Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Volume 2 1946 - 1992 – Charles Bukowski (2010)

The unearthing of Bukowski’s writing continues and Absence of the Hero does not disappoint. I’ll get right to the point, rather like Bukowski himself, and advise all admirers of his work to get your hands on this collection because it is just brilliant. As for those who view Bukowski with distaste or have never heard of him – I’ll get to you later.

I’m not usually one for quoting, but on the rear cover of this book Tom Waits sums things up best: “He loads his head full of coal and diamonds shoot out of his finger tips.” Absence of the Hero features some of his earliest stories, unseen Notes of a Dirty Old Man columns that were originally published in underground papers, and most fascinating of all, critiques of other writers’ works and commentary about writing.

Two of the early highlights of this collection both play with perception. Cacoethes Scribendi is a rare third person excursion that finds an editor visiting a writer suspiciously like Bukowski himself. The Rapist’s Story gives you a tale of innocence from the rapist’s point of view. It lures the reader into being sympathetic towards the rapist, until you realize at the end that it’s all a matter of perception and that your own has been played with, with disturbing results. For seasoned Bukowski readers these two stories are surprisingly untypical and that’s the great pleasure of this collection – it presents another side of Bukowski.

A side of Bukowski that I’ve never read before are the critical essays and his ruminations about writing. As usual they are peppered with his succinct brilliance. It’s fascinating to read his critique of Alan Ginsburg’s work, in which he manages to examine both Ginsburg’s writing and the psychology of reviewing other writers. Hilariously he refers to Ginsburg as a “…bearded half-monk, kind of lighted with bedroom infractions and stinking nightmares of India and Cuba and coffeehouses, this flumping spread of hair that is Allen Ginsburg.” All aspiring writers need to read House of Horrors, in which Bukowski lays down the truth about writing. At the end he concludes that: “For after some years of writing, the soul, the person, the creature becomes useless to operate in any other capacity. He is unemployable. He is a bird in a land of cats. I’d never advise anybody to become a writer, only if writing is the only thing which keeps you from going insane. Then, perhaps, it’s worth it.” I hear you Bukowski.

More typical is Notes of a Dirty Old Man, Open City December 8 1967 in which Bukowski reveals that he was an American who fully understood irony when he twists an argument that he is a racist back onto the accuser, in a beautiful and succinct way of course. Another Notes of a Dirty Old Man, this time published in Free Press November 1975, is a hilarious misanthropic meditation about cars and people. There is also the usual stories about drunkenness – being drunk at poetry readings, on the way to poetry readings and after poetry readings, oh, and in the middle of the night, afternoon and morning, with or without other people, usually with hilarious results and with a dash of pathos thrown in. There’s sex and as usual it’s very masculine, but take note all you women reading Fifty Shades of F**king Grey (they’ll change its title to this in the future), it’s erotic in a powerful way and it will give you a thrill, not a cheap one though. Start with Vern’s Wife, page 140.

The thing about Charles Bukowski’s writing is that you can be feeling terrible and you read him and then you feel good again. Bukowski speaks directly to the hurt part of your soul; his humanity is palpable because it came directly out of his brain and onto the page unfiltered. No doubt his writing was like therapy to him and it certainly has that effect on the reader. Another thing is that his brand of existentialism is way better than, say, Sartre’s. I have no doubt that Bukowski would have thought that Sartre was a pussy, but he would have at least had a drink with Camus.

As for those of you who accuse Bukowski of misogyny, I’m afraid that you are sadly mistaken – he was a misanthrope. Read his work and after a while you realize that the men in his stories come in for some rough treatment. He loved to reveal the awful stupidity of men and he didn’t spare him-self from such treatment either. Besides, no one else has quite summed up the effect of a beautiful woman quite like this: “She walked in. Shining gold. Flare of eye in wild painting. Centuries of men killing for the like. I mean, you know, I was at last overcome.” It still didn’t get him laid though.

As for those of you who have never read Bukowski, hear this – every man and woman, but perhaps not child (teenagers are a grey area) should read Bukowski. Everyone should at least read Post Office (1971) and Women (1978). Quite frankly if you don’t read Bukowski then you will die having never experienced literature that comes from the core and reveals the essence of what it is to be human. Don’t miss out.

One Year of Excelsior

This time last year I began writing book reviews for Excelsior. It started as a way to develop writing discipline when I made up my mind to start writing creatively again. I figured that working on book reviews would keep me writing even when I didn’t feel particularly creative. It has worked wonderfully. My writing has improved significantly over the last year and I have made a start on a novel and some short stories.

The whole process has also made me think about criticism and its worth. After all, the Internet has helped make everyone a critic now, for better or for worse. Websites like my own and those linked from my bloglist offer a guide for people wondering just what book to read next or which book to avoid. For readers there is also great value in disagreeing with what a critic has to say about a particular book because it helps to develop their own critical abilities. This is also one of the best reasons for writing reviews – it makes you a far better reader and in my case, a far better writer.

Over the last year I’ve read and reviewed twenty-five books. Some of these I’ve read for the book club I run at Subiaco Library. Most of these I would never have read if it wasn’t for the book club. Although this is sometimes a chore I’ve come to realize over the years that reading books that you wouldn’t normally consider has great intrinsic value. It exposes you to styles and authors that wouldn’t normally come your way. There is also great benefit in reading a book that you don’t particularly enjoy. The critical insight gained can end up being invaluable. There’s also something to be said for a certain level of discipline when it comes to reading. Next time you start a book and it doesn’t appeal to you, keep going because it may just make you a better reader and a better critic.

Of the twenty-five books I’ve reviewed over the last year only two gained my highest rating of sublime. These were Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and John Fowles The Magus. For these two novels it is excusable to wheel out that dead cliché – “work of genius.” Both are brilliantly written and both show just how weighty issues can be approached without resorting to dumbing down or empty cliché. Although the other books featured over the last year were not in the same league, they are all worthy in one way or another. The only book I’d advise readers to think twice about reading is Allan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child; although this book gave me valuable insight regarding just what to avoid in my own writing.

So, another year of reading and writing awaits. The publishing industry may be going through great changes at the moment, but something that I’m sure will never change is the desire to immerse oneself in a great novel from which so much enjoyment and knowledge can be gained. Surely there aren’t many better ways to spend your time? After all, reading and writing helps to both define and to critique humanity, something we must never lose sight of in this age of endless distractions. 

The Windup Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)

Paolo Bacigalupi is hot property at the moment due to The Windup Girl winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards for speculative writing and now he has a new novel out called The Drowned Cities (2012). The Windup Girl is his debut novel after many years of publishing acclaimed short stories.

I started reading without really knowing much about either the author or the book and after a while it occurred to me that perhaps this was a new sub-genre of science fiction and the word Ecopunk came to mind. Once I finished and looked Bacigalupi up I found out that I was on the right track, but it’s actually called Biopunk. Biopunk is dystopian in nature and mega-corporations control the world, but unlike Cyberpunk the dominant technology is centred on genetics rather than computers. It’s a great example of just how influential the likes of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and the other Cyberpunk writers are in this post-Cyberpunk era (that’s how I refer to it anyway).

The Windup Girl is set around 180 years in the future in Thailand. The characters talk about “The Expansion” and “The Contraction”. It’s easy to work out that the former is globalization and the latter was the subsequent collapse of globalization. The world of The Windup Girl is blighted by rising seas, the collapse of fossil fuels and deadly bioengineered diseases and organisms. As a result many plants and animals are extinct. Bioengineered diseases like blisterust, cibiscosis and Nippon genehack weevil are constant threats to Thailand and the rest of the world. Newly created animals such as the giant elephant megodonts are used in factories in place of machinery and the chameleon like Cheshire cats roam the streets, blending perfectly with their surroundings whilst they scavenge for carrion

The Windup Girl presents a beautifully realized world filled with weird and terrifying possibilities that are, for the most part, not too fantastic to exist. I’m impressed by Bacigalupi’s imagination, as there are some great ideas on display in this novel. The narrative is also jammed full of atmosphere, sweat, grit and the stench of the dirty back alleys of a future Bangkok; a Bangkok in which Anderson Lake, just one of the many protagonists, roams searching for lost genetic material. Although the novel features political subplots and can also be seen as a critique of the present and future discontents of capitalism, it’s the notion of genetic tampering that gives this novel its dystopian bite.

There’s an ensemble of characters crammed into this moderately sized book, and even though some of them only have bit parts, they have presence and charisma. There’s a conflicted heroine (of sorts), sinister politicians vying for power with the military, fanatical ‘white shirts’ that protect the nation from outside genetic contamination and suave but slimy traders. One of my favourite characters is Hock Seng – Anderson’s untrustworthy Chinese accountant bent on survival and with his own compelling back-story. Then, of course, there is Emiko, the seemingly fragile engineered Windup Girl abandoned by her Japanese master; she bleeds through the plot like the blood of the Megodont killed in the opening section and ironically she provides some humanity to proceedings.

The writing is tight and well structured and Bacigalupi’s pacing is something to be admired. Even in the slower sections there is enough colour and intrigue to satisfy. It’s refreshing to read a science fiction novel set in South East Asia that also has enough great ideas for it to make a genuine claim for originality. Lets face it, dystopian novels proliferate and it takes something special to stand out. The Windup Girl is certainly not perfect – some of the later sections are too episodic, which slows the momentum somewhat, but this is a minor shortcoming.

Bacigalupi’s vision is certainly disturbing, but what is even more disturbing is that The Windup Girl ultimately comes across as a very possible vision of the future. Such prescience is something that the greatest science fiction offers and The Windup Girl would be an interesting book to read in 50 years time. Don’t wait that long though – read it now.

The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

In 2004 Alan Hollinghurst made literary headlines by winning the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. Set in Thatcher’s 1980’s Britain it courted mild controversy with its depictions of cocaine abuse and graphic gay sex. Seven years later The Stranger’s Child made the Man Booker long list and then fell out of contention, which led to bitter complaints from those critics who believe that Hollinghurst is Britain’s greatest living writer.

I approached this book with optimism. I hadn’t read The Line of Beauty but I knew enough to realize that Hollinghust could be an interesting proposition. The novel begins just prior to WWI and finds the sixteen-year-old Daphne Sawle reading poetry and awaiting the arrival of her older brother George and his university friend Cecil Valance - a poet from a wealthy family who also happens to be bisexual. Cecil’s impact over the course of his stay is significant; he upsets George’s mother, who suspects the truth of their relationship, causes a servant to marvel at his collection of silken underwear, frolics with George in the woods and flirts with Daphne. Most significantly he writes a poem, supposedly for Daphne, called “Two Acres”, after the name of the Sawles property. After his death in the war Cecil and his poem become immortalized when Winston Churchill quotes from “Two Acres” in a speech.

The events of this first section, just one of five, set the novel up for an exploration of mythmaking, the changing attitudes to homosexuality and the subjective nature of truth. Hollinghurst also devotes a great deal of space to the question of the moral ambiguity of biographers and their trade, particularly during the latter half of the book. Such a concentration of weighty themes seems more than enough to make the novel both entertaining and philosophically intriguing. Disappointingly The Stranger’s Child mostly fails in both regards, although it does have its moments.

The novel’s strengths lay in the way it depicts the evolution of British culture during the twentieth century and how it affected people’s lives. In this regard the scope of the novel is ambitious and does at least move the plot forward. The naiveté and pleasures of the pre war section give way to the bleak post war section, in which Daphne has married Cecil’s brother – Dudley, who is beset by mental problems due to his part in the war. Everyone suffers, including the children, Daphne and an old German woman who comes to an untimely end (a parody of Agatha Christie?). The third and most pleasing section, set in 1967, finds several gay characters, including the future Cecil biographer Paul Bryant, discussing the impending decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain. By the novel’s close, set in 2008, everything’s changed and significantly the gay characters are marrying each other and can now live their lives in the open.

Despite the novel’s initial promise and Hollinghurst’s ambition I was quite often utterly bored with The Stranger's Child. Turgid is a good adjective to use. There is simply too much dialogue, with endless boring interactions between characters at parties and dinners. During these extended scenes the characters are regularly nervous to the point of being neurotic. Often they appear to be hamstrung by politeness and therefore never say what they really mean. Hollinghurst is probably making a point about what it is to be English or even human, but unfortunately it happens so often that you begin to tire of it and start to feel that way yourself.

With many of the major events taking place outside of the narrative the plot is stretched thin and therefore there is virtually no tension generated and no real desire to find out what may happen next, or to invest emotionally in the characters. The novel is also overwritten to the point of exhaustion. No character can speak without a description of their facial expression or how they are looking narrowly at another character or off into the middle distance. Hollinghurst’s writing is incredibly detailed, which is sometimes quite startlingly effective, but his obsession with the minutiae of everyday interactions does not make for riveting reading.

As a literary monument to the cultural history of Britain over much of the twentieth century The Stranger's Child succeeds to an extent, but it is ultimately hamstrung by its flaws. As with most books some readers respond well whilst others do not. A handful of my book club members absolutely loved this book, but most either marginally appreciated it or thought that it was too long and tedious. In the end The Stranger’s Child simply made me yearn for the succinct brilliance of Carson McCuller’s writing. Despite Hollinghurst’s fine reputation my advice is to approach this novel with caution, or perhaps not at all. It seems that the judges of the Man Booker prize were right after all.

New Blog - Closed Groove

There are, fortunately, quite a number of things in life that make it all worthwhile. Books and literature are certainly up there, there’s no doubt about that. But in my opinion music listened to on a vinyl record is one of the greatest pleasures offered up by this crazy culture we find ourselves living in. In many ways the humble LP can say just as much about humanity as a well-written novel.

I've been collecting and listening to records since my early teens. When I thought about starting up a blog records appeared to be a more obvious choice than books, but for some reason it didn't feel right at the time. Since then I've been visiting many blogs run by vinyl obsessed collectors and I've realized that not only is it fun to read about records and view pictures of them, but it must also be great fun to write about them.

But still, why write about music? There are plenty of critics out there and perhaps even more so than books records are subject to unending criticism. There are a number of good reasons to write about music – for one it is a challenge! It’s actually really hard to write about music and I admire those critics who can write a well-considered review of a record.

What Closed Groove hopes to achieve is to not only be a forum for vinyl junkies to check out records, but also a place for the uninitiated to be introduced to the world of record collecting. I’ll also offer my humble opinion about the music and who knows, maybe you’ll discover your new favorite record or artist. If you are interested then check it out and if not I’ll still be writing about literature here on Excelsior. 

Carson McCullers - Charles Bukowski (2001)

After I finished The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I was scouting around on the net looking for information about Carson McCullers and I stumbled upon a poem about her by one of my favourite writers – Charles Bukowski. Bukowski was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, in my humble opinion anyway. This poem beautifully sums up McCullers, although how she died is inaccurate, but why let that get in the way of great art? I’m pleased that Bukowski rated McCullers – he didn’t suffer fools, but also I’m not surprised. Anyway, enjoy the poem.

Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism


wrapped in a blanket


on a deck chair


on an ocean
steamer. 



all her books of


terrified loneliness





all her books about


the cruelty


of loveless love 



were all that was left


of her 



as the strolling vacationer


discovered her body 



notified the captain





and she was quickly dispatched


to somewhere else


on the ship 


as everything


continued just


as


she had written it

****

Charles Bukowski

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers (1940)

I’ve long been fascinated by Carson McCullers and finally it was the right time to pull this novel off the shelf. Even a cursory glance at McCullers biography reveals that she led a life beset by tragedy and illness. A misdiagnosed case of rheumatic fever as a teenager led to strokes later in life that eventually killed her at the age of 50. Her tumultuous marriage to James McCullers ended with his suicide (he tried to talk her into a double suicide). Despite such traumas McCullers managed to produce quality work that included poetry, plays, short stories and novels.

The quality of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter suggests that McCullers was one of those rare writers who tackled big issues whilst being free from the excesses inherent in such polemical narratives. McCullers beautiful but pared down style provides an excellent narrative framework to explore the inner psychological worlds of her characters. Her writing subtly draws you into the characters lives and then manipulates you into caring deeply about what happens to them.

The novel opens with the description of two friends who are mutes – Spiro Antonapoulos and John Singer. They live in a mid-sized southern American town. Their relationship is central to the novel, even though Spiro spends long periods as a peripheral figure. As the novel unfolds an ensemble of characters are introduced. The Afro American doctor Benedict Copeland works tirelessly for the improvement of not just the health of his fellow Afro Americans but also of their political status. A teenage girl - Mick Kelly, yearns for the freedom of a life of travel and music; she is also apparently based on McCullers own life. The mysterious Biff Brannon runs the all night New York Café in which many of the characters meet. Then there’s Jake, a barely restrained alcoholic at odds with the state of America who flirts with communism. These characters all coalesce around Singer, who despite being a mute earns their respect and friendship.

The manner in which McCullers weaves together the stories of this disparate group of characters builds significant narrative power. Dr Copeland is a particularly compelling character, through which McCullers explores the trials and sorrows of racism. Copeland’s Christmas speech to his people, of which is an attempt to help them realize just what the struggles in their lives mean in the wider context of history and politics, is one of the highlights of the novel.

Mick Kelly is an engaging and sympathetic character. Her insightful notion of having an inside room and an outside room when it comes to dealing with life is particularly telling. Her emotional life, with all its yearnings and frustrations, perfectly crystallizes just what it must be like to be a teenage girl. As the novel progresses Mick becomes a character in transformation and just where she ends up helps create a significant part of the emotional impact of the novel’s conclusion.

The novel is aptly titled, with each character looking to other people to fill an emptiness or need within them that simply can’t be resolved on their own. Most of this focus is on Singer, whose silence lends a sympathetic and stoic air to his personality. Essentially The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a brilliant examination of what it means to be an outsider with a need to communicate and connect with someone who understands. It is the loners, radicals, dispossessed, persecuted and downright confused who somehow find solace in friendship with Singer.

With Singer positioned as a savior it is especially poignant when McCullers turns her attention to his inner emotional world. His loneliness, his confusion and his hopes for the future are revealed as he makes his long walks around the town. It is through the life of Singer that McCullers deftly presents a subtle subtext that involves a minority that had no voice and had to stay underground during that era. The manner in which she presents this subtext has implications throughout the whole novel, and would, as suggested by the blurb on the back cover, make The Heart is a Lonely Hunter a rewarding book to re-read.

Although The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has a satisfying plot, it is the brilliance of the characters that really make this novel. Despite the novel having been written in the 1930s these characters are universal, transcending time and place to be relevant for modern readers. McCullers wrote superbly about the human condition and I’m still thinking about this book two weeks after finishing it. In the canon of American literature both McCullers and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter are highly regarded and justly so, and now she’s also included amongst my favourite writers of all time.