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Thread: Charles Bukowski

  1. #16
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    Bukowski is the most honest writer of the 20th century.


    He should have lied more often... might have made for better reading.
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by paperleaves View Post
    There is a certain level of appreciation that one must have for raw, intense, uninhibited poetry-- a disturbing, dirty, even sickening curiosity for the places he describes.
    This is the kind of stuff that brings my dislike for him to the level of hate. He is not doing anything special. Nothing he writes is any more shocking than the 11 o'clock news or a 60 Minutes piece. He doesn't even write in an interesting style so people might as well read news transcripts.

  3. #18
    Registered User paperleaves's Avatar
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    I'm sorry that my opinion has provoked you to despise my Chinaski! lol. It is quite interesting to see everyone's perspective, though. I honestly had no idea that so many people didn't care for Bukowski on this forum. Enjoy Ham on Rye
    "real
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    limited to
    when
    you are
    alone
    "
    -C. Bukowski

  4. #19
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    Haha, I hope my post didn't come off as too harsh or as a personal reaction towards you. It's just that that type of stuff is the only defense I ever see of him! It drives me insane. In my experience, a large number of people who like Bukowski have never read anything but Bukowski.

  5. #20
    Registered User paperleaves's Avatar
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    I completely see where you are coming from--I started a Literary Arts Club a few years back and believe me, we had to weed out the pseudo-intellectual hipsters who had never read anything BUT Bukowski and had no appreciation for other works..as the quote in Stlukes sig reads, "Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid"
    ^_^
    "real
    loneliness
    is not
    necessarily
    limited to
    when
    you are
    alone
    "
    -C. Bukowski

  6. #21
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    Bingo! If we can agree on this then there is hope for world peace after all.

  7. #22
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    I thought Ham on Rye was alright. I guess I am the exception to the rule, because I didn't love, love, love it, or hate, hate, hate it. I may try another of his novels out, but not now. He just didn't grab me.

  8. #23
    the books of his letters are pretty entertaining

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by husker du
    Haha, I hope my post didn't come off as too harsh or as a personal reaction towards you. It's just that that type of stuff is the only defense I ever see of him! It drives me insane. In my experience, a large number of people who like Bukowski have never read anything but Bukowski.
    Your previous post did not, but this one did, at least a bit, for me. I have encountered several Bukowski fans who, I almost consider it safe to say, grew an obsession with him and his works, but calling even "a large number of [Bukowski readers]," or any reading population, for that matter, poorly read, naïve, and/or selective to the point of restricting one's reading material to one author sounds like a poor generalization measured more by a pessimistic bias than objectivity. I would not label myself as one of Bukowski's "obsessed" fans, but a big fan nonetheless, particularly of his poetry; this fact, I feel, does not make me poorly read, and I regret you should jump to that assumption - with 8,000-something posts on this forum alone, I should hope I have discussed at least a few other authors, other than Bukowski.
    To some degree, I have witnessed what you describe, as the less literary readers exploring Bukowski more for his very dark, twisted, uninhibited, risqué nature of writing, as opposed to appreciating his unique literary art; some read him more out of curiosity in the popular deviance than out of literary appreciation. I would not wholly discount these readers as "non-fans" (since how does one define "fan?"), giggling behind a copy of Bone Palace Ballet, and certainly not poorly read in such a generalization, as even these readers can often eventually delve into other deviant writers, like William S. Burroughs, Richard Brautigan, or Raymond Carver.

  10. #25
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    There are a million miles of separation between Carver and Bukowski.

    And how recently have you been on a college campus? Bukowski is as popular among non-readers as King and Rowling are.

  11. #26
    Registered User Boris239's Avatar
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    I haven't read much of the poetry, but I really enjoyed "Women", "Factotum" and "Post office". To be fair after reading one of his books, the others seem kind of similar... I think you just have to like a special kind of humor to enoy Bukowski... But well- some people don't find "Pulp Fiction" funny

  12. #27
    Registered User Bastable's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by husker du View Post
    There are a million miles of separation between Carver and Bukowski.

    And how recently have you been on a college campus? Bukowski is as popular among non-readers as King and Rowling are.
    so not very popular then?
    L'enfer, cest les autres

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by husker du
    There are a million miles of separation between Carver and Bukowski.
    Indeed, I acknowledge their differences without regret, just as any writer has disparities from another, but Michael Hemmingson, writer of The Dirty Realism Duo, declared Bukowski and Carver the "fathers of dirty realism." At a mere 200 pages in length, I would recommend it, then perhaps debating your opinion with Hemmingson, a fiction writer and critic whose current project consists of a biography upon Raymond Carver; one would hope he knows his stuff with such a pursuit.
    Quote Originally Posted by husker du
    And how recently have you been on a college campus? Bukowski is as popular among non-readers as King and Rowling are.
    Again, agreed, and I attempted to describe this shared, mutual opinion in my second paragraph of my last post on this thread. To answer your question directly, however, as I feel unsure whether you intended this query out of curiosity or in a facetious manner, I live one city block away from one university, where I tutor on an irregular basis upon the subject, applicable to this subject, of creative writing, but also upon human anatomy and physiology. I typically dislike sharing personal information on a public forum, but in addition to my presence on university campus grounds, I graduated from two of them in 2006 simultaneously with degrees in literature and creative writing as well as nursing.
    Quote Originally Posted by Boris239
    I haven't read much of the poetry, but I really enjoyed "Women", "Factotum" and "Post office". To be fair after reading one of his books, the others seem kind of similar... I think you just have to like a special kind of humor to enoy Bukowski... But well- some people don't find "Pulp Fiction" funny
    Many readers, I feel, tend to have explored one of two of his works, poetry or fiction. As opposed to you, I have read more of the former, and hope to read more of his fiction with time, but, alas, so much to read so little time! I regret to hear that many of his novels have blended in with each other, for better or worse; indeed, one has to like his dark, awkward humor to indulge in his works, so his novels blending in with each other may seem a virtue or vice, yet I can contest something different of his poetry. The majority of his poetry, as with almost any poet, reads with a similar theme and mood, but certainly upon different subjects to the point that many works of his poetry appear fragmented as well as own a unique connection to each other, much like puzzle pieces that fit together with jagged edges.
    Thanks for the tip, regardless, that many of his books read with a lot of similarities, having only read one of his novels, Factotum, yet hoping to read more - perhaps a good discussion topic when the time comes?

  14. #29
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    I love the novellas of Carver and the poetry of Bukowski. I think Bukowski's novels lack the profundity of his poetry, although he was beginning to get there when he wrote "Ham on Rye" in the latter part of his career.

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