Charles Bukowski

[Adina Loki]

Anyone like his books?

I'm just wondering what to pick up first

[Toad in the Hole]

Post Office is the defining one... his first.  Women is a bit of a cheap wank novel.

Try some John Fante stuff as well, particularly Ask The Dust.  Buk was very influenced by him.  Also the Sounes biography of Buk.

[dan dirty ape]

I'd go for 'Post Office' then 'Ham On Rye'. The latter is his best, dealing with his childhood and acne-plagued adolescence. It's a beautifully written book full of stark pieces like the part where he and a friend go to an airshow and witness the accidental death of a parachutist, and the section where he's in a hospital getting treated for disfiguring acne and the doctors are talking about him as if he isn't there. There's a tenderness in the writing that's absent in a book like 'Women', which is overlong and at times does read like nothing more than a boring litany of sexual experiences and 'and then I did a poetry reading, got drunk and insulted some people'.

[4 arses]

The three best books for me are Ham on Rye, Post Office, and Factotum. Women wasn't as bad as I'd heard but I wasn't too keen on Hollywood. The other book I'd recommend that he wrote is Pulp, which is a strange fictitious detective noir thing, it's very different from the rest of his books and has an oddly playful feeling to it.

[Toad in the Hole]

Ham on Rye seconded.  I really do recommend the biography, as well.  My bro got it for me for Xmas, and it's fascinating.

Anyone any thoughts on where to start for the poetry?

[Almost Yearly]

I'm on the porch 'cos I lost my house key
Pick up my book, I read Bukowski

Yes very good Kiedis have a bone.

I haven't read any - I'm just posting shit up until Top Gear - but I did like the quote I read once (on the back of Women?) that if men wore the skirts we'd all be übertarts; really show them how it's done. That appealed. I related to that.

[Anna]

For poems I'd go for War All The Time or Love is a Dog from Hell. They're both nice little introductions to his poetry.

If I were a first time reader, I'd start with his short stories. Although not the most popular, Hot Water Music has a really good variety of stories. The Most Beautiful Woman in Town is also a good place to start.

Novel-wise I agree with Ham On Rye, Post Office and Pulp. I always viewed Ham On Rye as the definitive because it was the first book of his I read, but as soon as I clapped eyes on Pulp it took the lead. Pulp has something more than the rest of his novels.

I'd also second the John Fante comment. I'm reading Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Bukowski's definately on the same par. I'm trying to get my hands on some of Fante's screenwrites just now, but it's proving difficult.

[Circusfire]

Anyone like his books?

I'm just wondering what to pick up first

Yes, like him very much. I think his style is very influenced by Chekov etc.

Post Office is a good book to start with.

[Toad in the Hole]

One thing I'll say, though, is that Pulp isn't really typical Bukowski.  Post Office and Ham on Rye are far more representative of the rest of his stuff.

Thanks for the heads up re: the poetry - I've read Hot Water Music as well, good stuff.

Can't recommend the Sounes biog enough to anyone who takes an interest and hasn't yet come across it.  Sounds like a fascinating guy.  Done just in time, I think, to interview loads of people who actually knew him.

Fante is clearly a MASSIVE influence.  Ask The Dust and all the Bandini books are great.  Chekhov reference is interesting - as far as I know CB didn't read Chekhov, though the biogs all say he was a voracious reader.

[Circusfire]

- as far as I know CB didn't read Chekhov, though the biogs all say he was a voracious reader.

He did. He mentions Chekov in Ham on Rye, I think.

[Smackhead Kangaroo]

I can't remeber what I read of his,it sounds like Women though, and I thought it was arse.

[Jim Jarmusch]

I'm planning on picking up a couple of his works. They're the only decent books I think HMV stocks and need to spend a £15 voucher from Christmas.

[Dirty Boy]

Ham On Rye is the only one i've read properly but it's probably the ideal place to start, given that it's kinda his autobiography.Very depressing in places, you really get a sense of his alienation as a kid.Even though i'm sure a lot of it was exagerrated somewhat  he had one fucked up childhood, no wonder he became an alcoholic.

[Whug Baspin]

Yep Ham on Rye and Pulp are great, Pulp is a fantastic imagining of himself as this kind of Raymond Chandler character but with his personality stamped on it. I'd also add that bits of Tales of ordianary madness are worth reading. Also there was some collaboration he did with Robert Crumb which I liked. As for his poetry I think Love is a dog from Hell has some of the best stuff in it, and Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame aswell.

I had kind of forgotten how good he was and then re-read Factotum at Christmas and it all came flooding back.

[23 Daves]

Ham on Rye is a great starting point, really.  I don't honestly think he topped that, though if you're stuck in a really mind-numbing job and managed by imbeciles, "Post Office" is a wonderful read.  It highlights the stupidity of beauracracy enormously well in places.

As for the poetry, my favourite Bukowski poem is "The Tragedy of the Leaves" which is about ageing and failure, but his anthologies are seriously, seriously patchy.  He wrote so many poems, but he didn't seem to exercise quality control as vigorously as he might have done - therefore, your safest bet is probably to get a couple of "best of" anthologies until you're sure of where you are.

He is a very good, very precise writer though - you get people dismissing him as over-rated, and it's true to say that since his death his stock has risen out of proportion to his actual talent, but that doesn't change the fact that he wrote some solid material.  Solid in the sense that it feels like being hit over the head with a concrete block, so overwhelmingly direct is its style, and solid in that it's hard to pick fault with it a lot of the time.

I was taught him at GCSE English back in 1989.  Fact.  Our teacher was quite forward-thinking.

[Pepotamo1985]

Ham On Rye remains one one of the funniest, saddest and emotionally resonant books I've ever read, although I'd advise you to save it 'til last. Post Office is also a work of bleak genius, and nicely builds up to Factotum, which is only slightly less brilliant.

I'd advise you to avoid Women, however, it being an overlong bunch of self-indulgent verbal pornography. Throughout, I was plagued with unsettling images of Bukowski sitting at his typewriter, a sticky manuscript next to him, smoking a post-coital cigarette.

[zozman]

I've just started  reading Ham on Rye at the minute.  Have a little Bukowski poem

sway with me, everything sad --
madmen in stone houses
without doors,
lepers steaming love and song
frogs trying to figure
the sky;
sway with me, sad things --
fingers split on a forge
old age like breakfast shell
used books, used people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving.

One of my favourite bands (Animals That Swim) put this to music ages back, although it took me about 2 years to put the two together.  I'd host it, but I haven't a clue how to.

Are Post Office, Factotum and Women a trilogy then?

[23 Daves]

Oh yes, Animals That Swim's version of "Sway WIth Me" is one of the few successful attempts at setting a poem to music that I've heard.  It even goes so far as to improve on the written original.

[Toad in the Hole]

Are Post Office, Factotum and Women a trilogy then?

I think the best answer you're going to get is "kind of".  They're all semi-autobiographical, and are vaguely sequential... but I've never seen them plugged as a trilogy anywhere apart from in lazy blurb.

[Pepotamo1985]

Are Post Office, Factotum and Women a trilogy then?

Yes, in a non-committal way. The only real unifying concept is that they follow the vocational and sexual exploits on Henry Chinaski.

[slim]

Ooh, I got Factotum for my birthday. It's next in my to-read pile.

[Circusfire]

On the strenght of this thread I bought The Bandini Quartet by Fante today.

Bukowski introduces it. I usually can't stand book introductions (most of them are  load of toss) but this one is good.

[Rovis Teffyd]

When I was in Bristol on a job assignment many weeks ago, I finally managed to get a copy of "Post Office". On the way back to Ipswich (taking into account all the delays and changeovers), I managed to read it all the way through, and it's absolutely fantastic.

Considerably the shitty job I had at the time, it was all the more better in my eyes, I could acutally sympathise with Chinaski. It sounds sad, but when you're hungover, vomit on your best trousers, hopping on all sorts of trains and buses in order to avoid a car journey with the vapid cunts you work with, you get like that.

I'll get "Factotum" when I have the time and money.

[slim]

It was my birthday. There was a party. One of the guests had bought me Factotum. I placed it in a bag and forgot about it.

Three weeks passed. I had gotten some wine. I drank it down. It tasted good. I opened the bag and found Factotum. It was paperback, grey, nice in my hands. I turned the cover and found the words. They worked with the wine. I read it. A lot of it.

I like it. I'm not finished yet. I'm sick with hangover.

[Toad in the Hole]

It was my birthday. There was a party. One of the guests had bought me Factotum. I placed it in a bag and forgot about it.

Three weeks passed. I had gotten some wine. I drank it down. It tasted good. I opened the bag and found Factotum. It was paperback, grey, nice in my hands. I turned the cover and found the words. They worked with the wine. I read it. A lot of it.

I like it. I'm not finished yet. I'm sick with hangover.

Excellent.  Posting in the style of Bukowski.  I like it.

[Famous Mortimer]

For the Bukowski fans out there, the thoroughly excellent "Kill Ugly Radio" blog has put up his entire "Hostage" album for your downloading pleasure (it's been out of print for ever, copyright-worriers):

http://uglyradio.wordpress.com/

[drberbatov]

http://ebooks.noctis.com.ar/archivos/Bukowski/

a good resource for his poetry

[Toad in the Hole]

For the Bukowski fans out there, the thoroughly excellent "Kill Ugly Radio" blog has put up his entire "Hostage" album for your downloading pleasure (it's been out of print for ever, copyright-worriers):

http://uglyradio.wordpress.com/

Thanks for that, Mortimer - I will enjoy listening to that later.  Kudos also on the title thingy under the avatar...

So does anyone who picked up his books after reading the thread last time round want to report back?

[mothman]

Am I the only one who thought Charles Bukowski was the name of a serial killer?

[the midnight watch baboon]

It is a very serial-killer-centric name. I've only read Factotum which I enjoyed severely; made me want to be a droll USA-traversing alco-poet. For a bit.