OK guys, be warned: Here comes a ramble, a pretty long ramble.
I've recently become interested in Buk's poem "The Genius of the Crowd" (The Roominghouse Madrigals page 31). I used to think it was a bit pompous and over the top, so to speak, with the capital letters and all, but recently I've had a fresh look at it. In a way it's a sort of pastiche on the Bible. Buk sounds like an Old Testament prophet here, a kind of gutter-prophet, or even like Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount, only he's not describing virtues but vices. Its a sermon from the gutter.
Anyway my take on this poem is that it's about hatred and how hatred can fill you up with an intense, almost genius-like energy. (MJP know's a lot about this...;) )Sort of like Buk's "don't try" motto, if you catch my drift. Buk is here looking at hatred and trying to found out what it is, what makes it tick. And he ends up saying it's the unimaginative or average guy's replacement for ART or creativity:
Hatred can only get you so far, this poem seems to say. The spirit of hatred needs to wane, before you can create something out of its energy...
What made me think about "The Hatred of the Crowd" again was something Buk says in the Bukowski tapes (I think it's in the tapes, I can't pinpoint the quote just now). He says something like "I don't hate anybody." I was quite impressed with that statement because it sort of goes against the popular wild-man-bad-guy image of Buk. And Buk definitely did have plenty of good reasons for hating, for example his father. Now it struck me that Buk needed to understand hatred in order to get over it, or survive it, or control it, or not go mad because of it. His drinking could also be part of this survival instinct. And his writing as well.
Buk sees creativity as a step out of the passive blind alley of pure hatred. Now being creative can be art, but it can also be something else, just as long as you're good at it and do it well (playing pool, plumbing). Like Chinaski says in Factotum:
Yup.
So anyway, that was me trying to be creative. Any thoughts?
Does anyone remember where Buk says that he doesn't hate anyone?
I've recently become interested in Buk's poem "The Genius of the Crowd" (The Roominghouse Madrigals page 31). I used to think it was a bit pompous and over the top, so to speak, with the capital letters and all, but recently I've had a fresh look at it. In a way it's a sort of pastiche on the Bible. Buk sounds like an Old Testament prophet here, a kind of gutter-prophet, or even like Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount, only he's not describing virtues but vices. Its a sermon from the gutter.
Anyway my take on this poem is that it's about hatred and how hatred can fill you up with an intense, almost genius-like energy. (MJP know's a lot about this...;) )Sort of like Buk's "don't try" motto, if you catch my drift. Buk is here looking at hatred and trying to found out what it is, what makes it tick. And he ends up saying it's the unimaginative or average guy's replacement for ART or creativity:
(Couldn't get the indentations right on that quote.) (Looks fine to me. - ed) Hatred is one of the things we all have the ability to do pretty well, without trying. It gives you the feeling of being strong, creative and sure of yourself, but in the end it's a blind alley. Hatred is in a way a sort of talent that we all have. But it's a talent without any real creativity, or to be more precise: it has a sort of negative creativity that pulls things down instead of creating something new.Not Wanting Solitude
Not Understanding Solitude
They Will Attempt To Destroy
Anything
That Differs
From Their Own
Not Being AbleTo Create ArtThey Will NotUnderstand Art
They Will Consider Their Failure
As Creators
Only s A Failure
Of The World
Not Being Able To Love Fully
They Will BELIEVE Your Love
Incomplete
AND THEN THEY WILL HATE
YOU
And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect
Like A Shining Diamond
Like A Knife
Like A Mountain
LIKE A TIGER
LIKE Hemlock
Their FinestART
Hatred can only get you so far, this poem seems to say. The spirit of hatred needs to wane, before you can create something out of its energy...
What made me think about "The Hatred of the Crowd" again was something Buk says in the Bukowski tapes (I think it's in the tapes, I can't pinpoint the quote just now). He says something like "I don't hate anybody." I was quite impressed with that statement because it sort of goes against the popular wild-man-bad-guy image of Buk. And Buk definitely did have plenty of good reasons for hating, for example his father. Now it struck me that Buk needed to understand hatred in order to get over it, or survive it, or control it, or not go mad because of it. His drinking could also be part of this survival instinct. And his writing as well.
Buk sees creativity as a step out of the passive blind alley of pure hatred. Now being creative can be art, but it can also be something else, just as long as you're good at it and do it well (playing pool, plumbing). Like Chinaski says in Factotum:
To get out of the clutches of blind hatred you need to be good at something creatively."We sat here all day and evening yesterday. You told me about your parents. Your parents hated you. Right?"
"Right."
"So now you're a little crazy. No love. Everybody needs love. It's warped you."
"People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love
but it needn't be."
"The Bible says, "ËœLove thy neighbor.'"
"That could mean to leave him alone. I'm going out to get a paper."
(Factotum:64)
Yup.
So anyway, that was me trying to be creative. Any thoughts?
Does anyone remember where Buk says that he doesn't hate anyone?
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