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/lit/ - Literature

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3576133 No.3576133 [Reply] [Original]

My girlfriend likes Charles Bukowski's work. I've never read him. What is /lit/'s opinion on him?

>> No.3576149

>>3576133

I read Ham on Rye. Very dry. I don't see the magic that others see, but I know quite a few people who love his work.

>> No.3576146

Perverse, brilliant.

>> No.3576153

>>3576149

Same fag. To be fair, I don't enjoy memoirs and books like them. If you're the type, he does a fine job.

>> No.3576162

>>3576133
I think his best work's are:
Burning In Water Drowning In Flame
Post Office

If you don't enjoy those, the rest of his work will probably be shit to you.

>> No.3576164

Requires very little effort to read, is somewhat amusing, and has flashes of brilliance. It's not a life-changing experience, but definitely worth trying out..

>> No.3576217

>>3576164

I disagree, it is a life-changing experience.

At least for me, there are few other writers whose work and ethos I think of every day. Whenever I am shocked or disgusted by shallowness or idiocy I think of Bukowski and his totally self-fulfilled and self-directed rejection of everything he thinks is rotten. He's one of the most honest, no-bullshit dudes out there.

He's the kind of writer that when you're just so aghast at how fucked up people can be, you read him or you think of him and you realise that you can be right and there is virtue in being bitter if it's for the right reasons.

>> No.3576296

>>3576217

Honesty in his descriptions of how people really think is definitely one of his greatest strengths, sure. It's just that I feel like he lacks the analytical depth to really do something with that insight (compared to for example Houellebecq, Céline or early Huxley, who are just as merciless, but who will carefully dissect the human condition - as opposed to Bukowski who most of the time just describes misery as it appears to him). I'm not saying that he's bad, just that he is lacking in terms of depth..

>> No.3576304

His poetry is bad. Real bad. The fact that it's so popular is probably a better argument for being a whiny misanthropic fag than anything he ever had to say about it.

>> No.3576309

>>3576296

Fair enough. I see what you mean, and those three authors you list are definitely similarly misanthropic. Difference for me lies in their intellectualism, which you rightly cite. What I think each of those authors lack and what is so inherent in Bukowski's writing is the kind of instinctive poeticism of his depictions and complaints. I feel that he has a knack for describing very difficult, complex things in very simple terms. I don't think his ideas are simple, just that his expression is. And I think that's partly what makes him such a genius.

I am actually a fan of the three authors you list, especially Houellebecq, but find their high-art sensibilities (or ironic distance, in the case of Houellebecq) to detract from the emotion and power of their complaints. With Bukowski I feel that he is speaking from his heart, from an emotional place, while the others I see as speaking more cerebrally about the issues.

But it seems that what you like more about those guys is what I like less. That's cool.

>> No.3576337

Decent novelist, bad poet, awful pundit.

>> No.3576349

>>3576309

I see where you're coming from. Their loftiness can undermine their argument at times, I agree, but I consider (what may appear to be) arrogance the necessary cost of their ambition. I agree about the "instinctive poeticism" of Bukowski, but I'm not as enthralled by intuition as I am by reflection - but that's a personal preference.

Respectful disagreement, now that's something new. Cool indeed.

>> No.3576352

Cool guy.

I did a post on my blog about Ham and Rye that I want to share if anyone ask

>> No.3576430

>>3576309
"Bukowski is a Whitman's kind of misanthrope."

>> No.3576438

Wow she must be real open minded in the sack

>> No.3576440
File: 25 KB, 300x223, little kid.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3576440

>>3576438
"First I would have corn-holed her, then I would have eaten her pussy, then I would fuck her between the tits and then I would force her to give me a blow job."

>> No.3577325

If I had to read one of his works, which one should it be?

>> No.3577455

>>3577325
Last Night of The Earth Poems
Or
Ham on Rye (that and Post Office are his most famous) it's a shame he's dead now.