The lost weekend (2 Viewers)

poetlizard

Founding member
Anyone seen the movie "The Lost Weekend"? Saw part of it last night and something the main character (a drunken writer) said seemed close to a line from Bukowski's work.. "most men live lives of quiet deparation" Does this sound familiar to anyone?
 
Thoreau said "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation", I'm guessing that's what you're thinking of

although it does sound like something Bukowski would say, I agree
 
..cant see much difference between Thoreau and Charles anyhow, except for their environment of course.
And they are both called Henry, can you need more evidence?
 
I haven't seen The Lost Weekend, but stay away from Days of Wine and Roses, which is a funny movie (girl goes from candy with brandy in it to full blown lush in what seems like 3 days) up until the end, when it becomes AA propaganda.
 
'The Lost Weekend' is part of an address of the founder of the Bukowski-Society, concerning 'Bukowski and the movies', where he gives examples of (1) movies Buk has seen and mentiones [this is the part, where this movie occurs], (2) movies in which Buk appeares and (3) movies after Buk's work. So I'm pretty sure, I've seen a small part of it, but don't quite remember yet. Is this the one, where the main-character has a vision of creatures nesting in his wall, while drunk?

Anyway, the quote you mentioned DEFINITELY reminded me of the same quote by THOREAU, beast has mentioned. (it's in a beautiful chapter of 'Walden' named 'Economy'.) - (btw, I came to know Thoreau [as well as this quote of him] by the movie 'Dead Poets Society', which a lot of people seem to hate, cause they find it too much clichee-like. Well, I Love it. I owe this movie to know Thoreau AND Whitman, both of witch are TOTALLY unknown in Germany.
 
Thoreau is here roni, hermann hesse speaks quite often of him and his "Von der Pflicht zum Ungehorsam gegen den Staat" is quite common in the socialistic hobby-corner.
Just a corner, but you find a lot of readers there :)
Whitmann, never heard of him in germany.

Good morning.
 
yeh, SOME people here know this book (the Original title is 'Resitance to Civil Government') in Germany.
I used it in my high-school-thesis [ ='Facharbeit'] about Martin Luther King who read that book too and I have a friend who was ready to go to jail instead of going to the army (that was in the beginning of the 90s, when it wasn't that easy to refuse this crap TOTALLY - to refuse even the 'Zivildienst', the kind of non-military-duty you were able to do instead of going to the army) - and he used quotes from it in his correspondence.


I don't know about Hesse's writings. Couldn't even bear to read the 'Steppenwolf'.

But anyways, Neither Thoreau nor Whitman are Common at all in G, are they?

Btw, concerning Whitman:
He lived at the same times as Thoreau (or R.W.Emerson - another one, unknown in G.) and was a great poet of NO BORDERS. Be it borders of believe, of gender, sex, age, race, of life or death, beauty or ugliness, a leave of grass or the whole of the stars - he knew of no borders between them or against them. He was Very Unique and one of the first to claim for a 'direct' style in poetry (here's a connection to Buk, though the 'direct' style at HIS times of course differs a LOT from what WE would call so).


In German there is an o.k.-translation of his main work 'Leaves of Grass' (= Grashalme) at Reclam. [forgett the 'insel'-edition!] but reading it, you'll Have to remember, it was written in another time!
Still ALL my Love goes to W.W. (ehm, AFTER my man Buk o/course.)
 
I think Thoreau's book on civil resistance is very well known in left-wing circles. The same goes for Gandhi's idea's of civil resistance...
 
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Yes, The Lost Weekend from 1945..great movie..you've got the right one Roni..the drunken hallucinations of a mouse coming out of the wall and a bat swooping down to attack it..
 

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