Bukowski chat

[Barbarossa]

What is this calibre of which you speak?

Ebook archiver and converter, Barbs. Quality.

http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

Cool! Sounds good. I was looking for something to convert .pdf into .mobi format. Will it do that?

[chalice]

Ebook archiver and converter, Barbs. Quality.

http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

Cool! Sounds good. I was looking for something to convert .pdf into .mobi format. Will it do that?

It'll do it, but the PDFs I've converted are a bit wank. Converts epubs nearly pefectly, but PDFs are a bit of a cunt. Try it anyway. Might just be the ones I tried innit.

[Squeamous]

I just get the feeling of authenticity from him. On his gravestone it reads 'Don't Try'. Whenever he was pestered for advice from fledgeling writers, he'd (under duress) tell them not to try. Now, maybe he was being obtuse and in a roundabout way telling them to fuck off and stop badgering him, but one gets the sense that none of what he wrote was planned, plotted or structured. He was compelled to write. Ordinarily that would sound pretentious as fuck, but not with him. Art for Art's sake and all that wank.

He is 'within and without', to quote Fitzgerald, 'simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life'. It's not just wart's and all, it's fucking extra deluxe warts for all those wart lovers amongst us.

The closest in approach I've seen to him (besides a kinship with Hemingway) is Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit To Brooklyn), but Selby does vignettes. Small slices of degradation, but with a highly moralistic tone. Buk just says 'Fuck all that'. This is how it is and if you judge it as anything else, you're a spastic'.

Just finished Hollywood. Fucking hilarious.

He was just completely devoid of pretension, and that's the key I think. Anybody who wants to write but needs help or finds it difficult shouldn't be writing, fact. They will either sound like a bell-end or have that awful staccato awkward style that doesn't flow.
People I consider to write with the same lack of pretension and a scientific pursuit of truth no matter how degrading or grubby, are George Orwell (Down and Out.....) and Henry Miller (Tropics....). I've heard of Last Exit but not the author, so I'll look that one up, ta

I think it's all about perception.
I can almost guarantee that if I was to read the parts where he was describing his genious, I would feel that he was being up himself and a bit of a knob - but you both have read and have appreciated said genious and are of the particular mind that he's a good egg. With what squeams wrote in the first post, it's because you feel his work backs up his statements and your own literary efforts don't.
I reckon I'd feel the same if my literary heroes wrote similar passages but the authors I feel most kinship with seem almost entirely bereft of ego.


I've stayed away from this guy purely because someone told me years ago that I have to read Bukowski's poetry because it's dead good

I think it's because when I write I'm selfish and I navel-gaze, whereas when Buk writes he sounds like a bystander to the story or thing he's putting across. He's documenting it with wry humour and sometimes savage intensity, but it's very journalistic in style. You will rarely hear what he feels about any of what he's saying. He's a detached observer in his own life. It's almost as if you're standing there with him as much a part of it as he is.

Heard a great story about him. He had a film crew making a documentary about him in the early 70's. They followed him around the lecture circuit at the crest of his breakthrough with Black Sparrow Press. They were en route to some University on a plane, and he was being his usual belligerent self, brow-beating the crew and getting stinko.

A couple of weeks later he printed a story in the LA Free Press, describing the journey and how great he was and how the crew were just arty schmucks, transfusing his genius. The director came to him and said 'But Hank, you were the guy getting nasty and blotto on the plane. I've got the footage to prove it'.

Buk goes, 'Look, when I write, I'm the hero of my shit. You've got your little film and I wish you luck with it.

Legend.

Ever see that video of him being interviewed and giving Linda a clout because she said something he didn't like? No doubt that he was very fucking flawed.

A good place to start, I reckon, would be Ham On Rye, though written much later in life, it chronicles his brutal but defiant upbringing. Gimme an email address and I'll send you the .mobi copy. Or don't. See if I fucking care.

Yup....Ham on Rye, throughly concur. Probably my favourite thing he's written

[manker]

I think it's because when I write I'm selfish and I navel-gaze, whereas when Buk writes he sounds like a bystander to the story or thing he's putting across. He's documenting it with wry humour and sometimes savage intensity, but it's very journalistic in style. You will rarely hear what he feels about any of what he's saying. He's a detached observer in his own life. It's almost as if you're standing there with him as much a part of it as he is.

Then I don't really understand your initial comment.
Which is hardly surprising since I have no idea what I'm talking about
I shall read this Catcher in the Ham book and write some more stuff.

[Something Else]

I've been reading some of the Ender series, by Orson Scott Card recently, as well as some short stories by Philip.K.Dick. Asimov is great too. I've been meaning to read some of those again.

I think i've got a fillum about this Bukowski fella. I'm not too familiar with his stuffs. I'll check some out. Does he mind you calling him Buk.

[megabyteme]

Wait a minute...this thread has nothing to do with womens getting large amounts of semen all over their faces. What a rip.

[100%]

We just watched a local lame version of Eurovision song contest together, enjoyable if you get into it
now my wife is putting the child to bed by reading a comfy bed time story.
Just did the dishes, and will work on my essay.

My contribution to Bukowski chat.

[Squeamous]

I think it's because when I write I'm selfish and I navel-gaze, whereas when Buk writes he sounds like a bystander to the story or thing he's putting across. He's documenting it with wry humour and sometimes savage intensity, but it's very journalistic in style. You will rarely hear what he feels about any of what he's saying. He's a detached observer in his own life. It's almost as if you're standing there with him as much a part of it as he is.

Then I don't really understand your initial comment.
Which is hardly surprising since I have no idea what I'm talking about
I shall read this Catcher in the Ham book and write some more stuff.

What I meant was, he can be up himself and egotistical because he does it without diminishing the reader in any way. He's totally non-threatening. Usually if a writer were to say 'I'm fucking amazing and so is this poem: it's the best one you've ever read' you would think 'what a knob'. Somehow he gets away with it. I think my literary efforts are just fine, and I've got the ability to write. I just hate myself when I do.
Anyway, my sinuses are full of snot and I feel like dying so I'm probably not making much sense

[manker]

That makes hella sense.
I might ask you and chavois to stop the talking about, and indeed the reading of, books for a while so that I can catch up and revel in scholastic parity.

I said might, I probably won't. I'm not feeling terribly assertive today

[mjmacky]

Wait a minute...this thread has nothing to do with womens getting large amounts of semen all over their faces. What a rip.

You're thinking of Polish Bukkake, aka Bukkakowski.