The neutering of prose by Martin when Bukowski was alive

[mjp]

Re: changes made while he was alive, A) all of those fall on his shoulders. If he didn't care enough to closely read the galleys or the proofs, the end result of not caring is entirely his fault. B) I've still never seen anything in the collections published when he was alive that approaches the scale or destructiveness of what happened after he died. If there's evidence to the contrary, see: A.

You certainly don't have to defer to me or agree or disagree with me. I've never held myself up as an authority or as the final word on anything. I'm just a loudmouth in the business of making my opinions known. I'm not closely associated with anyone who's directly involved in this, or a friend to anyone involved, so I can speak freely. The small handful of people who really seem to care about the issue keep it to themselves. Or they discuss it with each other in hushed tones over tea, never mentioning it in polite company. I suppose they don't want to burn any bridges.

If you have information, you know I'm all for bringing everything to light. It can't hurt to establish the fact that the clumsy "editing" was happening while Bukowski was alive. It's going to make Bukowski look like an idiot (which he may deserve), and the Friends of John Martin Society isn't going to like it, but they'll never like anything that besmirches his sainthood.

It just seems that if very few people care about the work that's really been killed, even fewer are going to care about changes that Bukowski himself could have prevented, but chose not to.

 

[roni]

Didn't mean this as an offence. We're in the same team.

It's just that you usually make a point (which is valid), that the changes we see in posthumous books are not quite of the same quality as changes during his lifetime. As far as I can see, you conclude from this, that we should focus on the posthumous books and the lifetime-changes don't matter much.

I was only mentioning, that I disagree here. When the findings of those alive-changes started, I felt the same way as you, but when there came up more and more of them (mostly via David - it's all here), I started wondering, if we should really go on seeing it this way.

I agree, what you say in (A). One of the points in my talk was to ask the question: Is Bukowski innocent?
As I see it, the sheer amount of lifetime-changes, that we face by now, raises a lot of questions, that didn't occur while we only knew about the posthumous changes. And at the moment I see a lot more questions than answers. But I feel, they need to be asked.

Still we're playing the same team and always did. Sorry if it sounded like trying to attack your view of the things. It's just a different view than mine, that's what I wanted to say.

 

[mjp]

(mostly via David - it's all here)

So you're talking about the prose?

If so, that's such a different issue (editing prose vs. "editing" poetry) that to me it's almost unrelated. I understand that not everyone feels that way.

 

[roni]

talking about the prose? If so, that's such a different issue (editing prose vs. "editing" poetry)

Yeah, I fully agree. There IS a difference.
(poetry CAN NOT be edited by Anyone else than the poet, while editing prose is the given job of an editor.)

The point in our case (Bukowski) is, that we have the 'Women-incident' (plus to some degree the letter-documented disagreements predecessing the publication of 'Post Office') which shows All the Same sorts of changes.

The "style" of these changes - in prose - that Buk didn't accept (or in the case of 'PO' at least didn't appreciate) shows exactly the same pattern as the posthumous changes we all hate so much.

Like these:

Maybe I'm exaggerating this.

and, yes, I do see the (possible) need to change those texts when they move from an underground-mag to a regular trade-book.

But what I say is:
We can Not Ignore this sort of changes, all of which show Exactly the Same Pattern as in the posthumous butcherizations.
And we'll have to deal with this, have to find out what was happening there.


Ah, well, that's my contribution content-wise.
Still, and again, I want to clarify, I'm Not attacking you or your position. I see it more like the (public) discussion of an important subject by two of the leading experts, (maybe comparable to Heisenberg and Schroedinger in the 1920s). This sort of expert-discussion HAS a point and reason and an urge to go on!

Mods:
feel free to make a seperate thread out of these last posts. I think this would be appropriate (and worth it), no?

 

[skiroomalum]

Maybe this is counter-intuitive, but with over 4,000 poems, Buk perhaps didn't feel the intense ownership of those as much as the prose. The actual time and sweat on the novels may have held more significance in terms of keeping them as close to his original words as possible.
Not that he didn't give a shit about the poems, but at some point writing them seemed more like exercising than attempting to create something permanent.
No excusing Martin's pathetic hatchetwork, but hard to keep track of that kind of output.

 

[mjp]

We can Not Ignore this sort of changes...

No, I don't think they should be ignored.

Martin was not an editor, either of prose or poetry.

Buk perhaps didn't feel the intense ownership of those as much as the prose.

I don't think that's true at all, but only he could answer that

 

[Purple Stickpin]

I'm in the camp that Buk considered himself first and foremost a poet. The prose made him some good coin and I'm sure he held that medium in high regard, but he was a poet who also wrote prose. By and large, his prose is more funny than his poems and that's no small observation. Factotum, in particular, has several very funny spots, as do Post Office and Women. Hollywood, not so much, but there are some funny moments. There are some very funny poems as well (space creatures from War All the Time being a great example), but for the most part, Buk treated the poem with reverence and the prose with due deference. My take, anyway.

 

[Otto jr]

Here we are once again exposing the atrocious mangling of Buk's work by Martin. I know Martin and his sycophantic acolytes have taken some umbrage to said exposure in the past. They should be glad we are a literary forum rather than a bunch of accountants who happen to admire Bukowski's fiscal acumen. I would venture my opinion about Martin's payments to Buk over the years, considering the fact that Buk's income was more steady from Germany (which is a smaller market than the U.S.) than from BSP, but MJP's attorney might get on my case if I did.

 

[gabilager]

here I am reading old threads.

I'm with mjp when he says it's on buk's shoulders the editing when he was alive, since he could have fought it. editors are suppose to edit things, right? that's how prose texts works, but what JM has done over the examples here exposed is, at least, mediocre edition. castrating. but again, Buk was alive.

when it comes to poetry, oh fuck you John Martin. poetry is not open for edition. verses are not meant to be worked by editors. it is what it is. mjp research on that makes me wanna cry and punch someone on the face.

 

[mjp]

To be fair, it is research done by a lot of people around here. And without many of the early magazine appearances that people post, a lot of the research would have been impossible. We have the manuscripts, but to me the first appearances tell more of the story (someone can say the manuscript was a first draft, but they can't say that about the first publication).