Bukowski's lead me to many great writers, be it through his own writing about other writers or friends of mine who dig his stuff and drop new books on me. I start this thread partly to share my own discoveries, but mostly looking for new writers that I can check out.
Celine I found a little boring. I got 50 or so pages into Journey Into Night and put it down. I still own it, because I've always meant to come back to it and give 'er a second try. Anybody want to encourage me?
John Fante, I fucking adore. I've tracked down all of his books I'm aware were published, and my favorites are Brotherhood of the Grape and Full of Life. I love the wild, mercurial voice he captures, the power of life to invigorate even when it's painful.
Harry Crews was a recommendation from a friend when we were talking about Ham on Rye. He suggested I try out Feast of Snakes, which is an amazing book, though my favorites of his are the novel All We Need of Hell and A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, which is about his growing up on a sharecropping farm in south Georgia. Crews is a top-five writer for me, always entertaining if not always as piercing as I know he's capable. Maybe my favorite thing about Crews is that he's a tough guy nerd, a rugged redneck who always loved reading, a natural citizen of no land, stuck somewhere between The Intellectuals and The Viscerals. He treads this ground with confusion and passion, and he speaks with an assured and sharp voice even when he admits he's talking out of his ass.
Then there's Hubert Selby, Jr, again a suggestion from a fellow Buk fan. Maybe my favorite writer, if not the guy whose books I pick up the most often. Certainly the one writer who has affected the way I live my life the most. Selby approaches the old maxim, "Pain is the greatest teacher," from an unusual avenue. His characters rarely learn, obsessed as they tend to be with pleasure and ego. But they suffer like hell. And they're usually fairly unlikable people. But his writing is so visceral, the suffering of his characters so acute and intense and instinctive, I can't separate myself from them as a reader. I shudder with every punch and cry along with every tear; personalities I'd have cast aside or condemned before coming across them in Selby's work I learn through the literary mirage of shared suffering to love. Requiem for a Dream, made into a decent movie by Darren Aronofsky, is the only book I've ever had to actually put down, because I was so gutturally disturbed by a character's experience. His body of work is small, but consistently strong. My other favorites are Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Demon.
Who's next? I only typed this all up in the name of fair play - somebody's gotta start - but I'm excited to discover some new authors.
Celine I found a little boring. I got 50 or so pages into Journey Into Night and put it down. I still own it, because I've always meant to come back to it and give 'er a second try. Anybody want to encourage me?
John Fante, I fucking adore. I've tracked down all of his books I'm aware were published, and my favorites are Brotherhood of the Grape and Full of Life. I love the wild, mercurial voice he captures, the power of life to invigorate even when it's painful.
Harry Crews was a recommendation from a friend when we were talking about Ham on Rye. He suggested I try out Feast of Snakes, which is an amazing book, though my favorites of his are the novel All We Need of Hell and A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, which is about his growing up on a sharecropping farm in south Georgia. Crews is a top-five writer for me, always entertaining if not always as piercing as I know he's capable. Maybe my favorite thing about Crews is that he's a tough guy nerd, a rugged redneck who always loved reading, a natural citizen of no land, stuck somewhere between The Intellectuals and The Viscerals. He treads this ground with confusion and passion, and he speaks with an assured and sharp voice even when he admits he's talking out of his ass.
Then there's Hubert Selby, Jr, again a suggestion from a fellow Buk fan. Maybe my favorite writer, if not the guy whose books I pick up the most often. Certainly the one writer who has affected the way I live my life the most. Selby approaches the old maxim, "Pain is the greatest teacher," from an unusual avenue. His characters rarely learn, obsessed as they tend to be with pleasure and ego. But they suffer like hell. And they're usually fairly unlikable people. But his writing is so visceral, the suffering of his characters so acute and intense and instinctive, I can't separate myself from them as a reader. I shudder with every punch and cry along with every tear; personalities I'd have cast aside or condemned before coming across them in Selby's work I learn through the literary mirage of shared suffering to love. Requiem for a Dream, made into a decent movie by Darren Aronofsky, is the only book I've ever had to actually put down, because I was so gutturally disturbed by a character's experience. His body of work is small, but consistently strong. My other favorites are Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Demon.
Who's next? I only typed this all up in the name of fair play - somebody's gotta start - but I'm excited to discover some new authors.
