/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7562226]

What do you think about Bukowski? Where to start?

[Anonymous No.7562241]

i "like" him but i havent read him since he was 16

post office or ham on rye

[Anonymous No.7562246]

God damn it you cant look up bukowski on the archive? This thread happens weekly at this point

[Anonymous No.7562261]

[Anonymous No.7562264]

It's me.

He's shitty, don't read him.

[Tapioca<3 !N7fdOIjcZA No.7562347]

Bukowski is a claptrap journalist.

[Anonymous No.7562359]

>>7562347

ok nabby

[Anonymous No.7562367]

if you read bukowski, then you are either a pleb, or a pleb tourist

[Anonymous No.7563281]

>>7562226
I can't speak for his poetry, but for his fiction, if you've read one you'e read them all. I'm not saying his work isn't enjoyable or worthwhile, but if you only read one of his books you'll get all there is to get from his body of work as a whole. But some are definitely better than others, and Factotum is definitely the best. I would say start with that, and if you like it keep going. If not, you won't be missing out on anything.

[Anonymous No.7563284]

>>7562264
>DONT LIKE WHAT I DONT LIKE!

[Anonymous No.7563291]

>>7562226
Highschool tier. Basically twilight for teenagers who think of themselves as "outcasts".

[Anonymous No.7563294]

>>7562226
I started with Post office, then went on to Factotum. I'll be reading women next and if I can find it, Ham on Rye. However if you wanted to read his work chronologically, start with Ham on Rye, then to Factotum, Post office and then Women. Those are the main prose works, his poetry is pretty fine as well, but I only have The Last Night of the Earth Poems, which so far is a good read.

[Anonymous No.7563298]

>>7562226
Celine for Jews and normalfags

[Anonymous No.7563300]

>>7562226
Sylvia Plath for teenage boys.

[Anonymous No.7563529]

>>7563284
I mean, you can break it down like that if you want..but there are plenty of people solely in this thread that appear to be in agreement with me.

[Anonymous No.7563532]

a lovely writer, I actually appreciate him more the older I get..he's kind of like a father figure in that way...started out respecting him blindly...went through a phase where I was like "old man don't know dick" but the older I get, the more I come back to his poems and find some genuine wisdom there...also one of the few, very few poems, who evoke laughter and for that he's a nietzschean if for nothing else...fuck keats, wordsworth, yeats at all a bunch of fuckin poofs who don't speak a moment of truth...Bukowski and Dylan Thomas and Ezra Pound for god tier English poetry.

[Anonymous No.7565542]

>>7563300
I love Bukowski, but this is dead on

[Anonymous No.7565562]

he's a solid craftsman and his work captures a certain sense of dirty pathos, but he has a pretty limited range of expression.

[Anonymous No.7565709]

Try not to "don't try" too hard after reading one of his books.

[Anonymous No.7565751]

Tries so hard to give off an aura of apathy. Shitty.

[Anonymous No.7566163]

>>7563281

I like his poetry but then again, I know nothing about poetry


The flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

[Anonymous No.7566182]

And so we begin

[Anonymous No.7566506]

>>7563294

Ham on Rye is my favourite of his novels.

>>7563300

Fairly accurate. Disdain for plebs who love Plath and Bukowski (and chatter from said plebs) drowns out any civilised conversation about either writer.