‘You Get So Alone at Times that it Just Makes Sense’ While I find everything Bukowski writes has something in it for me this collection has a different ‘feel’. More down, more depressed, more complaining. Not much fight left.
But since it was published later in his life, just eight short years before he died, maybe the flavor of this book is just because he’s older, worn out, and sick. His joints hurt, his liver is shot (probably), Jane is dead, the IRS is sending him letters informing him that interest is compounding DAILY and, worse, the horses are not paying off.
Don’t misunderstand, I love his work (how can there be any doubt if you’ve read my blog for any length of time) and I continue to be inspired by his insights about life, people, politics, writing and his razor sharp truth about HIMSELF.
the Master Plan © Charles Bukowski
starving in a Philadelphia winter
trying to be a writer
I wrote and wrote and drank and drank and
drank
and then stopped writing and concentrated on
the drinking.
it was another
art form.
if you can’t have any luck with one thing you
try another.
of course, I had been practicing on the
drinking-form
since the age of
15.
and there was much competition
in that field
also.
it was a world full of drunks and writers and
drunk writers.
and so
I became a starving drunk instead of a starving
writer.
the best thing was the instant
result.
and I soon became the biggest and
best drunk in the neighborhood and
maybe the whole city.
it sure as hell beat sitting around waiting for
those rejections slips from The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly.
of course, I never really considered quitting the
writing game, I just wanted to give it a
ten year rest
figuring if I got famous too early
I wouldn’t have anything left for the stretch run
like I have now, thank you.
with the drinking still thrown in.
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Check out my Interview with Bukowski! and other posts about the great man!
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From one of the pictures, it definitely looks like he’s cirrhotic. His brain kept working just fine. Such a shame for a talent like that to be self-destructive, but we’ve seen this again in the last couple of days with Robin Williams. Talent hiding great pain.