand · 24-09-2011 10:45pm

I like his style of writing...it's kind of spontaneous, as if he made very little changes to it as he wrote each page.

But yeah, some of it is kind of like the American Angela's Ashes. There aren't that many sympanthetic characters in Ham on Rye and it's supposed to be fairly autobiographical.

PhiliousPhogg · 25-09-2011 4:45am

I've read Post Office, Women, Hollywood and flicked through some poetry collections and I never found it bleak. His character may be a down-and-out but he is so by choice and he has a sense of pride in being an outcast. Yes he shows disgust at pretty much everyone (Hollywood is a bit more cheerful because he wrote it after making some money), but I always got a sense of freedom in that. And his style of writing is very readable and there's a good dose of humour in there.

RubyRoss · 28-09-2011 1:52am

Bukowski seems to have a cultish following but I don't get it. There's a doc about him called Born Into This: he swears and drinks a lot while the crowd go wild. He clearly made for an alternative to dull serious poetry readings but apart from that he seems self-obsessed with the idea of being a drunk writer rather than simply getting on with being both.

Hollywood was so so - I'd reach for Hubert Selby Jr instead.

Sorry for dampening your thread...may it blossom

Giselle · 28-09-2011 9:54am

''as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.''

My favourite couple of lines in all his work

I like the unlikeableness (is that a word?) of his characters, its an antidote to the plethora of stereotypes available in almost all fiction.

edit: Unlikeability! How could I forget that!

ArticHare · 28-09-2011 10:06am

Giselle wrote: »

I like the unlikeableness (is that a word?) of his characters

I know what you're saying! They're likeable in a way because you know whats going on in their heads and they're amusing, yet incredibly unlikeable in their actions. This is a lot like John Fante's (who Bukowski loved) Bandini characters, books I'd recommend to anyone who liked Bukowski.

Bukowski himself doesn't seem like he was a very nice man, so I've ignored this

I've read post office, factotum, women and pulp, and enjoyed them all.

Kinski · 03-10-2011 5:28pm

I really liked Factotum and Post Office. Anyone seen the film of Factotum? I haven't, but I saw Barfly, which starred Mickey Rourke, years ago. It wasn't great...

johnmcagney · 03-10-2011 7:06pm

I read Ham on Rye recently and I thought it was hilarious and tragic. I don't like his interviews too much cause he won't reveal himself. But in Ham and Rye, underneath the belly laughs and the tough-man stuff, the tragedy is there. It is most acute at the end of the novel when the war begins and all his grown peers go to enlist but Henry plays in an arcade with a young boy before slouching off to get drunk.... There is just some kind of honesty here that is so sad.

mickoregan · 19-11-2011 9:45am

I've loved Bukowski for years.
Have any of you Bukowski fans tried any of the John Fante books? Well worth a read. I believe Bukowski himself was a big fan.
Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Ask the Dust are the two that I've read over the past few years.

Dave! · 10-03-2013 1:21am

*bump*

Bought Post Office recently and am half way through it. Easy enough to read, but I'm hoping in the second half it turns into something more than a series of slightly amusing postman stories.

Just finished watching the docco Born Into This (mentioned earlier). Worth a watch, obviously a very tormented man.

Have been flicking through his poetry too. I like some of it, e.g.:

Oh Yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

Charles Bukowski

and

the crunch

too much too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody.

laughter or
tears

haters
lovers

strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks

armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and ****ing
virgins.

an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.

people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.

I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.

but sometimes I think about
it.

the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.

too much
too little

too fat
too thin
or nobody

more haters than lovers.

people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.

meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.

there must be a way.

surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.

who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
"no."

ThirdMan · 14-03-2013 8:02pm

Dave! wrote: »

I'm hoping in the second half it turns into something more than a series of slightly amusing postman stories.

I've read all of his novels except Hollywood, and the only one with a really traceable plot is Pulp. The rest of his stuff follows the Post Office template (although Ham on Rye is a little more focused). But that's just his style.

Dave! wrote: »

Have been flicking through his poetry too. I like some of it

Bukowski's poetry is the source of one of his major contradictions. He railed against the pretentiousness of literature, yet:

his poetry
always
appears in
that
broken style

that
the beat generation
writers
were fixated on

but which
meant
nothing

except
self indulgence

and
pretentiousness.

stick girl · 18-03-2013 11:36am

One of my favorite writers of all time. There is something honest in the tragedy of his characters. Bukowski cuts to the bone of society and it's pretensions, and while some of his books feel a tad redundant, his portrayal of men (biographical and not) both crude and clever, never fails to find the humor in life as well. Reading Come On In. Book of poems he left to be published after his death. Brilliant as ever

damselnat · 19-03-2013 2:03am

I looove Bukowski's poetry...very simple, very plain, very effective. I haven't read some in a long time, but thanks, I shall be digging out my battered old copies this week...'Freedom' was always one of my favourites, probably because of its simple, unaffected shocking-ness

he drank wine all night of the
28th, and he kept thinking of her:
the way she walked and talked and loved
the way she told him things that seemed true
but were not, and he knew the color of each
of her dresses
and her shoes-he knew the stock and curve of
each heel
as well as the leg shaped by it.

and she was out again and when he came home,and
she'd come back with that special stink again,
and she did
she came in at 3 a.m in the morning
filthy like a dung eating swine
and
he took out a butchers knife
and she screamed
backing into the rooming house wall
still pretty somehow
in spite of love's reek
and he finished the glass of wine.

that yellow dress
his favorite
and she screamed again.

and he took up the knife
and unhooked his belt
and tore away the cloth before her
and cut off his balls.

and carried them in his hands
like apricots
and flushed them down the
toilet bowl
and she kept screaming
as the room became red

GOD O GOD!
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

and he sat there holding 3 towels
between his legs
no caring now whether she left or
stayed
wore yellow or green or
anything at all.

and one hand holding and one hand
lifting he poured
another wine

david75 · 19-03-2013 2:10am

I read Factotum when I was a teenager and really enjoyed it. Not so much when I tried it again recently which was weird.

Earthhorse · 19-03-2013 2:47pm

ThirdMan wrote: »

Bukowski's poetry is the source of one of his major contradictions.

I disagree. I think the layout of the poems lends them a rhythm they wouldn't quite have otherwise and he lays them out well.

ThirdMan · 20-03-2013 1:20am

Earthhorse wrote: »

I disagree. I think the layout of the poems lends them a rhythm they wouldn't quite have otherwise and he lays them out well.

I came across one or two before that were laid out like a staircase, with the words descending down the page. That's just silly. It signifies nothing except that author's self-indulgence. But that's just my opinion. If it adds something for you then great, I'm happy to hear it.

buck65 · 03-04-2013 1:09pm

His poetry for me was always the least gripping, his short stories can be perfect or not but always funny, tragic or entertaining.
The novels are basically extensions of his short stories, Ham on Rye is his masterpiece. I love Bukowski.

Dave! · 03-04-2013 1:23pm

Finished Post Office the other day. A good read, solid enough but didn't exactly blow me away.

I bought Ham on Rye, but am reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas first.

Vunderground · 03-04-2013 7:32pm

david75 wrote: »

I read Factotum when I was a teenager and really enjoyed it. Not so much when I tried it again recently which was weird.

That's not weird at all. Lots of people enjoy him in their teens because he's 'cool'. He drinks like an aquarium; takes drugs and engages in spontaneous composition. Very cool really.

When you get a bit older and have read a lot more he's not so interesting.
Tons of better stuff out there to read imo.

debaser13 · 08-09-2013 8:05pm

nobody can name a book like him (love is a dog from hell, or, what matters most is how well you walk through the fire). And also so many of his poems are heavy going, all about beating women, vomiting, fighting, getting fired and suicide but he often ends them with the most amazing little insights eg angels we have grown apart, or, screaming because the world had failed us both.
Of course there are better poets out there but i'll always read him.

Tall Saint · 09-09-2013 5:05pm

I read Post Office last year. It was my first time reading Bukowski and although I really liked it, I was left with the feeling that it kind of lacked something. What book his should I try next? Ham On Rye I guess? I was very much aware of his cult following and his reputation beforehand, so maybe that's what raised my expectations first time 'round.

Fans of his might also enjoy Denis Johnson. I've enjoyed quite a few of his books.

Dave! · 09-09-2013 6:38pm

Tall Saint wrote: »

I read Post Office last year. It was my first time reading Bukowski and although I really liked it, I was left with the feeling that it kind of lacked something. What book his should I try next? Ham On Rye I guess? I was very much aware of his cult following and his reputation beforehand, so maybe that's what raised my expectations first time 'round.

Fans of his might also enjoy Denis Johnson. I've enjoyed quite a few of his books.

I read 'Post Office' followed by 'Ham on Rye', neither of which blew me away. I was a bit disappointed really - didn't find the stories particularly compelling, and the language/writing wasn't particularly enjoyable or attractive. I'm not much of a literary critic, but for me if a book is lacking in one of those areas, then it had better make up for it in the other area!

Given that those are probably his most accomplished/acclaimed novels, I'm not really inclined to read any more. I still enjoy some of his poetry, and I need to read more of his columns, because I enjoyed the ones that I have read.

Tall Saint · 10-09-2013 3:05pm

Ya I see what you mean about either the storyline or the writing needing to reach the mark. I think I'll give Ham On Rye a read at some point. I haven't read any of his poetry collections either, except for a few online, but I also have the feeling I would enjoy it more. Maybe it's just a better format for his ideas, considering the weak points previously discussed.

I also completely agree with Debaser13 on the titles thing, he knows how to name a book!

Harry Angstrom · 10-09-2013 7:14pm

I'd put Bukowski in the Kerouac category - of those writers that people tend to name drop in an effort to make them look cool, when the fact is, they were both a bit shyte, and completely overrated.

Lexe · 12-09-2013 5:14pm

I like Bukowski for what he is - I don't think there's any pretension there at all - I believe most of his writing is autobiographical. From reading Ham On Rye it seems that by the age of 17 or so Bukowski resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't amount to much because he simply didn't care- I think that it's really tragic and he suffered a lot. In ways he doesn't seem to like himself much and perhaps writing was his only salvation. The characters are not very likable and the stories sometimes drag because he was a depressed alcoholic but for me it was interesting to read- and I particularly love the poem A Smile to Remember because it evoked real sadness in me

Caonima · 28-09-2013 2:26pm

A great writer of great books. A source of laugh-out-loud hilarity for me over the years.

Indricotherium · 29-07-2015 9:42pm

Just reading the collection of Buckowskis letters on writing, at the moment.

Great insight into the man.

Highlight so far is the letter to Anthony Linick, 22 April 1959. It is just dripping with sarcasm, very funny. It goes on to cite a list of writers Buckowski considers above the constraints of grammar, Hemmingway Stein etc, but he puts Joyce top of the list.

Bukowski

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