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January 23, 2004
Here is something on Bukowski, especially for Kristian and Hugo, but not only for them. I’ll begin with a remark about poetry.
“I never wrote poetry to read it but it sure got the rent. All the poets I had ever known, and I had known many of them, liked to give readings. I had always felt myself to be the recluse, the misfit, but my brother poets seemed to be very extrovert, very social. I didn’t like them. I avoided them.” (Shakespeare Never Did This, section 11 – there are no page numbers in this book.)
Why didn’t Bukowski like Hemingway?
“Well, he knew how to write but he didn’t know how to laugh.” (ibid, sect. 15)
I can’t help comparing this with Bataille:
“The disconcerting element in my style lies in the fact that its seriousness is not what it seems. The seriousness isn’t intentionally deceptive, but what could keep extreme seriousness from turning into laughter?” (On Nietzsche, p. 179)
In the Shakespeare book, Bukowski writes that he is not a intellectual, that he writes about all the gear the intellectuals have neglected, but don’t believe him. Very early in the book, he is dismissive when asked about Céline, but why mention him at all if he doesn’t want to draw his readers’ attention to the Frenchman? In the passage where he criticises Hemingway, he reports liking Céline and Knut Hamsun. He repeats all this again and again, in other books, in his letters, in his journalism, during interviews. So don’t let him kid you. When it comes to thinking about the literary tradition Bukowski was right up there at the cutting edge.
And why did he write?
“Well, it’s to give priests hard-ons.”
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I'm not sure I understand...I actually detect sarcasm? I'm not sure, but I think what you're saying is that he did indeed like Celine and Hamsun (and that I had never doubted and it transpired through Love Is A Dog From Hell page 92), but he pretended not to? That's a surprise. I am interested in more Buk thoughts on the literature.