Or: To Know Buk Better You Need to Know Buk’s
Or: Start with This First
I’m tired and sick of people who slam Bukowski without knowing what he’s really all about.
If you don’t know, don’t say. An apothegm that should apply to all areas of life. And, think about whether you really do know it before you say it. And analyze what you said afterward, too. Not obsess over, not ruminate upon in a psychologically distressing fashion: ANALYZE. Harold Bloom said that Shakespeare invented the human by showing us how his characters listen to themselves, not to each other, which I never really understood until right now.
To Buk himself I say, these MISUNDERSTANDINGS I’m snarling at must be partly the wages of having become so well-known, sir, like you both did and did not say you wanted to. By the end of the century, you will have outgrown Hemmie (but he will still be there).
This column is ghost-written by a guy who calls himself The Drifter. That isn’t his name. It’s what he calls himself now – sometimes.
Today, The Drifter is limiting himself to listing, and briefly commenting upon in offhand fashion, a round half dozen Buk-like artists who Buk knew like the back of his hand before he became “Buk.” Any Reader would do well to be or become a little familiar with one or a few of them, at least, before encountering Bukowski – BECAUSE THEY ALL CAME BEFORE HIM.
It’s a form of ancestry-study, an ancient ritual hundreds of thousands of years old (minimum) and as fresh as tomorrow. Everyone wants to know where they’re from and who their ancestors are, at least somewhat. All good writers, in whatever genre, come out of a lineage. There would be no H.P. Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson without Edgar Allan Poe, and without EAP and HPL and SJ, there would be no Stephen King, just as there would be no King without Tolkien. Cormac McCarthy put it this way: “Books are made out of other books.”
ONE: Hemingway. REALITY. Autobiography as fiction and fiction as autobiography.
TWO: Ezra Pound. The spare, hard, non-superfluous, unadorned and without-artificialities writing style. Hemingway got the style from Pound, Twain and the Kansas City Star, but it’s also a modern thing in all writing. Pound also didn’t care about a wide audience while wanting to reach everybody. And he was an absolute wizard of the small and independent press and “do-it-yourself” publishing, which is the place Buk came from and always belonged and still does belong. He is “the King of the littles.” No blogging or posting without him first. Pound and H.D. together invented Imagism, which was poetry’s answer to Picasso’s Analytical Cubism, among a million other things. Read Norman Mailer on what Analytical Cubism REALLY was and apply that to Bukowski’s project, too. Pound also did more than anyone else in the twentieth century to bring Chinese literature into English and American literature. Bukowski loved LI PO and practiced his own very private form of Buddhism while living through his final cancer. And the man LIVED – even while dying. Life gets more precious as you feel it slipping away but also, if you’re ready, it isn’t too hard to say goodbye (and if you don’t believe this is really goodbye, it’s even easier). You knew this would happen to you one of these days, if you were awake. “Let it be.”
THREE: Antonin Artaud. Look at his pictures on the internet and study his personality and the progression from young to old man. Old for Artaud was 40s and early 50s, thanks to hard drugs, hard living, and other factors, like incarceration. He exited the vale of tears at 51. Study his “Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society.” Study his theories about the Theater of Cruelty and apply to Buk’s writing. Study the pictures of Buk.
FOUR: Nathaniel Hawthorne. The figure of the solitary artist in America, both North and South, and by that I mean both North and South America, as well. Just like One Hundred Years of Solitude.
FIVE: Picasso. He was also a poet. He claimed that in a thousand years he will be known as a poet – and that his visual art will have disappeared. All of art is all of life and all of life is art, if it’s any good. No need to travel to the other side of the world, just be awake here. Everything and everyone are right in front of you wherever you are, if only you will open your eyes.
SIX: Diogenes, the Dog Philosopher. He was the greatest critic of Society who ever lived – except Yeshua.
We need them more and more and more and more and more and more.
CODA:
I hereby append a selection from a recent email correspondence betwixt myself and Leila Allison, Editor (and a writer who stands with Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson):
“LEILA, I SAW THE OLD GUITARIST AGAIN!”
Image: A background of dried leaves, seeds, pods and petals in pink, gold and brown from Pixabay.com
literally stories 
Dale
Oh there are lots of people out there who only see the dirty fingernails and do not wonder how they got that way. Usually wanna-bees and the insufferable types who seek sinners then make that God awful sound the pod people made in the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Charles asked for that sort of abuse and I am pretty sure he found it funny.
I guess there are two kinds of people–those who gets offended when you say “fuck off” and those who want to know why you said it. There’s a world of difference in there.
Brilliant, energetic essay–and yes the Old Guitarist is always around to be seen by those who aren’t hooked over their phones.
Leila
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LA
Socrates said that the smarter a human is, the more they know what they DO NOT KNOW, while the idiots among us think they know everything, and are quite convinced that they know everything. I don’t claim to know this, but I do know that Socrates said it, and he said it more than two millennia ago, therefore it must have staying power or it would have blown away on the wind like so much else.
I think many people WANT to see the “bad side” so they can throw stones and feel better about themselves. And they are green with envy, and too cowardly to be bad. Seeing a free person hurts when your mind is on auto-pilot.
If it sounds like sour grapes it probably is but I also have an overflow of fresh wine, and to all my enemies, you haven’t killed me yet, oh you who have tried!
DB
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Very informative. I never would’ve expected to see Hawthorne on the list, but it makes sense. Love the quote “Books are made out of other books.”
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Hi David
Yes, Hawthorne and Bukowski have nothing in common until one thinks about the American lone wolf phenomenon which DH Lawrence the Englishman came over here and tried to imitate (successfully).
Dale
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Hi DWB
Great guide to Buk. You’re right a person especially a reader/writer should make the decision for themselves. Instead of buying into the hype or un-hype of the snobbish literary circles. Whatever they say he is a giant!
My first unwitting introduction to Buk came in the 80s through the movie Barfly then Factotum.
I was reading his “On Writing” book and it shares a lot of his correspondence with publishers. Very compelling! Funny, gritty, and powerful how he uses language.
I like how you mentioned the influences on him. This is an edgy piece of writing telling it, how it is! “and books are made of other books.” how true.
I liked hearing about E. Pound another wholly intriguing writer. And the influence of N. H.
I didn’t know Picasso was a poet and that was quite a statement…
The first time I ever heard anyone talk about a writer being a reader was by SK, and that was quite a while back, probably the best advice ever for the budding writer, however it comes down the pike, since everyone says it, too. But at the time I thought it was as we discussed the strangeness of literature, “A strange comment.” And after reading some of Buk’s work, he’s there too.
CJA
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Hi CJA
Yes, I think every writer, or at least every writer who gets anything good done, eventually says, “To be a writer you must read,” in one way or another. Probably for no other reason than because it’s so true. Reading good things, bad things, and things in the middle is also required, I do believe. It’s hard to tell what’s truly, truly good when you have nothing to compare it to.
Buk gets slammed by an awful lot of people who can’t even write 2% as good as he can, even on his worst day ever! And he was so incredibly prolific that it was necessary he would repeat himself sometimes. Also, only some of his writings are pornographic. Probably less than 3%, or maybe even less than 2%. And most of that material, he was paid to write. (Not paid much, but paid a little.)
DWB
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Hi Dale,
I enjoyed your Socrates quote in your answer to Leila. It shouldn’t take long to realise, that, if you hold your hands up and admit that there is something you don’t know, you very seldom are ridiculed. Winging it and being caught out is a different matter.
I had heard this but didn’t know who wrote it, I checked and I think originally, no-one knows. It’s a cracking line!
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”
Regarding Charles, I’ve only read one book ‘Ham On Rye’. I reckon I have been a fan of his style since I’ve been reading but I just didn’t know it. Description can bore me. I find that a lot of description does nothing for the story and becomes all about describing. (If that makes any sense??)
What I remember about that book was the sparseness of the style but the depth of the words. He never wasted any. I’ve just remembered, I think Gwen bought me a book of his poetry a Christmas or so back. I’ve not read it. It’s in one of those cupboards which have all the things that we want to get around to!!
Informative, intelligent and entertaining my fine friend!!!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
You are right, HAM ON RYE is a great novel. Also one of those books that crosses the line between memoir and fiction, in the sense that it appears to be fictionalized memoir and/or a nonfiction novel. Either way, it may be the book where he manages to create his most compelling scenes. The father in that book is a complete and utter monster of a human being, an American Nazi, and this from a man who went off to fight the Germans during WW1.
Many of Buk’s poems are really short short stories with line breaks, which, in his case, is wonderful. Thanks for publishing this essay!
Dale
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Dale,
I’m a big fan of American writers (would a Brit ever have written a ‘Walden’? never in a million years), but I’ve never read any of Bukowski’s work. May I ask you for a starter recommendation? bw mick
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Hi Mick
Thanks for asking.
I would start with Buk’s coming-of-age novel, HAM ON RYE. It’s a very American book and it starts with the main character’s first memory and covers his life until he becomes a young man. Riveting, horrifying, and hilarious by turns. And, ironically, unbelievably life-affirming in the long run.
PORTIONS FROM A WINE-STAINED NOTEBOOK is also a great posthumous collection, with great stories and essays. It also has a great introduction by the Bukowski scholar David Stephen Calonne.
All of his poetry is also worth checking out! Some are better than others and almost all are interesting in the best of ways. No one ever made anti-poetry more poetic than Buk did.
Dale
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