Bukowski chat

**Squeamous** · 02-02-2012, 11:29 AM

Hey, Chavois-faire,

I was thinking about Buk on my way into work this morning. I was trying to think about why whenever I write anything it sounds trite and up myself, yet he can make these massively grand statements about his genius and he just sounds effortlessly right and cool.
I think it's because he makes you feel like it's you and he in it together, and it's everyone else who is dead and rubbish. What do you think?

**chalice** · 02-02-2012, 11:45 AM

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.

**manker** · 02-02-2012, 11:57 AM

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

**chalice** · 02-02-2012, 11:59 AM

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.

**chalice** · 02-02-2012, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by manker

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 reckon you'd really enjoy his prose, mate. I wouldn't be so daft as to inflict anybody's poetry on you. I know you had that traumatic episode with Sylvia Plath in your formative years.

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.

**manker** · 02-02-2012, 12:23 PM

I'd like that, thank you. My email is my username here @gmail.com

I'm currently womping along thro some asimov and I've got the new installment of Cornwell's medieval romp epic on t'kindle waiting for me.
Thing is, I've always bought his stuff and I'm gonna feel guilty all the way thro if I read this thing I've stolen. Your timely offer will probably afford me enough time to go buy it.
Cheers.

**chalice** · 02-02-2012, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by manker

I'd like that, thank you. My email is my username here @gmail.com

I'm currently womping along thro some asimov and I've got the new installment of Cornwell's medieval romp epic on t'kindle waiting for me.
Thing is, I've always bought his stuff and I'm gonna feel guilty all the way thro if I read this thing I've stolen. Your timely offer will probably afford me enough time to go buy it.
Cheers.

Funnily enough, I read I Robot and Foundation a few weeks ago. Super stuff. What the fuck they were doing in that Will Smith film, I have no fucking idea. Atrocity. Been reading a lot of Ray Bradbury too.

Email sent. Added a couple cos I like you. They're in epub but they convert very well with Calibre innit.

Edit: Resent them in .mobi. cos that's just the kinda guy I am.

**manker** · 02-02-2012, 12:52 PM

Yeah, Calibre. What a decent bit of kit that is.
The Foundation novels are fab, eh. I also liked the preludes and sequels he wrote in later life which are less critically acclaimed.

Do you use library.nu, btw? It's ace. I coincidentally downloaded Fahrenheit 451 from there just yesterday.

Got teh mail, nioce one.