Charles Bukowski

THE LOS ANGELES FREE PRESS

#1994

06/16/1920

"what matters most is how you walk through the fire!"

Made in Andernach,Germany

BUKOWSKI

writing is the ultimate psychiatrist, the kindliest god of all the gods. writing stalks death. it knows no quit. and writing laughs at itself, at pain. it is the last expectation, the last explanation. that's what it is.- "Writing", by Charles Bukowski

A prolific and broken underground writer

often it is the only thing between you and impossibility. no drink, no woman's love, no wealth can match it. nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing. the hordes from closing in. it blasts the darkness.

STYLE: - crude and corrupt realism; - transgressive fiction.

DARK PHILOSOPHY

NOTES OF A DIRTY YOUNG MAN

"If you're loosing your soul and know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose."

"Can't they see through my skin, can't they see that I am nothing?"

Recommendations

01

02

03

Alone With Everybody

The Genius of the Crowd

The Laughing Heart

04

05

06

Born into this

The Strange

Bluebird

07

08

09

Post Office

Ham on Rye

We Will Defeat Death

Anguished existencialism:the absurdity of existence

Alone With Everybody

the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches

for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.

beware the average man the average womanbeware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock their finest art

those who preach peace do not have love beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone

Human interiority and desolation

The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace