I recently acquired a beautiful collection of miscellaneous writing by Charles Bukowski. The book immediately caught my eye when browsing in the book store; it is impossible to dismiss a title such as The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way: The Writing Life, don’t you think? Especially when one is a mathematician and a writer.
Every time I read one of these stories I am transported to Los Angeles, to a night out in LA over fifty years ago. There is something timeless about the colours of people’s clothes blending in the background under yellow lights, the smell of sweat and beer in an overcrowded pub. Not much changes in that journey from the UK to America and back. The same people roam those cities—my Manchester and Bukowski’s LA—at night, with the same shitty jobs, the same addiction, the same insanity.
What tales. Brutal, disgusting, borderline pornographic tales. Reverence for alcohol, gambling, and women are common themes. If you are easily outraged by such realism then I can’t recommend Bukowski, nor do I recommend nearing night clubs, talking to the homeless, or generally going outside and looking people in the eye.
After all, who is a good reader? Surely a rebel, a lost soul, someone for whom reality is not enough. Bukowski knew that these people do not often wear tie and suit, nor do they often have the patience to jump through the hoops of academia or climb the corporate ladder. Rather, going on strike against life itself, many times they are alcoholics and gamblers.1 They are monsters. Not every lowlife is a wonderful person. But Bukowski had the guts to look for, and often find, humanity in monsters.
I think Bukowski needed to find humanity in monsters in order to find humanity in himself. One can tell Bukowski is the protagonist in many of his stories, even when he doesn’t say it directly. I’m reminded of this quote of his.
I mean, I write poems, stories, novels. The poems are basically true, the rest is truth mixed with fiction. Do you know what fiction is? … Fiction is an improvement on life.
The protagonists in Bukowski’s stories find themselves in a merciless world with absurd monsters walking around. No less a monster is the protagonist, who is always drinking, seducing, and betting on horses. This, by itself, seems like gruesomeness for gruesomeness sake. But if you look closely—and if you read Bukowski I hope you do—you can find hints. A thought, an action, even a single word. Indicators of a certain sensibility, an out-of-place ideal like love or hope. You have to pay attention though: Bukowski tries his utmost to convince you he’s a piece of shit.
This is best exemplified by my two favourite stories from Notes of a Dirty Old Man a magazine column Bukowski used to write.2 The first is about a man who refuses to have sex with a child (even though he has already paid for it). What I find so fascinating is the tranquillity of the characters, the normalcy with which the pimp mother talks. Though there is no doubt the protagonist is a monster, it’s curious to see someone so disgusting reach the limits of depravity, and feel something nearing concern for the situation. I like those self-awareness moments, when the protagonist can almost discern they are inside a story, and an absurd one at that. Haven’t you ever felt that way, that your life is fiction? That is the power of absurdism: it allows us to separate dream from reality, and reality from fiction.
I won’t talk much about the second story, mostly because I cannot do it justice, but also because I’d like you to read it yourself. It’s about Bukowski falling in love with a deranged woman named Charlotte. Seeing sweetness in Bukowski is a rare sight, but one without which our understanding of Bukowski would be incomplete.
Finally, I would like to mention Bukowski’s introduction to Doug Blazek’s Skull Juices. I remember sitting next to Sheffield Cathedral, reading this introduction aloud to anyone who would listen (really only myself).
It is not easy to realize that you are dying in your twenties. It is much easier not to know that you are dying in your twenties as is the case with most young men, almost all young men, their faces already oaken slabs, shined puke. They only imagine death might happen in some jungle war of nobody’s business. Blazek can see death and life in a shabby piece of curling wallpaper, in a roach wandering through the beercans of a tired and sad and rented kitchen…
You can’t deny the opening lines, especially if one is in their twenties. Especially if one is—as we all are—dying.
I’m looking forward to reading more Bukowski. I don’t know whether Bukowski would agree with the things I said. Who knows, maybe he really thought of himself as irredeemable. That would sadden me a whole lot. Again, I’m reminded of a quote of his.
Fear that Sartre’s asleep, fear that Genet is kidding. Fear that there isn’t anybody here.
To that I would add: fear that Bukowski’s monsters really are just monsters.