I take much pleasure in being alone ... (1 Viewer)

[avarpis]

Hello

After some time reading Bukowski's work, mostly poems, I've stumbled upon this forum and it seems I'll spend quite some time here in the future. Having read the threads about Find what you love and let it kill you and The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence I've started to question myself about this Bukowski's (well, we'll see) quote:

I take much pleasure in being alone but there is also a strange warm grace in not being alone.

All I could find so far hasn't helped me, so I'd really appreciate some 'professional' help :)

 

[hoochmonkey9]

It's from "yes, I am." it appears in Open All Night, pg. 110.

most likely Martinized.

 

[capt.co]

and the original version is 'yes' from Dangling in the Tournefortia.

"there is much good in being alone
but there is a strange warmth in not being alone."

probably not martinized...

 

[hoochmonkey9]

pleasure and grace brought to you by John Martin!

 

[roni]

pleasure [...] grace [...]

who had ever thought?

 

[mjp]

Grace in the manuscript. ;)

 

[roni]

ooops!

 

[mjp]

It's a 1977 manuscript, a few years before first publication, so the chance that there is at least one more manuscript for it are pretty good. I assume he made a version that is close to what was published in Dangling. We just don't have it here.

 

[roni]

yeah, sure. I think it's clear that there must be different versions from his own hand in this case.
we had a few similar cases before.

makes me wonder, and this is the "oops", if it is - by any chance - possible, that there really ARE manuscript-versions from him (the Buk - NOT the Mart) that look like fakes to us but aren't - and have been used for the posthumous editions.
What we definitely need, to finally judge, is an insight into the manuscripts used for them.

(using our instincts and knowledge of his style isn't enough, obviously. From the first quote above, I would not neccessarily had suspicions about "pleasure" but would have about "grace". The manuscript proofs me wrong on both assumptions.)

 

[mjp]

if it is - by any chance - possible, that there really ARE manuscript-versions from him (the Buk - NOT the Mart) that look like fakes to us but aren't - and have been used for the posthumous editions.

I'm sure there are. One or two. Or one or two dozen. Maybe a hundred! Not this many.

Here are some fun numbers, since we're discussing this again:

There are 1426 poems in the posthumous collections.
We have manuscripts for 445 of the poems.
414 of those manuscripts differ from the published poems (93%).

There are 1389 poems in the collections published during Bukowski's lifetime.
We have manuscripts for 131 of the poems.
14 of those manuscripts differ from the published poems (10.6%).​

Roughly an equal number of poems, though we obviously don't have as many manuscripts for the earlier books. We do have the magazines though, like Wormwood Review, but the edits (or more accurately, the lack thereof) that we've found by comparing Wormwood to the collections aren't flagged in the database.

 

[avarpis]

I'm not sure what I like more - your eagerness to help or the discussion which has developed. Thank you for both!