Bukowski and the Beats

[scribbler]

When its just you against everything all the time, moments of weakness will have you attaching yourself to this and that, embracing for a time, tolerating periodically and ALLOWING episodically. But you recover; and draw back to the only thing that has always worked.
Even superhumans are still (regrettably) human.

 

[roni]

I think Buk contradicts himself. If there's no shame in being a homo, why is it a shame then to let the homo's teach us how to write?

I always felt the same about that passage too.

But as scribbler indicated: even Buk was just human - all too human.

 

[David]

Here we go again, gays and Nazis. There is an very obscure work by Buk in which he attacks Nazis who are not gay...

 

[Lolita Twist]

Hitler was anally raped as a child.

 

[zenguru]

Here we go again, gays and Nazis. There is an very obscure work by Buk in which he attacks Nazis who are not gay...

I don't think Buk was ever, or ever desired to be, a full-fledged Nazi. He was young and just trying to find out where his place was in the world. Buk was a living contradiction. He liked being alone, but yet he was always around people.

 

[roni]

zenguru, you're TOTALLY RIGHT!
(and I appreciate you having the right understanding.)

but please - we had this here so many times.
Can some mod maybe give a link or two here to the threads where this belongs?

EDIT: See threads: Was he really a Nazi? & Was Bukowski -somehow- bisexual???

I hardly can bear seeing it everywhere around. And I believe it was THIS, what David was referring to - not your personal view of it.

 

[David]

Yes, I was just making a bad joke about the whole matter.
I suppose a psychoanalyst could get very heavy about this. That is, Buk was basically psychologically raped by his father as a child with regular severe beatings and emotional abuse and hence having any closeness to males was I would guess rather difficult. Thus the exaggerated heterosexual pose.
I have no doubt he loved women, but he also feared them. All human relationships for him were mined with dynamite. Hence his love for cats.
And horses. At least the running kind.
But perhaps there was more to this gay stuff. Ginsberg, Burroughs, Harold Norse, and a good deal of the American/Anglo poetry establishment--John Ashbery, James Merrill, W.H. Auden, etc etc were gay. So in a way he was saying poetry is NOT just "sissy" stuff, but you can be a male hetero and also write good poetry. Also, he grew up during a time when homosexuality was closeted in American culture.
And also, a GOOD percentage of Buk is pose, play-acting, exaggeration, satire, crazy extremes for fun. Did he dislike gays and like Nazis. NO! It's all part of the game of being an agent provocateur. His role was to PROVOKE.

And the same self-division went with his German heritage. He was made fun of as a child because he was German. And as an alienated, sensitive person, he in a sense gravitated to defending the rejected parts of himself.
Yes, a joke. No obscure work attacking non-gay Nazis!
Just being provocative.

 

[roni]

[...] No obscure work attacking non-gay Nazis!

I just knew that, because there ARE NO non-gay Nazis. (I'm German, I have a right to say this :-))

 

[Erik]

Buk also wrote a book review of Ginsberg's "Empty Mirror", and mentions Ginsberg, Corso, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Burroughs in many places.
He clearly admired Ginsberg, but I think he rightly thought of himself as a better poet than Ginsberg. I think he was pretty accurate in the above scene (from a poetry reading he, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti et al gave in Santa Cruz) in his estimate of Ginsberg's career. I think Buk felt Ginsberg began to play to the crowd with his fame and stopped being an original poet. While I think that Buk kept evolving and was writing as strongly or more strongly at the end of his life.

I totally agree David. Well put.

By the way, apparently there's a new book out containing a selection of Ginsberg's letters. Does anybody have it yet and can they look the name "Bukowski" up in the index please? :D

 

[Pessimist]

On the Road

In (at 3:00), Buk says Kerouac went on the road because it was fulfilling. Not for him.

"I went on the road because there was no place else to go. I just moved on because everything was ugly. It was always, for me, no place to go, no place to land, no chance, ever."

 

[zenguru]

zenguru, you're TOTALLY RIGHT!
(and I appreciate you having the right understanding.)

Wow.:eek:

Someone thinks I'm totally right about something. Let me savor the moment.

*angelic choir plays while sun parts clouds*

Ahhhhh, that was good...:cool:

 

[roni]

Wow. Someone thinks I'm totally right about something.

No, that was a joke.

;-))
NO! - THAT was a joke!


Back to topic:
as far as I remember, I found Neeli's thought about this BEAT-issue in 'HANK' very well placed. He, more or less, says, that one major difference is, that the Beats were a community, celebrating their community/companion-ship; while Hank was the ultimate loner, always being aware of communities, groups, etc.

 

[zenguru]

No, that was a joke.

;-))
NO! - THAT was a joke! .

Dammit!!!:mad:

Oh self respect. Why must you stand so far away from me?:(

;)

Back to topic: I suppose it's easy for some to forget Buk was the ultimate loner. Because he was known for throwing all-night parties. But then, he was also known for throwing everybody out once he was fed up with them.

 

[Bukfan]

I just knew that, because there ARE NO non-gay Nazis. (I'm German, I have a right to say this :-))

That's right. Ernst Rähm made sure of that...:D