Most Beautiful Woman... (1 Viewer)

zenguru

zenguru

Nearly done with this. I have to say "Fuck Machine" is my favorite so far. "Swastika" was entertaining.

But "The Fiend" really disturbed me. Buk can still shock me. I'm sure he never even attempted to rape a little girl. But this story made me wonder a bit if he ever gave it some thought beyond the paper.

Probably the result of being shocked by the story itself. I just know I would never think of child rape as subject matter for a story. Wondering if he wrote it for one of those sex mags.
 
Why turn a blind eye onto rape? It happens all over the world this very moment.
Stories about serial killings aren't taboo and do the authors feel sympathy for the killers?

There are so many fucking lunatics out there, you can't tell by their faces if the stranger's nice or wants to cut your legs off. Let's be carefull. More than that. Paranoid.

Remember Little Red Riding Hood?
 
I think he may have been looking at it in terms of reading for entertainment and relaxation, something like that.
I read a book about a serial killer once and it was from the point of view of what he did and the Police on his trail. Nothing about what he was thinking when he did it. The writing of The Fiend was quite a stretch and took some balls to write.
 
My sister wrote her teacher's exam about Jürgen Bartsch because she was struck all of a heap by such morbidity. She's a vegetarian for a long time and wouldn't kill a mouse. There's entertainment for everybody's taste and sometimes facing up to the insanity of a few is the right thing. Don't know how many books about serial killers she has read to this day ( maybe all? ), definitely a lot. Still no meat, no fish, no chicken.
 
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Post Toxic said:
Why turn a blind eye onto rape? It happens all over the world this very moment.
Stories about serial killings aren't taboo and do the authors feel sympathy for the killers?

There are so many fucking lunatics out there, you can't tell by their faces if the stranger's nice or wants to cut your legs off. Let's be carefull. More than that. Paranoid.

Remember Little Red Riding Hood?
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Not turning a blind eye to it at all. If I did, I wouldn't have read it. It just shocked me that Buk went into the mindset of someone who would do that. Gerard's right in that it was brave to write a story like that.

I think it's nice that there are writers that can shock and enrage me. Especially since some of the ones who do that can also do the reverse. A very rare quality for any writer.
 
Didn't mean it personally, but through the writer's eye.

You got me right anyway, it's quite brave to write about rape that way, it makes Buk an easy target for assumptions.

But then again, if you're a pervert to the moral majority already, why bother?
 
No offense taken, PT.

Well, I finished the book the other night. And I like about half the stories in it. So many of them are obviously autobiographical that they feel like he was trying to shoehorn another novel into the collection. I was hoping for more variety of subject between the stories, but they were still good. Some of them just didn't impress me as much as I was hoping they would.

Maybe Tales of Ordinary Madness will be better, but that's a ways off for me right now. Just cracked open Dangling in the Tournefortia.
 
zenguru said:
... they feel like he was trying to shoehorn another novel into the collection.
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Some of them later appeared in slightly different form in 'Factotum'.
To me, this doesn't make the stories inferior, but 'Factotum'.

zenguru said:
Maybe Tales of Ordinary Madness will be better ...
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'Most beautiful' and 'Tales' do belong together anyway. At first they were One book named 'Erections, Exhibitions, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordinary Madness'.
 
roni said:
Some of them later appeared in slightly different form in 'Factotum'.
To me, this doesn't make the stories inferior, but 'Factotum'.
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Hadn't thought of it that way. You are probably right.

And I was aware 'Most Beautiful' and 'Tales' were one book, but not until after I started posting here.;)
 
I finished this recently - it was my first crack at Buk's short story writing.

It definitely didn't do as much to me as his prose or poetry. I don't know, I just found a lot of the stories a bit repetitive and little "empty" at times. The opening story was a brilliant start, but after that it was kinda up and down for me. Saying that though, the majority of the stories I did enjoy...I few wowed me, a few bored me, a few disturbed me - but overall I found it pretty hit or miss. Maybe it will be different second time round? things often are for me. Maybe, but as much as I like the Buk material I've go so far, I can't say I was flawed by the collection as a whole. It is highly likely that I was also matching them up to his brilliant novels which would also explain this feeling.

Anyone else feel this way?

EDIT- Just read Zenguru's post - so I'm not alone then.
 
while I will always read whatever Buk cared to set down on paper, the short stories usually left me a bit cold. with exceptions, of course.

I've reread every Buk book I own at least 2 times, with the exception of the short stories. just once. when I reread Septuagenarian Stew and Betting on the Muse, I skipped the stories.

I should go back and read them again.
 
Some of the short stories are very good but not all of them, far from it. Many of them were written for Open City and other mags in the last minute before deadline where he had to find something to write about. I think that's one of the reasons why some of them are bad or at least not very interesting to read.
 
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I wanted to share my thoughts on" The Fiend". I've always heard that you can only write what you know. I doubt he ever actually did anything that terrible but the thought must have crossed his mind. I wish I could remember who wrote this " I am man. Nothing human is alien to me." Ewww, remember the one about the big guy who'd fuck a watermellon and make the little guy eat it? Gross! Or was that in "Notes of..."?
 
I feel the hesitation of accepting "The Fiend", or the refusal to write something similarly taboo can be what is holding one back.
When my lady was pregnant, I thought of undesirable things that could've happened. Still born, mental retardation, baby cancer, severe autism, SIDS, all that. If I had of wrote down those fears in story form would it have meant that I wanted them to happen, of course not. A story is a story.
I could write about luring toddlers into my crusty rusty white van with gummy worms on a fishing line just to take them home to uncle Festerboils, then we each..... well, fuck it.... you got it,....... doesn't make it remotely true.
 
The Fiend, while really well written is certainly one I won't hurry to read again. Maybe later on, I found it extremly disturbing. It was a strange story that really played with my emotions. Clearly the main one is of disgust and hatred for the main character and his actions, but the fact you are reading it from his perspective forces you to a certain extent take part in the dreadful act, or at least witness it (the detail made it very tough to read)...but the fact you are reading it from his mind, you can almost sense how he has no control over his actions. For this reason as much as I despised the man, I also couldn't help to feel a little pity for him. Not a lot, more a vauge sadness that these people don't choose to be like this - they can't help these twisted feelings.

That feeling soon blurred into anger and digust at the world and the human race/life and how fucked up society is, and this was enhanced by the ending.....when the cops beat him. Part of me felt a huge sense of relief and justice, but then there's also an emptiness. It just feels like one big cycle of hatred and confusion. What was resolved? nothing - the cycle goes on.

I guess it's easy to get desensitized by when you hear these stories on the news, reading The Fiend really disturbed me, but kinda hit home the fact that this sick shit happens so much in normal towns, to seemingly normal people. Yeah, it was a depressing read - tough going, but I think Buk succeeded in whatever he was trying to do.

I'm surprising it ever got published.
 
I read the Fiend about 5 times... on the contrary to most opinions here, it was probably my favorite story in the book. It's just fucking ballsy. I wait around to read things like that. I used to write things like that before I fell in love and worried about offending people.
 
I like "The Fiend" too. It was clever to write it partly from the fiends standpoint. The ending was clever too, with the police beating up the fiend and thereby abusing their powers, just as the fiend abused his physical powers to rape the little girl (although his abuse was much much worse). I kinda saw a paralel there first time I read the story...
 
This story is subject of discussion so very often here.

Maybe the mods should consider, making a thread, only devoted to this story and merge some of the posts, that already dealt with it in there.

(still I can't see why it should not be possible to 'copy' posts without removing them from the original place. But maybe that's because I don't understand computers or technical things in general. Or maybe because I'm drunk. Or maybe I just don't understand Anything.)



still I think, the KEY-SENTENCE in that story is:

"Martin's eyes looked into her eyes and it was a communication between two hells - one her's, the other his."


and @Saul:
maybe you got something there. I've mentioned before, that at the time Buk wrote/published the story, his own daughter was at the age, the child in the story was. So it COULD be (at least partly) a kind of fear-story about what could happen.


in case I bore you, I have an excuse in form of a quotation:
"I'm nothing if not redundant. I also repeat myself."
(whoever knows that quote wins a free drink.)
 
Answer to question above about quote: it's Terence, the Roman writer. "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto" --"I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me."
 
roni said:
(still I can't see why it should not be possible to 'copy' posts without removing them from the original place. But maybe that's because I don't understand computers or technical things in general. Or maybe because I'm drunk. Or maybe I just don't understand Anything.)
Click to expand...
Move, yes...split, merge, etc. Copy, no. If you could see how the database works you'd understand why. Or not. ;) Just take my word for it.
 
Some of Buk's explanations about The Fiend are reported in Sounes' bio. They're more disturbing than the story itself but it's nothing surprising since being provocative was his job.

roni said:
still I think, the KEY-SENTENCE in that story is:

"Martin's eyes looked into her eyes and it was a communication between two hells - one her's, the other his."
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How do you understand this sentence ?
 
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My opinion of that sentence was always that the rapist was tortured by his desire for her, and the girl was tortured by what he was doing to her.
 
Ambreen said:
How do you understand this sentence ?
Click to expand...

I understand that this is not about a lustful creature who Enjoys raping little girls, but a tortured creature who is suffering (+ living in a hell) as well.

It isn't at all a story that says, or even indicates, how great it is to do such things. It doesn't defend his deed in Any way. It shows Both sides as sort of victims. (He being a victim of society and life, her of course being a victim of him.)
 
Thanks to both of you :)

roni said:
It shows Both sides as sort of victims. (He being a victim of society and life
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Yes, that's how the man is depicted in the beginning, just before becoming "the fiend".
 
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I think that South of No North is a really strong collection of short fiction... I read a few stories here and there from Most Beautiful Woman and Tales... and they don't hit me the same way...

Saul said:
Still born, mental retardation, baby cancer, severe autism, SIDS, all that.
Click to expand...

I do apolgoze for chuckling, but for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, the phrase "baby cancer" makes me laugh. But I went through the same fears with my son... Now I'm just worried his head is too big...
 
LickTheStar said:
I do apolgoze for chuckling, but for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, the phrase "baby cancer" makes me laugh. But I went through the same fears with my son... Now I'm just worried his head is too big...
Click to expand...
LOL, as the father of a 4 year old boy, the uncle of a boy who died of leukemia when he was 2 & 1/2, & a teacher's aide for autistic kids for 5 years, I found all of that pretty damn funny.

The story is brilliantly written, but it's still tough to read. The quote roni posted says it all:

"Martin's eyes looked into her eyes and it was a communication between two hells - one her's, the other his."

Great discussion, wish I had something useful to add. Glad I found this place.

Hugo
 
I was pricing up some books at work a few days ago and came upon this: 'Love is the Only Story, tales of romance.' Edited by Ben Schrank; The Lions Press 2003. Third story in is 'The Most Beautiful Woman in Town', by Charles Bukowski. I was pleasently surprised to find it in there.CRB:)
 
Halfway through this, only Pulp now on my too read list, but I like leaving things incomplete so I will probably never read Pulp. Anyway back on topic, I've found this collection to be a far better summary as Buk the man, rather then Buk the myth. It seems to reveal a lot more autobiographical stuff, especially some interesting insights into his worldviews. I also dig how Buk makes sex so unsexy, he's almost English in his attitude to shagging, the old in/out jobs a good un'.
 
If I'm not mistaken (and this has been stated already), many of the stories in the City Lights collections were written for the free papers, and titty magazines, and probably were done more to turn a dime than create something "literary." Most of those stories were reworked for later poems, stories or novels, almost like the originals served as first drafts. I have always felt the City Lights collections were Buk's weakest, and it would appear John Martin thought so as well since he passed on publishing them. South of No North is a really great story collection, as is Hot Water Music.
 
I have not read Hot Water Music, but I have quite a few Buk books to go before I can make room for it. I've been getting sidetracked by Ray Bradbury and others. I'll make my way back to Buk eventually.
 

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