I really like Bukowski and his rawness although I was wondering who some similar authors are. Also if there are some a little less dark and depressing that would be good. Any good recommendations?
Thanks
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I really like Bukowski and his rawness although I was wondering who some similar authors are. Also if there are some a little less dark and depressing that would be good. Any good recommendations?
Thanks
Bukowski oddly reminds me a lot of Lermontov. They both had somewhat similar characters. Though Lermontov was a far better artist. Give A Hero Of Our Times a look.
Well, while not exactly like Bukowski, you might try Raymond Carver. There's a visceral nature to both their prose, a kind of common language usage, and both of them sort of describe down-and-outs and alcoholics (though the Buk, much more so). But Carver definitely meets the 'less dark and depressing' requirement, and for better or worse he is not nearly as vulgar.
J
Bukowski was very influenced by John Fante and Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
Wikipedia article notwithstanding, this reader has never read John Fante.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregory Samsa
But he has read Céline. Aside from the general nastiness, disdain and earthy subject matter, there seemed to be a world of difference between Journey to the End of the Night by Céline (who was a French physician) and Ham on Rye by Bukowski (who was an American drunkard).
This reader maintains if you pick up anything Céline's written you're in for quite a different journey, and if you were to pick up anything the Buk's written, it's unlikely you'd be thinking "Hey! This is a lot like Céline!"
J
Hey. The Buk was a good poet and the ladies loved him. I think y'are envious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts
Can't deny that. This reader isn't nearly as full of vice as the man himself, but any way you look at it, the Buk did what he wanted to do. Lived and wrote how he wanted to, no matter what other pressures there were (like having to do time in lousy jobs). And he left three or four good novels, this reader's favorite of his being Factotum. Who doesn't envy that?
Most of his poems that this reader has read (Last Night of the Earth Poems) were just chopped up prose, though.
J
From bad to worse but very good writing.
"It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, ****, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
—Factotum, 1975
"Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death...in a cesspool."
—Women, 1978
"I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me . . . To do things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep."
—Ham on Rye, 1982
"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."
—Interview, London Magazine, December 1974-January 1975
"This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be. Places I don’t wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don’t understand that . . ."
—Barfly, 1987
"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They s**t them away. Dumb f***ers. They concentrate too much on ****ing, movies, money, family, ****ing. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."
—The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998
Yeah, that's about the long and short of it.
It was good to read some of those quotes again, and one or two this reader had never seen before. So thanks for offering them up. There's some theme about 'affirming your own life' in there that really resonates.
J
Hi.
Henry Miller is quite similar to Bukowski (or Bukowki is similar to him should I say) in that he writes about the same themes and is very anti establishment. Miller is not a misanthrope like Bukowski was, and he was a better writer in my opinion.
Thanks guys, ya I really like Buk for his use of regular language and struggles through life. I feel he says what's on his mind without worrying about what people would think so I like that kind of realness to it. So thanks for the suggestions.
I don't know if he was a better writer than the Buk. Miller was good too. But the Buk was simplistic. He didn't even want to be recognized, I think. He was an escapist and he managed to do it, settling for what was required. But in the end, more furious than ever, he found himself more and more entangled. Not the case with Miller.Quote:
Originally Posted by smerdyakov
THE PROSTITUTE, THE PIMP, AND THE COUNTERFEITER BY MIKE SHARLOW. I think that's the title.