Hello folks,
Great forum, really in-depth and fascinating stuff.
I first stumbled upon Bukowski's work around ten years ago while studying Psychology at uni. I was in my final year and was taking an optional module in organizational psyche. I had this great tutor, an old Irish guy who really challenged his students and criticized psychology itself from the Foucaultian perspective as just another 'Technology of the self' - another method of social control.
On his reading list was, Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse 5', Howard Jacobson's 'Coming from Behind' - a famous satire on the British higher education system - and something called 'Post Office'.
I felt after reading this stuff that someone had opened a window and allowed a great hurricane of fresh air to enter my life again. I'd come full circle.
University was just another of my 'escapades' into 'normal life', my misguided attempts at searching for a place to belong.
Of all the writers I'd read since my teenage years, Buk appeared the most intelligent, honest and sincere. When he talked of all those souless dead end jobs, the absurdity of the Protestant work ethic, love, betrayal, and most of all, the terrible loneliness of going against the grain - of being an outsider - I felt for the first time that at least someone 'got me'.
My own life bob's and weaves its way on this rollercoaster ride of short forays into the world of work, painting, writing and trying to stay sane, and finding an authentic and honest way of practical survival and being true to myself as much as humanely possible.
Best wishes
DB
Great forum, really in-depth and fascinating stuff.
I first stumbled upon Bukowski's work around ten years ago while studying Psychology at uni. I was in my final year and was taking an optional module in organizational psyche. I had this great tutor, an old Irish guy who really challenged his students and criticized psychology itself from the Foucaultian perspective as just another 'Technology of the self' - another method of social control.
On his reading list was, Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse 5', Howard Jacobson's 'Coming from Behind' - a famous satire on the British higher education system - and something called 'Post Office'.
I felt after reading this stuff that someone had opened a window and allowed a great hurricane of fresh air to enter my life again. I'd come full circle.
University was just another of my 'escapades' into 'normal life', my misguided attempts at searching for a place to belong.
Of all the writers I'd read since my teenage years, Buk appeared the most intelligent, honest and sincere. When he talked of all those souless dead end jobs, the absurdity of the Protestant work ethic, love, betrayal, and most of all, the terrible loneliness of going against the grain - of being an outsider - I felt for the first time that at least someone 'got me'.
My own life bob's and weaves its way on this rollercoaster ride of short forays into the world of work, painting, writing and trying to stay sane, and finding an authentic and honest way of practical survival and being true to myself as much as humanely possible.
Best wishes
DB
