Bukowski reading block (1 Viewer)

Ponder

"So fuck Doubleday Doran"
RIP
Since I've started selling Bukowski (hardly the regular books) last year I noticed I read or re-read his books less then before. Too busy with the man and less busy with his beautiful words.

Anyone had or has the same experience?
 
Close, my lovely wife felt I was being cobsessed with Bukowski and got me to read The Shipping News. That was a job. Now that I'm reading The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps I have a renewed appreciation for Bukowski's fine words.
 
i haven't read any for quite some time.

i wouldn't really call it a block though... it's more of just one of those things you know will always be a part of you.

like a true love you always come back to.
 
In England it was difficult to get a lot of Buk's work. I just bought
'Mocking Bird Wish Me Luck'. I have a lot of his stuff now. I first read his novel 'Women'.
I love the feel of a new book, the expectancy it brings.

A favorite poem in this book is:

REALITY

my little famous bleeding elbows
my knotty knees (especially) and
even my balls
hairy and wasted.
these blue evenings of walking past buildings
where jews pray beautifully about seasons I
know nothing of
and would leave me alone
with the roaches and ants climbing my dying body
in some place
too real to touch.

God I love him.... him and his blue evenings.....
 
it's enough

Since I've started selling Bukowski (hardly the regular books) last year I noticed I read or re-read his books less then before. Too busy with the man and less busy with his beautiful words.

Anyone had or has the same experience?

After so much reading over the years, and I no longer feel the need, I feel his little Bluebird in there somewhere, still singing away...
 
I am probably busier collecting Buk rather than reading him right now (this is going to stop very soon). Bad timing on my part once again...

Of course, I've read the novels two or three times, most all of the short stories twice, and many of the poems several times. I have saved some of the posthumous poems from the last several ecco books in an un-read state so I can have a small treasure trove of new stuff when the bug really hits me.

So, I keep reading poems fairly regularly, and I read things like Horsemeat, Life and Death in the Charity Ward and All the Assholes in the World and Mine at least once a year. I'm just not devouring Buk as I did in the late 80s/early 90s, basically because there's precious left to devour like a steak fresh off the grill. When the small press/otherwise unpublished stuff comes along, I do still get that feeling, however.
 
As has been the case for most of my conscious life, and likely the bulk of my unconscious one as well, I find myself in my own little dinghy rowing to the solitary beat of some unknown and unheard of drummer.

I'm just now getting to Mr. Bukowski's novels. As noted in my intro thread, I discovered him via Barfly The Movie which led to Notes... then Tales... and finally his poetry. Having just finished Ham On Rye and Post Office, I will say I am pleased with the progression. The novels are entertaining and provide some insight into the mind of the man, but I am not so sure I would have delved into his poetry had I read them first.

Perhaps it is the nature of poetry that allows the mind to wander and interpret and relate to via one's own experiences and mindset. The novels tell a story, and he does it well, but the poetry inspires and confirms beliefs and attitudes I hold dear. I may or may not re-read the novels down the road, but I will devour the poetry over and over again. I'll consult them like the pious consult the Bible.
 
Since I've started selling Bukowski [...] I noticed I read or re-read his books less then before. Too busy with the man and less busy with his beautiful words. Anyone had or has the same experience?

i do know exactly what you mean.
yet i can not exactly confirm it for me at this time. the work for the Buk-society keeps me buzy with both, the man and his work. so i HAVE to read him regularly.
but it's right: the fact, that it's kinda job changes something.

still i absolutely enjoy, going to my café with a bunch of Bukowskis or reading his poems, getting slowly loaded in the sheath of my privacy.



(when i sit in my café, reading, very often, when a friend comes, he looks at my books and says something like: "oh! Bukowski again, eh?" / Or when my former professor of philosophy, with whom i go eat and drink sometime, introduces me to new persons, he started doing it with the words: "This is Bukowskis man in Europe." - i feel a little reduced, when he does this, but i play the part and shout: "Only in Europe?!")
 
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Buk 6:4


something like: "oh! Bukowski again, eh?" /

(...)

Or: "This is Bukowskis man in Europe." - i feel a
little reduced, when he does this . . .

A prophet is not without honor but in his own
country, and among his own kin, and in his own
house . . . etc.

Keep up the good work, Roni. It is appreciated ;)
 
I have read, and re-read, and re-read (and on and on) everything that I can lay my crusty old hands on written by bukowski. I just never seem to get tired of it. I guess simple minds are easily contented.. ah well. It always makes my day when I find something posted on this sight that I have never seen before. my thanks to all of you who dig up these gems. (you know who you are) may it never cease....
 

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