what's the last buk book you'd read? or read again?:confused:
the absolute LAST buk book (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter lumberdung
- Start date
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
I don't write to strangers on the internet
Hey. Who are you? Why are you asking me that?
I have learned you can ask anything of anyone once, you have earned the right to ask. I don't care how much you know until I know how much you really care.
Tell us about yourself and how you got here. Then you get a warm puppy dog welcome.
Hey. Who are you? Why are you asking me that?
I have learned you can ask anything of anyone once, you have earned the right to ask. I don't care how much you know until I know how much you really care.
Tell us about yourself and how you got here. Then you get a warm puppy dog welcome.
chronic
old and in the way
You mean a good leg-humping, right?
right-o! here's my story, a weary and sordid tale though it be... a close friend turned me on to Post Office when we were in our early 20s. the line about taking a shit and smoking a cigarette in the dark became a daily brain flash. i thought of it often, but i soon had to return my friend's loaned Buk book. alas, i did not seek out jack. instead, i ploughed thru a stack of hemingway and faulkner and shakespeare [okay, bitchslap me now] i didnt return to Buk until a few weeks back. i picked up where i left off then took to Women.
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Welcome, I am in the beginning of The Night Torn Mad and at the end of The Days Run Away while I'm in the middle of The Shipping News. Yes that's weird but I have a dog as my avatar and I multi-task in my own way.
All that and I'm reading:alternative man
All that and I'm reading:alternative man
Black Swan
Abord the Yorikke!
welcome,
On my bed ,Women by Bukowski,
Go west young toad, Gerald Locklin,
Rilke , ou l'ange déchiré, by Pierre Martens,
Krishna poems, by Herschel Silverman,
Nine Headed Dragon River, by Peter Matthiessen,
and Kramers woordenboeken Engels, so I can understand Ponder
On my bed ,Women by Bukowski,
Go west young toad, Gerald Locklin,
Rilke , ou l'ange déchiré, by Pierre Martens,
Krishna poems, by Herschel Silverman,
Nine Headed Dragon River, by Peter Matthiessen,
and Kramers woordenboeken Engels, so I can understand Ponder
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right-o, david. i wanna know everybody's LEAST fave. lemme clarify. i'm a little sloe
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Black Swan, isn't it uncomfortable to sleep on all of those books?
Lumberdung, does that mean woodshit? And do the woods shit on the bear? Welcome to the forum this is shaping up into a decent and interesting thread. It's not easy picking a least favorite.
Lumberdung, does that mean woodshit? And do the woods shit on the bear? Welcome to the forum this is shaping up into a decent and interesting thread. It's not easy picking a least favorite.
Black Swan
Abord the Yorikke!
Thanks. Perhaps published by Waterrow?
Tja, het valt niet mee om't onregelmatige taaltje van dit kikkerlandje te doorgronden.
Desalniettemin zou Roni enigszins in staat moeten zijn om er nog wat van te maken, maar ik vraag me ten zeerste af of zélfs hij nog iets meekrijgt van voorafgaand broddelwerk.
Laat je niet kisten, zit niet bij de pakken neer, wees niet bevreesd, geen man overboord, alles komt tenslotte op z'n pootjes terecht!
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Father Luke
Founding member
I liked this part: Last edited by Ponder; Today at 04:24 AM.
I mean, as if, right?
I mean, as if, right?
here's the data:
Gerald Locklin:
New and selected poems.
edited by Paul Kareem Tayyar.
Huntington Beach, CA: World Parade Books, 2008.
isbn: 978-0-615-19734-0
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Gerry Locklin:
'The Ultimate Pessimist'
He could never decide
Whether his cup
Was completely empty,
Or whether perhaps
There just wasn't
Anything in it.
remember, a wild shit doesn't bear in the woods. he roads in the shit and woods it in the kick.
even before you suggested "pulp bashing" i had that book on my shelf just waiting for me to get thru "women". i'm about half-way thru "pulp" and i grow more confused at every page. this is kinda sorta diff'rent from some of buk's other werks. what say ye?
LickTheStar
Sad Flower in the Sand
Ham on Rye. Not because its a BAD book but because it so entirely, wholly, completely, and utterly DEPRESSING. I read it once, got depressed, and then read it again thinking... "There's no way it could have been so depressing the first time, I must've been in a mood."
Ugh, I was wrong. It is really depressing. Great read, but damn... It lacks much of the humor (or humour for those not in America) and wit that I really loved in Buk's other works...
Ugh, I was wrong. It is really depressing. Great read, but damn... It lacks much of the humor (or humour for those not in America) and wit that I really loved in Buk's other works...
right on, roni. i see opinions vary. i'm eager to see how it all comes out in the end.
CarversDog
RIP
I've always wanted to read Pulp because I love the idea of Bukowski bringing his own aesthetic to the crime novel genre but what has stopped me every time is the overwhelmingly love it/hate it reception by critics and the reading public. Rarely have I seen a novel that so widely polarizes it's audience like Pulp does. (Except maybe Confederacy of Dunces)
Rekrab
Usually wrong.
PULP really isn't a crime novel -- the noir detective schtick is just window dressing Buk uses to hang the story on. You quickly realize he isn't bothering to convince you that he knows or cares anything about the standard mystery conventions. It could just as easily be set at a circus or roller rink. Earlier in his career, Bukowski used a western theme in a few poems (and stories too? -- I forget), and again it wasn't really genre work, he was just using that genre as a leaping off point into a story that was pure Bukowski.
mjp
Founding member
Maybe that's why it stinks. Because it's half-assed at two things rather than being good at one.
I re-read Pulp a couple of months ago for the first time since 1994, and I tried to approach it with an open mind, but if anything, after 16 or 17 years of digging more deeply into his work, I disliked it even more this time.
I think if he had written it 20 years earlier it would have sat on the shelf unpublished, and rightfully so.
Rekrab
Usually wrong.
True, true. It's not even second rate Bukowski. You get the impression he was writing out of habit, more to prove he could still put words on paper, than because he had much to say. Probably the best thing about it is the humor, although being based on unreal situations, not the horrors of real life, it isn't as effective as the humor in his other novels.
mjp
Founding member
I get the impression that he started it, and maybe if it had been a decade earlier he wouldn't have finished it, but by the end of his life there he must have known that it would be his last long work, so he was reluctant to kill it himself.
At least that's what I'd like to believe. It's difficult for me to accept the possibility that he thought it was good. But maybe he did.
At least that's what I'd like to believe. It's difficult for me to accept the possibility that he thought it was good. But maybe he did.
I strongly disagree.
It actually IS a nice genre-novel in the style of the Sam-Spade/Marlowe-tradition.
It also has a science-fiction-touch, which would be completely nuts and useless if not for the funny conclusion of the aliens to not colonize this planet, since it's so damn shitty.
But most of all:
even though it's not an autobiographical story, the main character is pure Bukowski/Chinaski.
Don't you see the total tristesse through the whole book? (it's not only the rain.)
And that humor all around, like when he thinks about, what he has to do next and always ends up drinking, or when he gets into arguments with barkeeps all the time ("Sorry, baby, but I seem to get into these negative dialogues with almost every bartender I meet.").
And how he handles Lady Death, knowing Hank himself would be her next victim, is just genius. ("But you always seem to be hanging around me, Lady." - "I hang around everybody, Nick, you are just more aware of me.")
I'm sorry, kids: I love that novel!
It actually IS a nice genre-novel in the style of the Sam-Spade/Marlowe-tradition.
It also has a science-fiction-touch, which would be completely nuts and useless if not for the funny conclusion of the aliens to not colonize this planet, since it's so damn shitty.
But most of all:
even though it's not an autobiographical story, the main character is pure Bukowski/Chinaski.
Don't you see the total tristesse through the whole book? (it's not only the rain.)
And that humor all around, like when he thinks about, what he has to do next and always ends up drinking, or when he gets into arguments with barkeeps all the time ("Sorry, baby, but I seem to get into these negative dialogues with almost every bartender I meet.").
And how he handles Lady Death, knowing Hank himself would be her next victim, is just genius. ("But you always seem to be hanging around me, Lady." - "I hang around everybody, Nick, you are just more aware of me.")
I'm sorry, kids: I love that novel!
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Rekrab
Usually wrong.
Aliens? I don't remember aliens. Guess I need to reread it. I do remember Lady Death.
I felt like Bukowski was more or less pissing on the standard genre style novel, while winking, as if to say "you and I know this is crap baby, but hell, I'm a real writer, not a genre hack, so lets call it literature." It is not a homage to the Sam Spade/Marlow thing. He even calls it "Pulp", i.e., cheap trash.
Maybe he did think it was good. He apparently changed a lot of his ideas/values towards the end, even buying into the guru thing. Maybe his literary judgment changed as well?
I felt like Bukowski was more or less pissing on the standard genre style novel, while winking, as if to say "you and I know this is crap baby, but hell, I'm a real writer, not a genre hack, so lets call it literature." It is not a homage to the Sam Spade/Marlow thing. He even calls it "Pulp", i.e., cheap trash.
Maybe he did think it was good. He apparently changed a lot of his ideas/values towards the end, even buying into the guru thing. Maybe his literary judgment changed as well?
mjp
Founding member
I just typed a long response and lost it when I spilled some water on my keyboard (it was extremely funny and insightful, real Nobel Prize shit, I'm telling you!). The gist of it was; he certainly did not buy into any guru before he died. At least not according to his letters.
People do a lot of uncharacteristic things when they know they're dying. But he was pretty much the same person he always was up to the end. We all are, despite what those we leave behind need to believe to make themselves feel better.
People do a lot of uncharacteristic things when they know they're dying. But he was pretty much the same person he always was up to the end. We all are, despite what those we leave behind need to believe to make themselves feel better.
