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/lit/ - Literature


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5120367 No.5120367[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Just finished Ham On Rye.

Am I supposed to feel like a giant sack of shit?

>> No.5120375

no, a medium one.

>> No.5120382

>>5120367
The ending is so cold.

>> No.5120384

>>5120367
youre supposed to feel like the book was a giant sack of shit

>> No.5120397

why is james franco so infatuated with this dude.

>> No.5120900

>>5120397
easy to read while stoned

>> No.5120917

>>5120397
Is he where the interest in Bukowski comes from?

>> No.5120930

>>5120397
They're both middle-brow public darlings with aspirations, though of a different kind.

>> No.5120935

>>5120930
>middle-brow
james franco?

>> No.5120941

>>5120930
>aspirations
Bukowski?

>> No.5120944

>>5120930
>public darlings
bukowski?

>> No.5120950

>>5120930
>though of a
both?

>> No.5120952

>>5120935
>Famous for stoner comedy movies.
>Poorly adapts Faulkner and other literary figures to film.
>Enrolled in multiple universities grad programs, grinding out papers on adderall, likely with private editing done by some grad student, if his papers aren't written for him.
>Literary and artistic projects getting green light because he's a celeb.

Buk is similar. He just stripped the detective out of the pulp detective style, wrote some poetry in that style, and dropped a lot of big names.

>> No.5120970

>>5120952
i don't see how that makes him "middle-brow"

and where do you get "Buk is similar" from that list?

>> No.5120986

>>5120970
He's not lowbrow, but he's not highbrow. Middle brow. Not low-brow because true lowbrow is shameless sensory hedonism. Not high brow because that's nuanced, often creative.

They're both the same in that there success rests on low forms of entertainment (Franco's stoner comedies, Bukowski's pulpy models) with forays into more prestigious forms (Franco's conceptual art, literary projects, Buk's poetry) or with the veneer of intellectualism (Franco's adaption, Buk's constant name-dropping composers, authors, etc.)

>> No.5120998

>>5120986
i guess I always thought the bar was higher for "middlebrow," which it may very well be

>> No.5121041

>>5120952
Bukowski is more DH Lawrence derived than pulp.
yes I'm disregarding that he wrote a novel dedicated to pulp and you should too.

>> No.5121073

Bukowski gives me hope that an ugly loser who gets no women, isn't particulary clever, and works constant shitty low wage jobs when he's in his twenties can in his later life get published and have bitches all over his dick.
Some decent to good poetry too.

>> No.5121118

>>5121041
I'm not saying he doesn't draw from other literary sources, but his primary appeal is the appeal of the pulp hero. He's macho, down-and-out, marginal, sensitive but tarnished because he's morally compromised, but never defeated, never fully compromised, never a comic or absurd figure. He practically begs to be appreciated, to be elevated out of the gutter because of how well he apprehends it, how noble he is in it. It's like a beautiful woman writing a story about how a girl is obsessed about being fat. Everyone's going to slide a compliment in.

>> No.5121125

>>5120397
Nietzsche is the one whom Franco said "his story needs to be told"

>> No.5121134
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5121134

>>5121073
>Mostly shitty to a few decent poems too.

Had to fix that for you.

>> No.5121201

>>5120367
You should feel like drinking cheap red wine out of the bottle. That's how this book made me feel.