This
is another outstanding book by David Stephen Calonne, a long-term academic
devotee of Charles Bukowski. In this volume he collects the best & most
revealing interviews of Bukowski over three decades. You will find some similar
question/ answer responses, but overall, there is an amazing variety in
Bukowski’s responses. Like much of his writing, as Calonne points out, he is able to produce an apt
metaphor, or crude but honest insight almost at will.
The
title of the collection of interviews is explained by Calonne in his excellent
introduction. It is widely known that Bukowski ruptured his stomach in 1954 and
almost died in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital. In
explaining the incident in 1969 to Knight
Magazine and the torrent of poetry which followed he remarked, ‘I was
almost dead anyhow and it was kind of like sending a message…Sunlight, here I
am’.
The
collection is an essential addition to a Bukophile’s library. There are
numerous photos and a few of Bukowski’s minimalistic drawings.
If
you are interested in zoning in closer, the best interviews include the
following:
William
J. Robson & Josette Bryson Looking for the Giants: An Interview with
Charles Bukowski (1970)
William
Childress Charles Bukowski (1974)
Robert
Wennersten Paying for Horses: An Interview with Charles Bukowski (1974)
Marc
Chenetier Charles Bukowski: An Interview (1975)
Glenn
Esterly Buk: The Pock-marked Poetry of Charles Bukowski- Notes of a Dirty Old
Mankind (1976)- available through Bukowski.net:
http://bukowski.net/poems/int3.php
http://bukowski.net/poems/int3.php
Silvia
Bizio Charles Bukowski: Quotes of a Dirty Old Man (1981)
Robert
Gumpert Pen & Drink (1991)
Here
are some of the highlights of what Buk has had to say to the 34 interviewees in
the book. I have tried to keep these to a bare minimum. For each of these headings
and for dozens of others he always has something interesting to say:
On Bad Poetry:
‘There’s too much bad poetry being written today. People just don’t know how to
write down a simple easy line. It’s difficult for them; it’s like trying to
keep a hard-on while drowning- not many can do it.’
On Critics:
‘I don’t want to be totally revered or looked upon as a holy man or a miracle
worker. I want a certain amount of attack, because it makes it more human, more
like where I’ve been living all my life.’
On Drinking:
‘It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything
being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you
against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where
you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day.’
On Fighting:
‘Trouble was, I liked it. Liked the impact of knuckles against teeth, of
feeling the terrific lightning that breaks in your brain when someone lands a
clean one and you have to try to shake loose and come back and nail him before
he finished you off.’
On His Audience:
‘I’m simple, I’m not profound. My genius stems from an interest in whores,
working men, street-car drivers- lonely, beaten-down people. And those are the
people I’d like to see reading my stuff.’
On Human Relationships:
“You think they are so intelligent, so full of life the first few days. And
then the reality creeps in. ‘Jesus Christ, you leave your stockings all over
the floor, you idiot asshole jerk! You flushed the toilet and there is still a turd
in it!’ So, human relations don’t work, they never did and they never will.”
On Love:
‘Love is a form of accident. The population bounces together, and two people
meet somehow. You can say that you love a certain woman, but there’s a woman
you never met you might have loved a hell of a lot more.’
On the Truth:
‘I do cheat a little; I brighten it up. It may be mostly true, but I can’t help
improving it with one thing that will make it sparkle a little more.’
On What Makes a Good Poem:
‘The hard, clean line that says it. And it’s got to have some blood; it’s got
to have some humor; it’s got to have that unnamable thing which you know is
there the minute you start reading.’
On Why He Started Writing:
I started writing not because I was so good, but because others were so bad at
the time. They were running a poetry con- little boxed-in poems with all the
impact and interest of an enema.’
On Writers:
I’d rather talk to a garage mechanic who’s eating a salami sandwich for lunch.
In fact, I could learn more from
him.’
On Writing:
‘I want the bacon in the pan and burning.’
In
his novel Hollywood (a short segment
appears in Sunlight) Bukowski's alter-ego Chinaski has the
last say on interviews. While in Germany to promote his work he asks his female
interviewer for another drink, otherwise he 'wasn’t going to talk anymore'. The
drink quickly arrives and as he slams it down he realizes, ‘It suddenly seemed
foolish to me that anybody wanted to know what I thought. The best part of a
writer is on paper. The other part was usually nonsense.’
