Re: 20 Tanks From Kasseldown…

[doctermel03]

Just read one of Bukowski’s first published stories (published when he was only 26!), 20 Tanks From Kasseldown, about a man in prison, and my mine question is: Who the hell was Buk reading to be able to write a story like this?

I know by this time he’d discovered most of his influences like Fante and Hemingway and so on but none of them wrote anything at all like this. The story structure and prose are so unique and I was wondering if any of you might know what the hell he was reading that might’ve inspired writing like this.

(Read the story for free here if you haven’t already, it’s really something: https://brooklynrail.org/2008/05/fiction/20-tanks-from-kasseldown-by-charles-bukowski/ )

 

[Pogue Mahone Athbheoim]

I don't think we'll ever know. Some literary professor could probably give you a bullshit answer by comparing it to Kafka or who knows who, but at the end of the day you know as much as the academics. It is a peice that has some Bukowski themes, but it is clearly unique -- and wonderful. He wrote it a couple of years after he was put in prison for draft evasion, so that may have influenced it.

 

[Johannes]

Sartre has an early short story about revolutionaries in prison the night before their execution. Very graphic (with people shitting themselves out of fear, if I remember correctly), dark and existentialist. It's been ages since I read the Sartre piece, but I remember Bukowski somewhere mentioning that he liked early Sartre.

Kasseldown sure has the dark, existentialist vibe. So who knows, maybe he was influenced by early Sartre here.