"Portions" at Pop Matters (1 Viewer)

The Hardest Work Imaginable: Bukowski's Wine-Stained Notebook is finally up and running.

Excerpt:

Did George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, preside over a nation motivated by fear, or was he an agent of fear? Many critics and social historians would opt for the latter, citing a long list of actions taken by the Bush administration that were packaged in bunting laced with fear: Osama Bin Laden, the terror mastermind behind 9/11, was hiding in Afghanistan so combat troops were needed to ferret him out and oust the theocratic Taliban from power in the process. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein, a supporter of worldwide terror, was engaging in ethnic cleansing in Iraq and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction; once again, it was imperative to throw tanks and guns and troops at the problem.

"Shock and awe" it was called, from the military doctrine authored by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers and spectacular displays of force to scare the living crap out of the enemy and destroy their willingness to fight. In a word: fear.

More recently, when the bubble finally burst on the so-called "ownership society", George W. Bush and his Federal Reserve and US Treasury stooges urgently pushed for a multi-billion dollar bailout of ailing US financial institutions to avoid wide scale bank failures, even more home foreclosures, the dissolution of Social Security and Medicare, a return to bread and soup lines and, presumably, riots in the streets, martial law, and the inevitable reunion of Tony Orlando and Dawn to soothe our frayed nerves.

On the surface of it, all of the above may seem like dark Karl Rove-inspired fear mongering to provoke a desired response but fear, one must understand, is the lubricant that keeps the wheels of human progress greased. Charles Bukowski understood this concept all too well.
 
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On Portions:
I bought Portions shortly after I was aware that it was out. I bought that and a few other significant works that were missing from the collection, and I decided to read the thickest one first, so I could make my notes long and then read the others in less time, ones that would logically require shorter notes... I thought I'd have Portions done in a week... ohhhhh no. Took me about a month to read, reflect, and notate on everything. And shit, I love that book. It does show a side of Buk that's not often displayed to the reader, and I love that. As an admirer of the works, and the man, I knew he wasn't just the "eternal drunk", but I thought it was great that this side of him was finally being displayed publically, in essays and prose that often resembled intelligent poetry. The pages are now filled with my notes and reflections and I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

On George Dubya:
Not that you should believe everything you see, but... like Bill Maher said, we elected a guy we wanted to have a beer with. I'm not scared of him, like I wouldn't be scared of a bum down at Peterson's... but his actions and his words (or lack of) scare me... because he is/was in power (supposedly). I don't trust a guy who says he "looked into Vladmir Putin's eyes and saw his soul." Is it fear-mongering? Arguably, sure. But when I think of fear-mongering... he never put a gun to our heads and told us to vote for him... not literally, anyway. (Do votes matter? Ask Al Gore. Who's seen Recount? Or watched the news maybe in '04? Or was a resident of Palms Springs ever? Or has a granny over 70?)
 
It should be noted that when I found discrepancies between the timeline in Callone's opening essay and the timeline at buk.net, I usually deferred to the buk.net timeline in my piece. Thanks, guys.
 
What a great review! It's a joy to read such a long in depth review of a Buk book.
Well done, CarversDog!
 
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Thanks, Bukfan. From what David Callone told me a few weeks ago, my piece stands as the only in-depth review of "Portions" thus far. God knows the moronic piece that Carolyn Kellogg wrote for the L.A. Times' Book Jacket was an incredible disservice to the book.
 
Rodger Jacobs wrote that like Bukowski would have written it. There was many things going on with few words. In my opinion it was well done and I enjoyed reading it. I think people who don't know Bukowski would get the desire to look into his work from reading that. Nice review.
 
Thank you very much, FL.

I think people who don't know Bukowski would get the desire to look into his work from reading that.

How wonderful to hear because that was my express intention, otherwise I'm preaching to the converted. Thank you ever so.
 
I'm pleased to announce that my Buk article has been very, very well-received at Pop Matters, tracking in the Top 25 most-read stories almost immediately upon publication and rapidly moving up the charts over the weekend to place at Number Seven as of 6:50 PST this eve. It certainly does not hurt that PM has a large international audience of readers.
 
That's great, CarversDog! It'll probably move even further up! I'm sure it'll help selling some extra copies. City Lights should give you a hard cover for free!
 
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Thanks, James and Bukfan; we're moving up into the top 5 as of 11:00 PM.

City Lights should give you a hard cover for free!

They gave me an ARC and a brand-new replacement copy for my heavily marked-up ARC, so no complaints here. I get along famously with the folks at City Lights.
 
Thanks, James and Bukfan; we're moving up into the top 5 as of 11:00 PM.
They gave me an ARC and a brand-new replacement copy for my heavily marked-up ARC, so no complaints here. I get along famously with the folks at City Lights.
That was nice of them! What does ARC mean? A Review Copy?

I think the review will move up into the top 3! Hell, maybe even into the No. 1 spot!
 
ARC = Advance Review Copy

No, we leveled off at number 6 and then slipped to 7 this morning. It's great to see that Bukowski still holds such a draw but, as I said earlier, Pop Matters captures a large international audience out of their 2.5 million readers per month and Buk sells well overseas. Don Campana, one of the sales associates at City Lights, told me recently that almost all in-store sales of "Mr. Bukowski's Wild Ride" were to European tourists; when the Euro tourist season in San Francisco slowed in October (as it does almost every year), sales of my book absolutely slumped.
 
Number six ain't bad either! I'm not surprised, because it really is a well-written in-depth article. If only all book reviews were as thorough as this one.

Well, I guess it proves that Buk is more famous in Europe than in the U.S., when almost all in-store sales of your Buk book were to European tourists. Still, it's amazing. City Lights probably gets lots of European tourists.
 
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I would say, from my experience hanging out at CL and Vesuvio for over a year, that in peak tourist months 75% of their traffic is from Europeans, particularly Swiss, German, French, Austrian. The Brits, the Scots, and the Irish tend to navigate to the bar, the aforementioned Vesuvio, next door before exploring the book store.
 

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