Bohumil Hrabal (1 Viewer)

I have not heard of him, but I will say that you will never get an accurate answer to your question unless you accept "no" for an answer. There is no such thing as a _________ Bukowski. There is Bukowski, and then there are other writers.

And then there are bank tellers, horse trainers, meat cutters, engineers, doctors, ticket takers, dental hygienists, fruit pickers, the purveyors of fake Rolex watches...
 
The Czech Bukowski? What's next - the Austrian Bukowski, the Finninsh Bukowski etc.etc.?
 
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I am the Delaware Bukowski

but sadly I seem
to be
the ONLY person in
Delaware
that does not

write
rhymers.


We need someone much better to take the title of Delaware Bukowski. I am a poor Delaware Bukowski.

Bill
 
I'm the Bukowski of Donkey Town. Just ask Bill. He crowned me. Then I marched down the street in a confetti parade of hay. Not easy to march when you have four legs.
 
We must stop the Bukowskification of poets. I'm tired of hearing about some poet who's writing "just like Bukowski". Why read Bukowski copy-cats when you can read the real thing?
Btw, I'm the Danish Bukowski, except that I don't write. :p
 
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We must stop the Bukowskification of poets. I'm tired of hearing about some poet who's writing "just like Bukowski". Why read Bukowski copy-cats when you can read the real thing? :p

It's also disrespectful to the poets. They should be considered for what they are in their own right, without reference to other poets.
 
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Yes David is right. It is an insult to call someone a wanna-be. Calling someone "The Bukowski of Timbuktu" is insulting. There are some poets that write non-rhyming poems about booze & whores like they are trying to hard to be Bukowski. They miss the point. The point is to be YOU, not Buk. There was already one Buk.

Bill
 
That's right, it is disrespectful to see them as anything but themselves. That said, comparisons to Bukowski are often meant as a compliment, believe it or not...
 
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In the early 70s, Tom Waits as well as Bruce Springsteen were considered the 'New Bob Dylan'. (Not by themselfes, but by the record-companies and some of the music-press.)

Fortunately they turned out to be Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen.
(And Dylan himself wasn't bad at that time either: Desire is a great album. But not even he was the 'New Bob Dylan'. Thank god!)




Oh, and wasn't Bukowski the 'New Hemingway' once?
 
No, no. Just the genius part. I'm still trying to determine exactly how he was a genius, but I'll figure it out eventually, and I just want to be first to be the next him.
 
Well, if you can figure out how he was a genius, then you're a genius!
 
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Bohumil Hrabal is possibly best known in the English-speaking part of the world as the author of the novella "Closely Watched Trains". Jiri Menzel's film of the novella won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1967. I've read the book and seen the film. I've also seen the film of Hrabal's novel "I Served the King of England", which was much more humourous than I was anticipating (so I feel the book would be worth reading -- and the title is misleading). I'm currently reading Hrabal's "Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp" (this is not widely available).

For me, the "big three" of recent Czech literature are Milan Kundera, Josef Skvorecky and Ivan Klima but I may have to add Hrabal to make the "top four". But is Hrabal the Czech Bukowski? I doubt it ... for one thing, he is not known as a poet ... however, there may be other factors at play: Hrabal held jobs that would fall into the same category as Bukowski's; it seems that Hrabal was fond of pubs (I just read a comment that says that he lived in pubs); his sense of humour possibly matches Bukowski's ... in spite of several postings to this thread, the question does arise: what would be the factors that could lead to someone being described as the ____ Bukowski? It's not the outrageous question that some may think it is ... cheers!
 
Thanks for that, Pratt.



ps:
since you've decided to post, after such a long time, why not take a seat and a drink, feel comfy and stay.
 

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