bukowski / chinaski comparison

[thesloth]

i'm considering writing my paper with this thesis statement. any experts out there?

mainly how are they similar and how are they different? what is the bukowski work that talks the most about chinaski?

any help would be great. thanks.

 

[HenryChinaski]

I think all of his novels except for Pulp.
wow man that might be tough...differences?
you might not find any because they're the same person.
I can't find any...maybe cirerita or mjp can.

 

[cirerita]

Chinaski was the Bukowski persona... but sometimes the real Bukowski played the Chinaski persona. it's a thin line, but there are certainly quite a few differences. no time to explain them now, though.

you may want to know that the earliest incarnation of the Bukowski persona wasn't Chinaski, but Chelaski. You can see that somewhere in the Unpublished & Uncollected forum.

 

[mjp]

I think there might have been another "-aski" between Chelaski and Chinaski too...can't put my finger on it at the moment, but I remember something. Maybe it was Chelaski and I'm just losing my mind...could be.

 

[HenryChinaski]

but on the subject of compare and contrast...there really isnt much that's really different is there? anyone care to elaborate?

 

[mjp]

I think Chinaski is who Bukowski wanted to be.

By that I mean Bukowski was, for the most part, a responsible, hard working guy. And there were definitely things that frightened him. Chinaski is (again, for the most part) a fearless bum, pissing on the world without regard to consequences.

That's a generalization, but I think it's not far off the mark.

 

[cirerita]

I think you're not off the mark. Somebody said something along those lines:

sometimes the real Bukowski played the Chinaski persona

:rolleyes: