/lit/ - Literature

What author led the most fucked up, unforgivable life?

I'm not talking about who suffered the most, because depressed and suicidal authors are a dime a dozen. I'm talking about who was the greatest piece of shit, the least respectable human being, a misanthrope who relished in constantly being a huge bastard.

What author left behind the most malevolence as their legacy?

What does /lit/ think of Bukowski?

I feel bad posting him since it's not as if he pretended to be something he was not. He owned how dumb he was, to a certain extent. Kerouac is likely up there as well as Camus.

Why do people constantly quote Bukowski like he's some sort of messiah?

What was his appeal?
My GF recomended him to me, she's into ugly unkept drunks. I thought this was her unique weird quirk, but after reading some of his stuff it seems she's not alone.

What do you have against him, /lit/?

>>8552350
>verbs

>It's a DFW novel

dumping author pics and shit

Is he the only philosopher who was 100% right about everything?

Is Bukowski even dead?

What are your honest opinions on the beat generation?

Cliche? Over-rated? Fantastic? Bigged up too much?

What do you think about him?

Age
>20
Gender
>Male
Race
>White
What are you currently reading?
>anna karenina
When did you really get into reading?
>18 years
Favourite book/literary work
> don't really have a favorite, probably the idiot from dostoievski or for whom the bell tolls
Favourite author
>dostoievski
Are you a writer yourself?
>nope, i'm lazy and not creative at all
If so, have you had anything published?
>no

I recently started looking into the poetry of Bukowski, as I have not read anything else by the guy.

And by god, is it terrible. His poems are generally a few decently long sentences with arbitrary enjembements, apparently to make them seem like poems - which would be pretentious in the literally way - where he is going on and on about how he is living a rough life and drinks a lot and fucks whores. Just look at this:

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.

By what I read of him so far, Bukowski seems to me like a guy that tried very hard to establish a certain marketable image, and that's it. I find it cringeworthy that so many younger people these days worship him as a great writer, which they obviously do not do for his writing, but because they covet that same image, the "literary lifestyle" - which means drinking a lot and being unproductive, but with a raised chin.

Bukowski was pretty simple. Just put some whiskey in his beer. Called a Depth Charge.