
What Charles Bukowski’s Glamorous Displays of Alcoholism Left Out - samclemens
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/books/review/charles-bukowski-on-drinking.html
======
klum
Bukowski's books glorify drinking like the movie Leaving Las Vegas glorifies
drinking: the trailer may give you the impression they're about getting drunk
and having fun, but sit through the whole actual thing, and having a drink is
the last thing on your mind.

~~~
tnecniv
Agreed. It's pretty clear 10 minutes into Post Office that the protagonist is
not living a glamorous life.

~~~
devoply
Ending of Fear and Loathing: [https://youtu.be/jrd-
sfoAv9A?t=38](https://youtu.be/jrd-sfoAv9A?t=38)

~~~
mesofile
Perhaps it’s like war films, in the sense that it’s very difficult to not
glamorize the subject, no matter how gritty the treatment. The worse it gets
the better it looks.

~~~
rhizome
This is the process of eroticization, of making distasteful things appealing,
seen a lot in film. Schindler's List does this with the Holocaust, Titanic
sidesteps it by overlaying a love story, Irreversible confounds it by
[spoiler] ending at the beginning of the story, and so on.

~~~
harperlee
Yes, on one hand the filmmaker wants to do art, and naturally searches beauty
in composition, story, photography... even with the gruesomest topics.

And on the other hand even if you tell the story of someone/something
reprobable, it is _their story_ , and stories are “virus” for our empathic
minds - so we end up understanding and siding with the wrong ideas / actions
when they are explored (because to explore them by focusing om them turns them
into the protagonist of the story).

It seems quite essential to any narrative medium.

~~~
rhizome
I think to a large degree eroticization is compensatory. Check out Lodge
Kerrigan or Harmony Korine for (English-language) relatively-accessible movies
without the kind of clarity of dramatic structure you describe.

In other words, it isn't essential at all. Spielberg could have made a movie
that represented only the helplessness, misery, and horror and left it at
that.

------
longerthoughts
The last few lines are spot-on:

>Bukowski unquestionably lived a life much darker and hungrier and more
desperate than that of most writers. But in his writing he paused at the black
threshold and backed away. He was probably wise.

Yes, Bukowski presented a heavily edited portrait of his alcoholism, but that
discretion is the only thing protecting the sick charm that makes his work so
interesting. A step or two further and the light would be completely shut out.

~~~
rhizome
There are enough people who like to talk about liking Bukowski the person more
than (or as a result of) Bukowski the author, so I think that protection winds
up being a bit thin.

~~~
pm90
Does that matter though? I guess he had the sense to not cross that line
explicitly in his work even though he may have crossed it in real life (I
would bet a large amount of money that he did).

------
Andre607
David Orr has been flinging the same mud at Bukowski and Bukowski's posthumous
publications for years now.

He's been using the same exact jabs and barbs for more than a dozen years.

An example, in this 2019 review he writes:

> At this point, new books by Bukowski tend to be pretty old. Bukowski’s
> publisher has issued something like 20 volumes from “Buk” since the writer’s
> death in 1994, frequently with large chunks of them scavenged from
> previously published writing. The many recycled poems, letters and prose
> fragments in “On Drinking” follow previous collections including “On Cats”
> and “On Love” and “On Writing,” with “On Cats Who Love Drinking and Writing”
> presumably waiting in the wings.

In 2006, for a humor issue of _Poetry_ [1], he wrote a review titled:

> Reviewed Work: Charles Bukowski: Drafts, Scribbles, Doodles, Signed Leases,
> Cancelled Checks, Drawings on Cocktail Napkins, Things He Wrote on a Nerf
> Football with a Green Marker, Things He Wrote on a Waitress in Tulsa with
> the Same Green Marker, Things He Wrote (Possibly in Blood) on an Issue of
> Marie Claire, Things He Wrote (Possibly in Vomit) on a Copy of X-Men vs. the
> Fantastic Four No. 3, and Sestinas by Charles Bukowski

in which he goes on to write:

> If you've seen the 9,473 Charles Bukowski collections currently for sale in
> Barnes & Noble, you probably wondered, along with the rest of the poetry
> world, when we'd finally be given a full picture of this major artist by his
> choosy publisher. Sadly, this isn't it. Missing, for example, are five poems
> known to have been written by "Buk" on scraps of toilet paper during a binge
> in Sante Fe

Repeating the same lame 'here's a long title to show my displeasure at the
amount of posthumous material that is being published because for some reason
it is personally irritating to me just how prolific Bukowski actually was'
joke for more than a dozen years is pretty hackneyed.

It almost seems like he's just rewriting the 2006 review here and adding some
concern trolling about drunk driving.

[1] sci-
hub.tw/[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20607525](https://www.jstor.org/stable/20607525)

~~~
Hasz
Maybe... Because his publisher is just reprinting material? Publishing the
same thing over and over again seems to work pretty well for them, why
shouldn't Orr give it a try?

Dude's been dead since 1994. There's only so much you can say.

------
sandwall
"If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good
happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to
make something happen" \- Bukowski

His writing has never glamorized drinking, to me. Quite the opposite, he
revels in sharing the dregs of a depressing lifestyle. But there is some
beautiful prose burried in his vulgar squalor.

------
specialbat
Glamorous? How is fishing in the toilet bowl for your wallet glamorous? I
don't think he portrayed as anything but squalid. He was certainly
unapologetic about it.

~~~
dragonwriter
The article very specifically says why it thinks the presentation, squalid
though it might be, is nevertheless still glamourized and narcissistic.

~~~
theoh
Specifically Bukowski "wants to seem" a particular way, which is the essence
of glamour. Virginia Postrel is very good on this expanded sense of glamour,
finding it almost everywhere in professional culture (including space travel,
and maybe not so surprisingly, the military).

But the basic desire to project an image of being somehow special is the key
ingredient that leads to glamour. Glamour is essentially mediated charisma:
always constructed, to a degree, always something artificial rather than a
direct encounter with someone's real self.

Postrel's politics lead her to let glamour off lightly. IMO, though (on the
other hand), manifestations of glamour (and its pursuit) are closely tied to
narcissism, and something we should get tough on.

The "hacker" image, by the way, is a glamourous MacGyver kind of deal. Calling
hackers "coding bums" as Dijkstra did, is the antithesis of that. The former
term glamourizes what the coders are doing, the latter mocks it.

~~~
pm90
How do you get tough on the pursuit of glamour? Should we? Are you saying that
we should criminalize narcissists?

~~~
theoh
Narcissists are a danger to everybody, but the consensus seems to be that
narcissists themselves would be happier if they were treated. It's a
pathology, so I don't think there's any problem with pathologizing it. How to
treat it seems to be a largely unsolved problem, though.

------
bsenftner
Years ago I read a book written by one of Kerouac's ex-wives, detailing the
truth of their lifestyle, the willful damage the Beat Poets inflicted upon
everyone around them, their incredibly poor treatment of women, their constant
simplistic search for thrills, and the general sense among themselves of their
fame being a giant literary scam, which they eventually died believing and
simultaneously hating their own lies. The book is out of print, but it looks
like another of similar vein is available here:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12566913-one-and-
only](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12566913-one-and-only)

~~~
enobrev
I don't like Kerouac at all and found "On The Road" to be a poorly written
bore, but that's a pretty broad stroke to paint by someone who likely has a
lot of reason to paint it grotesquely.

------
oraphalous
There is a quote from his book "Women" that pretty much explains everything
this article is complaining about:

"Hey baby, when I write, I'm the hero of my shit."

You either accept that conceit - or there isn't much point reading his work.

~~~
52-6F-62
He tells that to a filmographer following him around as well who notes it
after a confrontation between the two—in a documentary.

I forget which doc, though. Saw it probably ten years ago.

Something like “you’ve got your film, you do your film. ... I’m the hero of my
shit.”

~~~
oraphalous
I can't remember the context of the quote well enough - but I wonder if he was
writing about the same moment.

It was something about a guy complaining that Bukowski had misrepresented a
moment between them in an earlier work to which Bukowski simply acknowledges
as essentially correct, but that - he is the hero of his shit.

If you remember the doc it'd be great to know what it is. I would love to see
the live action complement to that moment.

~~~
52-6F-62
Oh possibly— I meant to write that 'he also* tells'. It was likely the same
line, in a later instance—repeating what he wrote in the book.

BTW, I think the doc was "Born Into This":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h32g3g7r4Q8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h32g3g7r4Q8)

~~~
oraphalous
Cheers! :)

~~~
52-6F-62
All good. If you haven't seen it, the movie version of _Ask The Dust_ by John
Fante (one of Bukowskis idols) was also enlightening. There's a lot of
attention being paid to the novels in this thread. His most impactful stuff
was the poetry, though. Novels paid the bills, AFAIU.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fante)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_the_Dust_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_the_Dust_\(film\))

------
toomanybeersies
It's interesting that society (especially the conservative side) frowns upon
substance abuse, and often thinks of it as a moral failing. Yet so much of our
cultural output has relied on substance use/abuse.

Hemingway and Bukowski with alcohol, Philip K Dick with amphetamines, Hunter S
Thompson with practically every substance, practically every musician with
every substance under the sun.

Art and altered states of mind seem to go hand in hand.

~~~
52-6F-62
I was giving it some thought and was about to post something similar.

I also remember a quote— by whom I forget—but probably one of your selection:
“I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but it worked for me”.

Take that one with a grain of salt— maybe it worked for humanity.

There’s something to be said for the ones who stared into the abyss and
reported back...

~~~
enobrev
Hunter Thompson has said it a few times in print, though I don't know exactly
where. I've definitely read it in at least one of his letters. I first found
the quote in a video of him at a podium answering questions for college
students. Probably on YouTube but it was a long time ago.

~~~
52-6F-62
I think you're right about the lecture moment. I forget which doc as well, but
it rings a bell for sure.

------
enobrev
To call anything written by Bukowski "glamorous" is ridiculous. This article
seems intentionally obtuse.

~~~
longerthoughts
"Glamorous" was maybe a poor word choice by the author/editor, but his writing
certainly romanticizes his behavior just as drug abuse has been romanticized
elsewhere across the arts. For example, reading about a legendary musician's
struggle with heroin addiction while they were writing the most profound music
of their career does not evoke the same aesthetic as seeing a homeless addict
shoot up on the sidewalk. One is mythology, the other reality.

~~~
tchaffee
How does his writing romanticize his behavior? I've read a lot of his stuff.
He's often miserable. I admire his writing style and his brutal honesty about
how he perceived the world. I don't think I'm alone in saying that a hungover
alcoholic picking broken glass from the night before from his feet and having
to go to a doctor to finish the job is not something I'm looking to emulate.

~~~
longerthoughts
It's along the same lines as the type of romanticizing you might see when
certain addicts (recovering or otherwise) discuss their experiences with one
another. It occasionally becomes a game of one-upmanship where each is
discussing miserable experiences with a subtext of pride as if to strengthen
their appearance as hardcore or interesting or who knows. The behavior is by
no means limited to or universally true of addicts, but there's certainly a
type and it comes through in Bukowski's writing. This flavor of romanticizing
isn't necessarily intended to inspire envy, but awe.

~~~
tchaffee
That's not the kind of romanticizing the parent comment described with
"reading about a legendary musician's struggle with heroin addiction while
they were writing the most profound music of their career does not evoke the
same aesthetic as seeing a homeless addict shoot up on the sidewalk".

Bukowski is the guy who would more often write about the misery of his life as
the latter. I agree your example is a lot better. One-upmanship of degeneracy
was there at times no doubt and I'm sure he exaggerated some events. But I
think the reason he will stand the test of time is that he had many authentic
sides to show in his writing. Some of them quite vulnerable. And if memory
serves me right, the theme of the dullness of life came up more than once too.
If it were mostly or even too much one-upmanship, that would wear thin very
quickly. There's clearly a lot more to his writing than that.

Really though it comes down to how much his lifestyle appealed to me the
reader. Almost not at all. I can think of other authors who have been far
better at romanticizing a degenerate lifestyle and made me feel like I wanted
a part of it.

------
elchief
If you're not familiar with Bukowski and want a quick glimpse, the film
Barfly, starring Mickey Rourke is highly entertaining

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092618/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092618/)

~~~
bzelip
Of course, the book is _much_ better.

~~~
pssflops
Hollywood was a great look into the production of the actual film, as a nice
piece after reading Barfly.

------
motohagiography
If I were a critic working for the NYT, I could see how even in his most
degenerate form, Bukowski lived more deeply and experienced life more
profoundly than someone with middling preoccupations could, and also, how
desperately necessary it would be to fold him into some critical framework
that neutered him, if only to mitigate the shame that lesser writers and the
readers of criticism must live with as the price of their successes. All worth
it, surely. Those seedy grapes are most certainly sour.

He was the man in the arena. Writers for newspapers, well, they write about
men like him.

~~~
tchaffee
Yeah, the envy in that article is cringe worthy. I've been increasingly
disappointed by the NY Times as the years go by but maybe they are just as
"good" as they used to be and I've just developed higher standards.

~~~
pm90
You know, I've been wondering the same thing. They are a somewhat old
business; they did do a great job with their digital property and the content
seems good. But if you start reading other media properties (Vox is my current
favorite), NYT seems less like actual journalism, or seems to portray a
misleading picture of events.

Washington Post has been somewhat better, focusing on news more than opinions.
I used to subscribe to both NYT and WaPo but then terminated my NYT
subscription. Haven't missed it since.

------
loosetypes
“They were hesitant, uneasy, yet also somehow disinterested and bored. Finally
it didn’t matter what they did. They just had to do something — anything —
because to do nothing would be unprofessional.” \- “Ham On Rye.”

This always stuck with me, and reminded me of a recent comment from How to
Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227371).

It's oddly refreshing to think this signaling problem Bukowski describes is so
broadly applicable - in this context specifically about nurses and doctors -
and not just a technical problem.

------
narrator
The end of Factotum is pretty sad and directly caused by the protagonist's
alcoholism.

~~~
justinator
“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This
could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It
could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park
bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--
isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance,
of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and
the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If
you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You
will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will
ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.” ―
Charles Bukowski, Factotum

------
csbartus
I was always wondering what about the hangovers. We all know he was a famous
drinker and we all know drinking comes with hangover.

He must have had serious nightmares. Kudos, and strength, this doesn’t shows
in his writings. However I would be very interested in the darker side of his
life, too.

~~~
beenBoutIT
Hangovers can be avoided entirely if an individual remains perpetually
intoxicated. People existing in this havonger-free state can't stop drinking
as it could cause DTs/death.

------
kevmo
Has this author read much Bukowski? He talks about the hideousness of
alcoholism routinely. Post Office, his auto-biographical debut novel, ends
with him quitting the post office to write full-time after his former lover
and long-time friend dies from alcoholism.

~~~
longerthoughts
I don't think the author is trying to say Bukowski's depictions are rosy ("He
is coated in vomit and/or blood with the regularity of an E.R. nurse"), just
that Bukowski skews things to lead the reader to "oh, you lovable degenerate",
which is hardly a realistic depiction of living with or around alcoholism.

------
libertas
The eighties for some seem now like the middie ages, yet there is a vagrant
lifestyle that involves sex and substances among young people today as well.

Bukowski was a 'great' influence because he highlighted the seedier side of
reality, simple people living unglamorous lives who find pleasure and maybe
love in a basement flat with a bottle of cheap wine and some jazz on an old
radio.

------
notTyler
The last few paragraphs remind me of a few of the conversations in the last
bit of the oscar nominated doc Minding the Gap. It's on Hulu, would recommend
if you find this article interesting.

------
platz
pancreatitis?

> Although this incidence rate differs between countries, it is clear that the
> risk of developing pancreatitis increases with increasing doses of alcohol
> and the average of alcohol consumption vary since 80 to 150 g/d for 10-15
> years.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574589/pdf/WJG...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574589/pdf/WJG-19-638.pdf)
(Alcohol consumption on pancreatic diseases | 2013)

~~~
ChrisGranger
This is also what killed Phil Katz[1], co-creator of ZIP[2] file compression.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_(file_format)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_\(file_format\))

~~~
krustyburger
Such a sad story. RIP.

------
pssflops
Perhaps 'romanticizing' as opposed to glamorizing his Alcoholism would be the
better fit.

------
bzelip
Maybe “glamorous” means, “makes you want to drink”.

