What Did literary Geniuses Think of Themselves

"to himself, and at the end of the day that is for whom art is created:"

Pray may I ask, why did he ever publish then, if it was only made for himself.

You seem to miss a point. No one critises Bukowski for his content, it is for style. No one say's he was a bad writer but no one thinks he was a genius either. Off the top of my head, Hugo, Rimbaud, Dickens all wrote about the harsh side of the tracks as you would call it, the difference was they wrote like geniuses.


"If he doesn't speak to you it's because you've never been on that side of the tracks -and hey, it's a dangerous place the wild side, not recommended for a comfortable
holiday."

That like saying if Byron's poetry doesn't speak to you it's because you were not a whormongering english lord... So clearly it's your fault for not being a whormongering english lord.

Appreciate the response Alexander, but all the relevant information is in my last post - including the reason he wrote, who he wrote for, the fact of unneeding to be seen as a genius and everything else. Please learn to read between the lines - it shall increase your literary enjoyment 1000 times

And that wasn't meant to open a debate about what you reading skills are or anything else, it's just it's all in there - I made sure it was

[edit: though of course I was really tired when I hashed all this down and for which I must apologise to all concerned. The thing is you are right - I have left a few things out, and must have been reading between my own lines and then between other lines that I'd imagined were there.

Forgive me for this and it'll make at least one of us :blush2: ]

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Originally Posted by MystyrMystyry

To attempt to argue he wasn't a good writer is ridiculous because his writing is some of the most legible, cohesive, and fluid I've ever read.

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That is good. He is all that. But there is many writers like this. Specially those pesky journalists...

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If he doesn't speak to you it's because you've never been on that side of the tracks -and hey, it's a dangerous place the wild side, not recommended for a comfortable holiday.

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Sorry, but being a bum and a drunkyard is not poetry or literature. Means nothing if you are discussing the merits of a writer.

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Bukowski was a genius in the same way that Salvador Dali and Fellini were genius - to himself, and at the end of the day that is for whom art is created: oneself, the only genius who can truly understand the creation and purpose.

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Dali was a show-off! Pretendius even. Ok, he can go with Bukowski, but to himself? What does it mean? In the end of the day, all artists are the only who can really understand their creation and you do not need to be genius to go fo it. Otherwise I am a genius.

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Most true artists I've met detest critics and analytics with equal disdain, the mere thought of having their work open to question and prosecution doesn't have the effect of trying to please them, but rather anger them - the art should speak for itself

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That is bs. The public does exactly this, open the work and question it. The notion that criticism is prosecution is ridiculous. Those artists must be just idiots, do you think Beethoveen give a damn to criticsm? Yes, because being angered is giving a damn. Or what about a thousand artists who were critics themselves? Poe, Baudelaire, Borges, Eliot, Woolf, Stevenson, Machado de Assis, Ezra Pound, etc?

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Bukowski was a kind of genius, that kind of genius in its own class, and shouldn't be compared to other geniuses who couldn't go where he went

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Saying he went to a place and others didnt, is comparing.

Bukowski was a genius in the same way that Salvador Dali and Fellini were genius - to himself, and at the end of the day that is for whom art is created: oneself, the only genius who can truly understand the creation and purpose.

I'd say that the purpose of art is to get an idea from the head of the artist to the head of the audience. An artist who intends to create for himself alone is engaged in no more than intellectual masturbation.

Which would explain, actually, why Dali - a compulsive masturbator, according to his biographers - produced work that often seems like a bunch of old toss.

But to get back to Bukowski - a really good stylist, but I wouldn't say he was a genius. Though I'd rather have him mix me a JD and coke than Dali.

As I say I was very tired, and there should be a button around here to recognise if someone is falling asleep at the keyboard and swerving all over the website

The writers that have been mentioned who have written about the wild side and modeled characters on people they've met are not giving you the full picture. Bukowski wrote of people he knew first hand, and who were his friends and favorite audience - the extended audience is getting a very near first hand account of actual people - people who all in my humble opinion wre geniuses in their own inimitable imperfect way

You want to talk about what Bukowski thought of himself as an artist (the theme of the thread) I'll tell you he didn't think of it anywhere near as much as being with his friends.

I'm not sure if I can defend my argument about a particular type of genius, but I'll try - there are many types of art which are both brilliant and unclassifiable, and because of the 'only unto itself' type of art, archictecture, music, poetry, what have you, they must have a certain degree of unmeassurable blue-ribbonness (was that almost an oxymoron? My first one I think)

To be true to oneself in order to create something new, is closer to what I actually meant

'Otherwise I am a genius'

Correct, sir, you are, but at the moment you are perhaps too focused on landmark literature - and many people for whatever reason, feel more comfortable shying away from self-acknowlegement or pursuit, people who may be ingenious geniuses under the right circumstances (if it wasn't just a little too much effort to go to the art store and buy tools for to create a masterpiece - I've heard it all before) and at least Bukowski gave it a proper go.

If you've got but one leg and are therefore unqualified to compete in the two legged marathon, how will you know if you had a chance, unless you ran regardless of being ultimately disqualified.


What's that over there! Could it be the hole the I've dug myself? I think I'll go and - run the other way!

"The writers that have been mentioned who have written about the wild side and modeled characters o people they've met are not giving you the full picture. Bukovski wrote of people he knew first hand, and who were his friends - the audience is getting a very near first hand account of actual people - people who all in my humble opinion wre geniuses in their own inimitable imperfect way"

Have you read any of the works by the writers I mentioned, i think not from your response. By the way, Dickens spent his childhood with his family in debtors prison and himself working 12 hours a day in a bottling plant; and this is not 21st century office or factory work, this is a 19th century factory where several injuries a day were standard and if you lost an arm due to a machine malfunction you would be expected to pay for the damage you caused to the machine. I assure you Bukowski's childhood would have been a ideal dream compared to the horrors of what Dickens had to face.

This is going to bore me back to bed.

A work of art must be able to stand (or fall) under its own weight, and if it is to be judged on its own merits t must be done in isolation - a story in a collection must still be an individual work of art.

We're all guilty of clumping favorite author's works into one big pile and attempting to say: 'It's all good!'

Bukowski had a movie made called Barfly (wrote the screenplay I think?)which of itself is far from greatest movie ever made, but in my opinion it was one of the best movies I've seen, and I know no-one as yet who agrees with me.

The thing is, rather than sit around criticising and defending and praising and deploring wouldn't we all be better off pursuing what we like? I mean you can't please everyone, right?

If a work is meant to be measured on its own merits, Bukowiski personal lifestyle has nothing to do with it. It adds realism (and no, he did not paint a full image, paint what his limited perspective which may be bigger than Fitzgerard perspective granted, allow him to see) just like Melville having being a sailor adds. It does not say much of the work, Paulo Coelho is really the dude who goes to Santiago of Compostela trip, does his work this trip is any good? No. And because Milton was never a fallen angel, was his work bad? No.

And Bukowiski today is far form not landmark literature and frankly... he is nothing close to marginal brazilian literature. Which I work with and have interest to for it. Things that are published in paper and sold along big avenues like Cordel.

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Originally Posted by MystyrMystyry

This is going to bore me back to bed.

A work of art must be able to stand (or fall) under its own weight, and if it is to be judged on its own merits t must be done in isolation - a story in a collection must still be an individual work of art.

We're all guilty of clumping favorite author's works into one big pile and attempting to say: 'It's all good!'

Bukowski had a movie made called Barfly (wrote the screenplay I think?)which of itself is far from greatest movie ever made, but in my opinion it was one of the best movies I've seen, and I know no-one as yet who agrees with me.

The thing is, rather than sit around criticising and defending and praising and deploring wouldn't we all be better off pursuing what we like? I mean you can't please everyone, right?

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well this is disappointing, if you are gonna have the audacity to make gratuitous claims which few agree with at least have the cohones to stick by your argument and not just back out as soon as the going gets rough.

Alexander, you're right, I should see it through, it's just that I've said it all before, so many times to so many deaf ears, that now I just make jokes about my own argument.

See my original post in this recent bit? It's incomplete, and I acknowledge that, but elsewhere I've already explained it fully (not just at Litnet), and I'm not bothered if you hate Bukowski's guts and want to spit on his grave or else place flowers there. Me, I'm neither school, I like what I like, and all the best in finding what you like -your examples certainly exhibit good taste - but to me, at this point in my life at least, I'm searching for something far better than all the books I've read so far

I could say that true genius is that which no-one dare copy and the proof is no-one has dard copied Bukowski, but that falls down when you say he isn't worth copying. Anything anyone says you're going to try to find an annoying argument with, and to be more blank than frank - get a life

Literature may expound on other literature, great literature expounds on life

Sure, Virgil didnt tried to "copy" Homer...
Voltaire did not tried to copy Racine...
Keats did not tried to copy Spencer...
Bioy Casares did not tried to copy Borges...

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Sure, Virgil didnt tried to "copy" Homer...
Voltaire did not tried to copy Racine...
Keats did not tried to copy Spencer...
Bioy Casares did not tried to copy Borges...

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I will be certain to investigate the Latin American authors you recommend, friend, would you care to suggest others? I worship Borges for the time when I first discovered him and still to this day - perhaps that's another quirk of mine?

Well, Cortazar is an obvious name, Ruben Dario, Felisberto Hernandes, Horacio Quiroga ... good names. Ernesto Sabato, Juan Rulfo,Bolanos and bioy of course...
in portuguese, there is Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Guimaraes Rosa... talking mostly of short stories writers...

Cool, Sir, I will certainly be onto them

You've read Marquez, I presume?