The Selected Letters of Charles Bukowski Vol. 2

A History of Correspondence From America's Dirtheart

May 13, 2009

These letters span five years, from 1965 to 1970 -- the years leading up to Bukowski's fame -- and showcase him as the poem he claims he is.

In lieu of some form of analysis of Bukowski’s Selected Letters Volume 2: 1965-1970 (edited by Seamus Cooney, Virgin Books, ISBN: 0753509369, 2004) -- something he would have hated -- it must only be said that he was what he was. Of course, this implies that not everyone is. Much in the same way that a man who knows that he knows nothing is ahead of the curve, Bukowski was a drunk in the corner, alone by choice, quiet by nature, and more emotion than rationale.

This was all on purpose, yet not preconceived or preconstructed. Buk didn’t try to embrace the way he was, nor did he try to change it. He just tried to deal with it, which is what he though everyone should be doing anyways. He had no desire to make a point of waxing on literary theory and narrative craft and other “writer” things he spoke of with mostly distaste.

Creation and Its Guts

While he does speak of creation and its guts, he often does so in a flippant way that makes it sound is if those speaking of craft and literature are wasting their time: “it’s not excellence we want, it’s a kind of going-on, a clown’s gesture. it took some deciding to come to this. I think we are all too careful. **** reputation. if I have a reputation it’s only the dirty work of others. I have a right to go on. nobody has the rights to rope and bind me. **** ‘em.”

If everyone else writes stories and poems, Bukowski was a poem and a story who wrote photographs: not every one is a keeper, but to take 20 pictures a day increases the chance of catching genius by the wings. Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King have done it the same way, only on purpose. Buk just did it because he did it, which is just as good of an explanation as any.

A Personal Counterculture

The whole collection reads like any other Bukowski: nihilistic rants in the truest sense, because nothing is real and everything is real, nothing is beautiful and everything is beautiful. Bukowski felt everything happening at all times, but not in the beat/hippie Earthless/Mindless floating sort of ideology that he avoided throughout that entire counterculture movement.

He was his own counterculture, and for anything to be truly alternative, it must also be its own of whatever it may be: "I guess that most of these boys are working centuries ahead, thinking how it might look in an English class, 2067 a.d., but they might get fooled – there might not be an English class then, or if there is those left might be able to sniff the strain of careful begging. I'm here now and the electric light is on over this typewriter and that's all I know. if some whore uncrosses her legs and has an orgasm 100 years from now over my stuff my bones won't light with neon. not where they are going to dump me anyhow."

The Middle Crawl and the Push On Through

The middle seemed to crawl a bit, and while it becomes much of the same, it shows how closely Bukowski was connected to his work. The writing suffered when he suffered. As his career starts to pick up in 1969, the writing came much easier. This means the reading of the writing comes much easier, as well. While he was certainly a miscreant and a reprobate, he was free and kept few people close to him as a result. He is a self-described “one-man revolution” and that’s about as accurate as it’s going to get.

“it’s been a beautiful ball and a beautiful hell, and I’m talking too much.”

The copyright of the article The Selected Letters of Charles Bukowski Vol. 2 in American Fiction is owned by Ryan Werner. Permission to republish The Selected Letters of Charles Bukowski Vol. 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.