posthumous (1 Viewer)

H

hanzpolilla

well it's a real simple question:
Hoowmaney posthumous books are?.. 5? which ones?


Bone Palace Ballet
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
Open All Night
the night torn mad with footsteps
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain
Slouching Toward Nirvana
The People Look Like Flowers at Last

just 7?, just 5?
and this posthumous are real the last poems, the very last?.. or maybe linda has other poems....I don't know...
 
hanzpolilla said:
and this posthumous are real the last poems, the very last?.. or maybe linda has other poems....I don't know...
Click to expand...

Linda had hundreds and hundreds of poems that were not published. They are probably all with the huntington. I have heard that many of the poems that were not published likely will never be because of the feeling that they are not up to standards.

All books after 1994 are posthumous. There were 5 that were released by Ecco, which is where you see the note about 5 on the rear of many Ecco books, but in fact there are more:

Living on Luck - Selected Letters (1995)
Bettin gon the muse (1996)
Bone Palace Ballet (1997)
The Captain is Out to Lunsh (1998)
Reach For the Sun - Selected Letters (1999)
What Matters Most (1999)
Open All Night (2000)
Beerspit Night - Letters (2001)
The Night Torn Mad (2001)

And then you have the five Ecco editions. Have I missed any?

Bill
 
i heard some weirdo in delaware has been publishing bukowski broadsides and stuff. does that count?
 
So, 14 posthumous books altogether. 9 are poetry collections, 1 is a mix of poetry and short stories (Betting on the muse), 3 are letter books and 1 is a diary (The Captain...). If you want to call Pulp posthumous, then it's 15 books. Is that correct?
 
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Well, this is pretty easy if we're only counting the "major" books and not small run Black Sparrow "special" books like Scarlet, etc., screenplays, collections of letters or journal entries (The Captain Is Out To Lunch), chapbooks, Wormwood books or collections of things from other books.

Actually, here's a barometer that could be interesting use: any book that had more than one printing. That rules out things like the Webb books, and would seem to be as good a definition as any for "major" books. So using that, we have 22 "major" books during his lifetime:

Notes Of A Dirty Old Man
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills
Fire Station
Post Office
Erections, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
South of No North
Burning in Water Drowning in Flame
Factotum
Love is a Dog From Hell
Women
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument...
Dangling in the Tournefortia
Ham On Rye
Hot Water Music
War All the Time
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
The Roominghouse Madrigals
Hollywood
Septuagenarian Stew
The Last Night of the Earth Poems
Pulp

And only 10 posthumous:

Betting on the Muse
Bone Palace Ballet
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
Open All Night
the night torn mad with footsteps
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain
Slouching Toward Nirvana
Come On In!
The People Look Like Flowers At Last

If I missed anything, feel free to ridicule.

So it would seem unlikely that the posthumous books will ever outnumber the others.
 
The list seems ok, but what about Notes Of A Dirty Old Man? I guess it don't count because it was a newspaper column, right?
 
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Not trying to be pedantic but Fire Station had 2 printings.
;)
 
Okay, I added Notes and Fire Station, which just increases the living book ratio (which should now be established as a mathematical term).

I always wondered why Martin never reissued At Terror Street and Agony Way. Maybe it was too short. But it's a solid book.
 
He did in a way, in Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame.
And Shakespeare never did this and the Captain are surely major books.
Just adding more to your L.B.R
I'm re-reading the Captain at the moment and I think it's strong.
 
I definitely would losen the strictness of this 'definition' to add Both the Webb's books, as well as Terror Street - due to their importance on any literary scale as for their effects - and agree with ROC to add Shakespeare (even in the given def it had more than one edition, only at different publishers.)
I see the point in singling out the letters and captain. But would at least consider giving this a 2nd thought.
Same goes for the screenplay to Barfly. (there is a long tradition to count dramas/plays as regular literary works. A screenplay is only a newer form of the same thing. and reading Barfly is a Lot of joy.)
 
Well, there you go. See how hard it is to draw an imaginary line around "major" books? ;)

If we're including Terror Street, why not the Wormwood books? Is it a major book if it is held together with glue rather than staples? Do collections of previously published material count? If not, we have to throw out all of the poetry collections. Unless we don't count magazines with a circulation under, oh, I don't know, 500? And what percentage of the book's contents have to be previously published to rule it out?

I'm getting a headache now, how about you?

Anyway, I think I answered my own (not entirely serious) question, "when will posthumous books outnumber those released when he was alive?"

Never.
 

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