Grammar in Bukowski books (1 Viewer)

Hello guys,

I'm Andrea (male), an italian guy of 40 living in Rome, Italy. I discovered Bukowski later in life, I just read "Factotum" and now I've just begun to read "Post office". My English level is advanced even though I have some problems from time to time with american slang (I needed to search for the "soup" in "Post office" and what it meant, even though that is just part of "Bukowski's English") so, apart from this made up words which make the unique style of this author, I'd like to ask you, native speakers, if in Bukowski books you think the language is manipulated only to this extent, purely stylish, or do you think there is also, consciously, some bad grammar in order to create more real characters? Actually I don't think there is really such bad grammar, namely, grammatical errors made on purpose, but being English such a worldwide language and evoling the colloquial language so quickly, I can never tell for sure. I'm just curious about this, I searched on the internet but so far I found nothing regarding a possibile volontary use of bad grammar, thank you.
 
Hi Andrea, Welcome to the Buk forum.

In Post Office soup = supervisor. His Boss basically.

I think Buk used poor grammar even more sparingly than he could have. He nails the vernacular pretty well when writing other character's dialogue. I think he does very well in writing the dialogue of other ethnicities without overstating it. There are places where he invents an accent for himself written phonetically that is not really poor grammar: muthafucka/whatsa-matta/etc. To me this is different from poor grammar.
 
Hi Otto,

thank you for the answer, yes, in fact, I did not actually find much bad grammar but, for instance, where I'm sure there was, that is in the novel Forrest Gump, where there are even things like "I is", or similar, of that sort, which so far I did not find in Buk books. To me the dialogues (and the thoughts) don't sound exactlty with bad grammar, but rather very short, hence my doubt. Of course this is the style we love, I guess. By the way, congrats for the forum.
 
a possibile volontary use of bad grammar...
Yes, any grammar "mistakes" that you come across are intentional.

I agree with Otto, that he didn't use phonetics or incorrect grammar for effect as often as he might have (or as some writers do). That may have had to do with Bukowski wanting his writing to be accessible. Reading long passages of spelled-out dialect or patois can be exhausting. You know, in as much as reading can be exhausting.
 
Ciao Andrea,

I'm pasting here a little something Bukowski wrote about grammar:
While writing, I should mention that the “manifesto” essay I sent yesterday (I believe) is now bothering me. Although I do not have the script around, I believe I used the phrase “leave us be fair.” This has been keeping me awake upon my hot lonely pad (the whores are laying with less involved fools as of now). I believe “let us be fair” is more correct. Or is it? Any grammarians on Nomad? In my youth (ah lo, swift the years!) I received a D in English I at dear old L.A.C.C. for showing up every morning at 7:30 a.m. with a hangover. It wasn’t the hangover so much as the fact that the class began at 7:00 a.m., usually with a rendering blast from Gilbert and Sullivan, which, I am sure, would have killed me. In English II I received an A or a B because the teacher was a female who caught me constantly looking at her legs. All of which is to say, I didn’t pay a hell of a lot of attention to grammar, and when I write it is for the love of the word, the color, like tossing paint on a canvas, and using a lot of ear and having read a bit here and there, I generally come out ok, but technically I don’t know what’s happening, nor do I care. Let us be fair. let us be fair. Let us . . .

Here's another excerpt off On Writing:
I must rush off now to catch the first race. Thank you for lessening the blow on my weakness of grammar by mentioning that some of your college friends have trouble with sentence structure. I think some writers do suffer this fate mainly because at heart they are rebellious and the rules of grammar like many of the other rules of our world call for a herding in and a confirmation that the natural writer instinctively abhors, and, furthermore, his interest lies in the wider scope of subject and spirit . . . Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Saroyan were a few that reshaped the rules, especially in punctuation and sentence flow and breakdown. And, of course, James Joyce went even further. We are interested in color, shape, meaning, force . . . the pigments that point up the soul. But I feel that there is a difference between being a non- grammarian and being unread, and it is the unread and the unprepared, those so hasty to splash into print that they have not reached into the ages for a sound and basic springboard, that I take task with. And most certainly the Kenyon Review school has the edge on us here, although they have gone so far overboard on this point that their creative edge is dulled.

And yet another excerpt off On Writing:
there are so many, many writers writing that can’t write at all, and they keep right on writing all the clichés and bromides, and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the “i’s” small, or, or, or!!! . . .
 
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Thank you, Cirerita, that is in Buk's style, and we should also take into account the editor role: I don't know if he had just one editor for hist most important works or different ones, but as you all probably know abut Carver, the editor might have changed a lot, or even just enough to not allow us to see the true Buk. Not that the one that we know from his books is not genuine, but rather a filtered one, like it is the "doom" for all famous writers.
 
In the arena of illustrative language or communication, all grammar is "fair game", so to speak. Phonetic spellings, regional dialect & artistic education all make up the lexiconic arsenal or linguistic palette, if you prefer. Simple words, convoluted words, made up words, nonsense words, amalgamations, alliterations etc all have their place in story-telling.
Certain people infer meaning from those who use convoluted verbage, in much the same way that they do with limited or simplistic vocabulary. Sometimes words can interrupt the cadence or flow of a certain line & this may or may not be deliberate. I think it all has validity in as much as it is an indicator of style, signature or personality, but as soon as observer conjecture tries to de-code or even "clean up" to make delivery more "palatable", then the message becomes something else entirely.
When you try to divine meaning from intent, then the message can become diluted or skewed, regardless.
 
Adios, muchahcos....
They never make good on their promises.

I thought you were going back to /r/NoFap to get your intellectual stimulation and toss around your convoluted verbiage? You're boring everyone here. Say adios again and try to stick to it this time.
 
In the arena of illustrative language or communication, all grammar is "fair game", so to speak. Phonetic spellings, regional dialect & artistic education all make up the lexiconic arsenal or linguistic palette, if you prefer. Simple words, convoluted words, made up words, nonsense words, amalgamations, alliterations etc all have their place in story-telling.
Certain people infer meaning from those who use convoluted verbage.

Recipe for disaster.

Unless you’re Shakespeare’s gifted great great great grandson you’d be better off not trying made up words. Keruoak (and others) tried it and now those passages read like what they were — cute little inner circle-jerk primping of the established writer who’s audience swallowed anything on their plate.

Too much regional dialect is exhausting. Try reading the Slave Narratives from the library of Congress. They decided to write every word in the exact accent of the former Slave being interviewed and it’s completely unreadable without a jar of Advil to get you through.

Buk knew this. Hemingway knew. Celine, Camus, Laurence, Fante, all the Russians...on and on.

If your writing is anything like the above quoted paragraph then my advice is send it to the New Yorker. Let the English Lit PhDs look at it. Those guys will eat that stuff up. You might even get a few of your works published there.

I think in this thread we have to give props to someone like Claude Brown. His masterpiece, Manchild in the Promised Land is an awesome example of how to wright the dialogue of a regional sub group marginalized from the mainstream culture without taking anything away from the intellectual dignity of the speaker and without losing the attention of his readers.

If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend it.
 
They never make good on their promises. Say adios again and try to stick to it this time.
Oh it wasn't directed at the general forum inhabitants, just the pompous bores like your self who cannot help but be ego-pricked by their own self-importance. And all who sail in you....
I will stick around for now, thanks. Try not to take it personal, ok?
 

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