Interview in British Spike Magazine

[David]

http://www.spikemagazine.com/charles-bukowski-more-notes-of-a-dirty-old-man.php
There's a cool British online mag which has just interviewed me. I mention the manuscripts of the sublime bukowski.net in it...

 

[roni]

... but in terms of emotion, he was more Beethoven than Bach, I'd say.

Thanks for the interview, David!

 

[Skratch]

Great interview and thanks for sharing.

 

[Bukfan]

A great interview indeed! Thanks, David.
I'm looking forward to reading your book on Bukowski, and the next, "More Notes...", book.

 

[Erik]

Very nice David. Somehing interesting in every line. Packed.
Cudos for the direct reference to the JM edits. Nicely put.
A very information-packed interview. You are aobviously working well on the book. The lines are packed with thoyught-thru info. You didn't do this "live" did you?

Other things i liked/noticed:

Saroyan-inspired long titles!
- interesting!

I think he was really a kind of pagan, elemental, pre-Western-logical-Aristotlian.
- :)

Linda Lee Bukowski, his widow, has written about the long talks they had about spiritual matters
- Where? Where!

Bukowski's obsession is with love, actually.
- Love actually? Hugh Grant? :D

If anything, he is like his favorite French writer L.F. Céline a (sometimes) misanthrope, but in the Greek sense of "anthropos" being all of humanity, not just the male half. But even here, I think this derives from his disappointment in humanity, his hurt, his anguish. He cares a lot, and if you care, you get hurt.
- Did you do this intervju in txt? Its lines are so packed. You MUST have done it by email. Right?

He would continue throughout his career to compose in these seemingly opposite styles: tragic and comic.
- nice point.

Another missing piece of the puzzle of his early influences is Conrad Aiken,
- Tell us more! Looking forward to the book...

"ship of death"
- "like"

one recalls someone like Edgar Allan Poe who was appreciated by Baudelaire and Mallarmé before he was considered of any consequence here.
- agreed

I think too he often writes in very simple English, which translates well into other languages, rather like Hemingway.

- Should there be a comma after "too" ?

--> Also liked the use of classical composers in describing BUk's style. Nice touch. You even goit Adorno in there! ;-)

Looking forward to the book!

 

[Ponder]

Just read the interview.
Keep up the good work, David.

 

[Black Swan]

Good interview David! Thank you for posting it.

 

[Bukfan]

I think too he often writes in very simple English, which translates well into other languages, rather like Hemingway.

- Should there be a comma after "too" ?

Yes, and the words, "think", and, "too", should be switched around so it reads like this:

" I too, think(s) he often writes in very simple English..."

But who cares, we all know what you mean.:)

 

[whatsayjew]

Props on the Borges reference, I also believe I learnt a new word too. Always nice to find.

 

[David]

The lines are packed with thoyught-thru info. You didn't do this "live" did you?

Linda Lee Bukowski, his widow, has written about the long talks they had about spiritual matters
- Where? Where!

Many thanks for all the kind comments everybody. Erik, I answered the questions of the interviewer via email. I hammered out the answers in a few hours on a Sunday so forgive any typos. Aiken is somebody Bukowski mentioned several times. It made sudden sense to me since as I said Buk was reading the Kenyon Review and his own early poems are incredibly dense and well-crafted, like Aiken and like the poems the New Critics liked. The quote from Linda about Bukowski talking about spiritual matters is from the Cherkovksi biography, p. 255.

 

[Dora]

I can't wait for the book as well!

I have also a couple of questions, I hope they won't sound too silly:

1: You say that Bukowski was "very disciplined (...)about sitting down at the "typer" ". So far in my readings of his letters, I only found mentions about his drinking at the typer. So where is it mentioned that he was, in fact, sober at the typewriter?

2: I'm not sure I understood what you said about Bach and Beethoven. Was it about the way Bukowski wrote? Talking about "streams", I do remember him referring to his poems as "streams" or as "flow".

About Bukowski and spirituality: I wonder to what extend one can relate it to the theme of "waiting" in his early poem. We often find people "waiting" either for nothing in particular, or for something undeterminate, or, simply, death. I often felt this "waiting" thing gave a sort of metaphysical resonance to the poems, but I don't know if that's related to any spiritual tradition in general (well, maybe the Last Judgement, but somehow the idea of bukowski being a proper Christian doesn't sound so appealing to me^^).

 

[mjp]

1: You say that Bukowski was "very disciplined (...)about sitting down at the "typer" ". So far in my readings of his letters, I only found mentions about his drinking at the typer. So where is it mentioned that he was, in fact, sober at the typewriter?

Disciplined does not necessarily equal sober.

But during the 60s when Bukowski worked as a post office clerk, he often (usually?) wrote in the hours before he went to work, because the job drained him. I have to assume that he was not getting falling-down drunk before he went to stick letters into slots for 10 hours. But maybe being drunk is the only way to do such a job, what do I know.

a sort of metaphysical resonance to the poems, but I don't know if that's related to any spiritual tradition in general...the idea of bukowski being a proper Christian doesn't sound so appealing to me...

It is not, he was not.

 

[David]

I can't wait for the book as well!

I have also a couple of questions, I hope they won't sound too silly:

1: You say that Bukowski was "very disciplined (...)about sitting down at the "typer" ". So far in my readings of his letters, I only found mentions about his drinking at the typer. So where is it mentioned that he was, in fact, sober at the typewriter?

2: I'm not sure I understood what you said about Bach and Beethoven. Was it about the way Bukowski wrote? Talking about "streams", I do remember him referring to his poems as "streams" or as "flow".

About Bukowski and spirituality: I wonder to what extend one can relate it to the theme of "waiting" in his early poem. We often find people "waiting" either for nothing in particular, or for something undeterminate, or, simply, death. I often felt this "waiting" thing gave a sort of metaphysical resonance to the poems, but I don't know if that's related to any spiritual tradition in general (well, maybe the Last Judgement, but somehow the idea of bukowski being a proper Christian doesn't sound so appealing to me^^).

Looks like mjp beat me to it, but I would have answered the same to #1 that the "discipline" here refers strictly to sitting down regularly to type and NOT to not drinking, which he definitely did WHILE typing.
About Bach, I was just referring to the manuscripts I've seen of Bach which are striking for their lack of revision. Bukowski of course did in fact revise alot, as you can see if you look at some of his poems. What I meant was that there is a flow and continuity and constant forwardness in his writing which reminded me of Bach. The manuscripts of Beethoven I've seen are on the contrary full of corrections and struggle.
As for Christianity and religion, there is a great deal of Christian imagery in his work. Crucifix in a Deathhand, Christ with BBQ Sauce, The Silver Christ of Santa Fe, constant references to the crucifixion and to being crucified in his letters. He did get some Catholic indoctrination as a child, but I think he is closer to Gnostic ideas of the Earth as the botched job of a crazed demiurge. And also to Lao Tzu and Buddhism. Yes, the waiting theme is constant. I think in the late poems there is a constant working out of this theme of being yourself, of authentic "selfhood" (one can argue what in the hell that might mean), but there is definitely the urge NOT to be like EVERYONE ELSE, and to find what is real and uncontaminated and pure within the self. None of these words say it very well. It is I think like the mystical sense one gets through great music, through good wine, through sexual love, through those moments when things come together. I think that's what he is seeking, and I don't think it has much in common with traditional "Western" religion....Again, remember in Shakespeare when he talks about the "Big God" he encounters in the cathedral in Koln. He prefers his "little gods"--more "pagan" and ancient Greek I think.

 

[Olaf]

Great interview, you mention so many interesting connections with Bukowski, the writing, influence etc. Really comes across as a considered, insightful, interview.

As they say in Czech, super.

:)

 

[Dora]

Not to mention his tendency towards asceticism -such as not possessing anything apart from a typewriter.
I haven't read his late poetry yet but so far I see more the parallel with Buddhism, in the sense of an underlying spirituality that doesn't rely on a God figure.
As far as the waiting theme, I remember a spiritual book that I quickly browsed some time ago, called "The Power of Now". At some point it described the act of waiting as the purest form of presence -maybe because one is then neither in a state of action nor stuck in the mental realm. And in some letters Bukowski did complain about the poets and intellectuals who are always talking, always in the mental, and are unable just to be there and simply enjoy each other's presence.
That said, it might just be wisdom, and not religion or spirituality.

Well, that's a lot of religion talk on a Bukowski forum. I promise next time I'll only talk about alcohol ^^

 

[Erik]

Wisdom is, in my opinion, a much better word.

I also like this quote from William Carlos Williams:

I Utterly reject the metaphysical. "No ideas but in things." I reproved Marcia Nardi for using the term God without defining God in terms which can be understood by human beings. Look at the parables of Jesus"”he didn't talk much of God, but he used simple examples"”sheer poems!

There's an e-book of interviews done with WCW available free on the web. It made me curious about how much Williams could have inspired Buk.

 

[mjp]

About Bach, I was just referring to the manuscripts I've seen of Bach which are striking for their lack of revision. The manuscripts of Beethoven I've seen are on the contrary full of corrections and struggle.

Mozart's manuscripts look the same way - uncorrected. If you believe the biographies, he composed in his head, then just transcribed the notation to paper.

I think it's dangerous territory to try to ascribe religious views - even if they are "pagan" or "Greek" - to someone who stated many times that he did not find anything for himself in religion. "Crucifix in a Deathhand, Christ with BBQ Sauce, The Silver Christ of Santa Fe, constant references to the crucifixion and to being crucified in his letters." - that is literary, not religious.

Not to mention his tendency towards asceticism -such as not possessing anything apart from a typewriter.

You are getting carried away with myth. There was a very small period of time where he moved around outside of Los Angeles, and he wasn't necessarily writing during much of that time. When he was settled and typing he owned clothes, books, furniture, art, radios, televisions - he was never naked in a bare room lit by candles typing on the floor.

Everybody calm down for christ's sake. This is not the church where you will crown Saint Bukowski (do they crown saints? They should). Do that somewhere else.

Which reminds me: LA SANTA MUERTE - a Mexican/Catholic cult growing in popularity here in Los Angeles.

Does that iconography remind you of anything?

SAINT DEATH! FTW!

 

[Dora]

I think it's dangerous territory to try to ascribe religious views - even if they are "pagan" or "Greek" - to someone who stated many times that he did not find anything for himself in religion. "Crucifix in a Deathhand, Christ with BBQ Sauce, The Silver Christ of Santa Fe, constant references to the crucifixion and to being crucified in his letters." - that is literary, not religious.

Agree

You are getting carried away with myth.

Not a huge fan of myths.

There was a very small period of time where he moved around outside of Los Angeles, and he wasn't necessarily writing during much of that time. When he was settled and typing he owned clothes, books, furniture, art, radios, televisions -

*Getting the mental image of a naked Bukowski at his machine* Well, saying that he only owned a typemachine was just an image. I was actually thinking of an essay ("Basic Training") where he made a sort of apology of starvation.

Everybody calm down for christ's sake. This is not the church where you will crown Saint Bukowski (do they crown saints? They should). Do that somewhere else.

*Getting the mental image of a Bukowski with a thorn crown on his head full of boils...* OK ok, sorry, I won't get involved in conversations again!! ^^

There's an e-book of interviews done with WCW available free on the web. It made me curious about how much Williams could have inspired Buk.

Have you got the link to the ebook?

 

[Dora]

Oh, by the way, thanks guys for answering my questions!

 

[Erik]

Have you got the link to the ebook?

Third one from the top HERE.

 

[mjp]

OK ok, sorry, I won't get involved in conversations again!!

Well, at least you aren't acting like a victim just because someone disagreed with you. You know, the way some people do. You know the type. Good thing you aren't like them.

 

[Dora]

Sorry typing error, I meant *that kind of* conversation - I had already noticed that it was too much religious discussion for a Bukowski forum. Hope I can still get involved in *conversations* anyway ;)

Erik: thanks for the link, not to mention it leads to an interesting website!

Gosh I hate those big yellow smiley...