Tag Archives: Charles Bukowski

Book reviews in 140 characters

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Inspired by Twitter’s brevity, I’ve decided to post some 140-character reviews of the books I’ve been reading lately. I feel like a bad writer when I don’t review books I’ve read, especially since I tend to move onto the next book fairly quickly (reading on the bus will do that to you). So, here’s mud in your eye:

THE SUMMER WITHOUT MEN by Siri Hustvedt: Spurned wife leads budding poetesses through writing exorcises of demons, to illuminating personal results. Old age & youth comment equally. (5 stars; read my longer capsule review at GoodReads)

SUNSET PARK by Paul Auster: Siri’s husband writes another enchanting tale of the city w/squatters battling The Man and personal demons. More men, less summer; I <3 NYC. (4 stars)

HOLLYWOOD by Charles Bukowski: Novelization of film based on Buk’s book: “Don’t let anybody tell you different. Life begins at 65.” + “Nobody deserved anything”=Hollyweird (4 stars)

DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE by ZZ Packer: Religious run-ins, wayward youth, people saved for all the wrong reasons, dark humor & unconventional heroines w/snappy comebacks=excellent (5 stars, + bonus points for inspiring a conversation on the bus)

THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez: Sucias are doing it for themselves. Hispanic Sex and the City w/better characters, racial tension, more laughs. Chick lit grows up w/grace. (5 stars)

What have you been reading lately? Got any recommendations for my summer reading list?

P.S. Speaking of summer reading, if you live in Austin, be sure to check out the Austin Public Library’s summer reading program for both adults and children, as frequent reading can translate into a chance to win awesome prizes like gift certificates and e-readers!

Charles Bukowski on writing what you know

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Here’s a good question:

“why don’t you write a novel about all
that?” I asked her.
“Hank,” she answered, “you’re just a
cynical old drunk and a son-of-a-bitch.
no wonder your stuff sounds like it was
written in a cesspool.

the next novel she wrote had a cynical
old drunk in it who thought he could write but he
couldn’t really write at all, he just wrote shit
which appealed somehow to the mundane appetite
of the masses.
— “novels,” by Charles Bukowski

bukowski025

Writers are often told to write what they know, but then you’ve got the divide between those who think nobody should write what they know (because what they know is shit), and those who think you should write nothing but what you know (because they’ve got no imagination whatsoever). I would have to agree with Bukowski that if you’re writing novels about nothing, and your life is more exciting than your life’s work, you should probably write about your damn life already.

But then there are the people who write about nothing but their own lives, who get into the navel-gazing, who-the-hell-cares? territory. There’s nothing worse than the ramblings of a writer who doesn’t know he or she is boring everybody to tears (see: all Bukowski’s poems about going to the track).

There’s also a difference between making the personal universal and simply airing your dirty laundry. For instance: there’s a guy I know who fancies himself a writer, kind of like the chick in this Bukowski poem. He thinks writing about his ex-girlfriends is a great way to make money and get laughs. He thinks he’s talented and funny, because he writes about “something real,” even though he’s just, metaphorically, holding up other people’s underwear and sniffing them in public. Some may say I’m just jealous of his “success,” but is it really success to be a big fish in an extremely small pond? And for people to label your pond a cesspool?

In Bukowski’s defense, I don’t think everything he wrote sounds like it was “written in a cesspool.” A lot of it surely came from muck and mire, but it had heart. He was a sensitive human being, underneath it all. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof:

if you want to piss on the sun
go ahead
but please leave the good women
alone.
— “a poem for swingers”

Certainly, this poem demonstrates more than just morbid obsession with women, fucking them, and writing about them afterwards in order to humiliate them—which is basically what the guy I mentioned above does with his work. Bukowski may write unpleasant things about these women, too, but mostly because he is documenting his own failures. He is the ultimate butt of the joke, not all the women who dared to sleep with him.

So, should you write what you know? Yes, but remember a few things:

  1. You still have to edit what you write—even if you’re Mr. Charles Bukowski himself.
  2. It’s called fiction, so remember to make something up now and then.
  3. Writing about all the people you’ve slept with, using thinly-veiled pseudonyms, is self-indulgent—not to mention an invitation to a lawsuit; try to find material that other people can connect with on a more personal level.

P.S. All material excerpted in this entry comes from Charles Bukowski’s book of poetry, Open All Night: New Poems.

Literary Snobbery meme

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I was tagged by two of the most fabulous Facebook users in the world, AV Flox and Atherton Bartelby, so obvs I have to complete their literary meme now! Feel free to join in the snobbery if you are a literary type, or wallow in your tragic illiteracy if not. (This has also been posted on my Facebook page, so apologies if you’ve already read it there.)

1) wintersonWhat author do you own the most books by?
Jeanette Winterson

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I don’t really have any repeats, though I’ve bought Beautiful Losers at least three times now. Damn Cohen thieves.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
It’s post-gym. I’m tired. Eff prepositions in the arse. But yes.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Holly Golightly, bless her whorish little soul.

4a) What fictional character would you most like to be?
Hmm. That’s a tough one, as I always seem to like the losers, the underdogs, and the not-entirely-together. Let’s go with Harriet the Spy. She still amuses, after all these years.

4b) What fictional character do you think most resembles you?
Lolita. Or maybe Humbert Humbert?

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Beautiful Losers

6) harrietthespyWhat was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Harriet the Spy. Or maybe those god-awful Sweet Valley High books. I devoured books in series, back then.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Undoubtedly something I had to review for publication, so I will keep mum.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, J.T. LeRoy

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
I think I may be forced to echo Ms. Flox on this one: “The one I publish one day, duh.”

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Salman Rushdie. I mean, c’mon already. Does the fatwa not speak for itself?

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I fear most good books make terrible movies, but what about Post Office?

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Any and all books that fall under the heading “chick lit.”

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Nabokov’s son emailed me to tell me how bad I suck because of a sex column I wrote. Wait, that was real.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
Happiness™ by Will Ferguson

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Anything by Kathy Acker. I have problems with “experimental” literature and plagiarism.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
This is embarrassing, but I have only seen Othello with a high school class. And we were mostly mortified by the way the actors showered us with spittle, sitting in the front row. Umbrella? Thanks.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I am currently reading Anna Karenina, so I will side with the Russians. For now.

18) Roth or Updike?
Having never read any Roth (the shame! the horror!) I will say Updike.

19) davidsedarisDavid Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Sedaris, hands down. Eggers is a poseur.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
No thank you. I successfully avoided all of these classes as an English Lit major and I’m not about to cave now!

21) Austen or Eliot?
I don’t do “lady authors.”

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
It is a bit embarrassing that one can have an English Lit degree without having been forced to take the Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer courses at one’s university, but I refuse to feel shame. I have seen enough to know it’s not for me.

23) What is your favorite novel?
Beautiful Losers

24) Play?
Is it plebian of me to say “The Shape of Things”?

25) Poem?
“As the Mist Leaves No Scar,” Leonard Cohen

26) Essay?
“Art Objects,” Jeanette Winterson

27) tiffanysShort story?
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Truman Capote

28) Work of non-fiction?
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

29) Who is your favorite writer?
I love my man LC, but I feel compelled to say J.M. Coetzee.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
That damn woman who wrote those stupid “Twilight” books that all the pre-teens are reading these days. Bleh!

31) What is your desert island book?
I hate these “desert island” questions, since I can never decide whether I want an old fave or something that will keep me occupied for a long while. How about the Tao Te Ching just to hurt my brain?

32) And … what are you reading right now?
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, as well as Do Everything in the Dark by Gary Indiana, and a vast assortment of magazines, newspaper articles and whatever’s close at hand.