Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski is an American author of Romance S and Poésie, born the August 16th 1920 with Andernach (Germany), dead the March 9th 1994 with Los Angeles (California, the United States). It is often known under its various pseudonyms: Hank, Buk, Henry Chinaski, this last name being that of its alter-ego in its many autobiographical novels .
Biography
The first three years of its life occur in Germany, before his/her parents do not decide to emigrate in the United States (1923). It passes in a context of economic crisis a childhood marked by the violence of an alcoholic and dominating father, leaf his son and his wife.
His/her mother, unobtrusive and silent, was mother with the hearth and forever be for Bukowski only the image of the woman subjected to the delirious authority of her husband, incompetent to intervene in the conflict relations which his/her son and her husband maintained.
Only sons, Bukowski will very early undergo hatred and paternal frustration vis-a-vis its social failure: regularly beaten until its sixteenth year (readily with blows of leather belt), with or without reason. His/her father prohibits to him the relations with the children of the district, the too poor, which reflect the image of his own social failure.
Avoiding very early this pathological family context, Bukowski saw infancy of small striking, player of baseball of street, trailing behind him the Parias, the children of the shade like him. At ten years, the Bukowski young person feels what it will describe later like the first day of his life where it had the feeling to be writer: forced to write a drafting which would be read in front of all the class (Buk having been forced by his/her father not to attend the visit of president Hoover), he invents of all parts the events that he could not see and, in front of the success of its work, discovers the power of the words, the dressing-up, the Mensonge and the Corruption.
In the middle of the Crisis, the father of Buk loses his use of milk deliveryman, but will continue long months to simulate a normal life of honest worker, incompetent to admit his failure, his poverty, and to draw a feature on his inclinations from honest man. It is at this same period that the small Charles discovers the Vin and intoxication, with a friend whose alcoholic father has in his cellar of the small casks of rough red wine. The children enivrent themselves joyeusement, and Buk reaches in this state of pleasure, power, of feeling of being able to do everything, all to reverse.
The adolescence of Hank is marked by an element which it feels like major, and which will mark (with clean as with appeared) its future life: the occurred brutal one of a cataclysmic Acne, which hails its face and its body of pustules, cruelly affecting its relationship with the others, in particular women.
Thus, the Bukowski young person, turbulent and dominating child, will gradually forge a character of excluded, rejected social, only able to point out itself by his ugliness. Its interests change drastiquement: he discovers the writing, the Poésie.
It is as at that time as the last major shock with his/her father occurs: at sixteen years, Bukowski, sunken drunk of an exit, is made once again réprimander and to insult by his/her father. For the first time, Buk will return the blows: the two men fight like drunkards, under the eyes as thrown into a panic as passive of the mother.
Bukowski will leave victorious a uppercut ragor of this confrontation, which will appear a formidable catalyst for its lifestyle choices: it decides to leave the house and this father for which it could be avenged, with which it finally showed the injustice of its influence and the limits of the delirious coercion exerted on its family. His/her father will beat it never again.
He does not leave however the house, obtains his certificate of end of study to the Collège, and tries a first step in the world of the work, taking an use of storekeeper in a large surface. Immediately, Buk realizes that this world and its constraints are not it his, and is made lay off in a few days.
Beginning 1940, it decides to return to the university, for a course of journalist, without passion. Buk is satisfied with the minimum, is bored, plays nazillons them to cause those whose oozing Patriotisme nauseates it.
Its life is organized around alcohol, of some friends, the writing. His/her father discovers one of his manuscripts and throws his son with the street, ragor and heinous against this activity of bet.
The first years of the adulthood of Buk crystallize its passions and its personality: he saw hotel in miteuse room, marginal and puant, living sparely of tiny employment and ugly and drunk women, whom he brings back without efforts of his many transfered night in the bars of his district. He wanders through the United States, seeking pads near a bar. Glasses alternate with the brawls of street, the girls, small employment. He will even turn over to live in his parents, who, dumb-founded by his activities, will tell with their neighbors that their son died.
Bukowski continues to write, starts its first autobiographical novels , where he speaks about wandering, Misère, employment unworthy and humiliating, women and of alcohol. Its attempts to place its news in small literary reviews are all of the failures, but to write became necessary to him. It splits few dollars to buy a typewriter (very quickly lent on pledge, for lack of money). In parallel, it establishes with the public library the only harbor of opening and pleasure which its hard life and puante can offer to him. He very quickly discovers a major influence on his life and his style in the person of John Fante and in particular his novel Demande with dust . Buk is identified immediately with Bandini, kid odd and crafty beggar, surinspiré, excessive, christic and Nietzschéen at the same time, like him in family rupture and search of beauty, emotions, rather strong feelings never. But it is over all the style of Fante which impresses Bukowski: its capacity to charge the emotions, to surinvestir them and to make of it the major engine of its character (he also very autobiographical).
In a few years, whereas its love life and of worker are one cannot more chaotic, Buk continuous to peel the literature (in particular the Beat generation, but also Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Albert Camus, Russian authors, in particular Dostoïevski), discovers the classical music (Gustav Mahler, who will leave it never again), continuous to write autobiographical poems and pages.
Its life is then centered around a miteuse hotel room, of a food and uninteresting job where the feudal relationship between frameworks and employees nourishes the writing of Bukowski ardently, and of the search of alcohol and women for all to forget. Buk, at 25 years, already became the sex maniac drunkard, unstable and chaotic, if necessary for its literary expression. It leaves for New York, without too many ideas on the goal of the voyage. The experiment is hard, cold, cruel. It returns with disillusioned L.A., thinks of the Suicide, cease to write. This master key will last 10 years.
At 26 years, it meets Jane Cooney Baker in a bar. A 10 year old elder woman her, devastated by alcohol, with a more chaotic course still than that of Buk. There will remain ten years together, drinking together, living small plunders and of beer not expensive.
It enters at 32 years to the post office, once again for want of anything better and in the only optics of being able to pay itself with drinking the come evening and to have some employees as flexible as fatty with raising. There wanted to remain only a few weeks there, while waiting to live of its feather, he will remain 3 years there.
Literary inclinations of Buk are then always at the dead point: although it manages to publish some poems and chronicles in reviews Beat underground, nothing substantial would enable him to leave its job of factor. Well beyond these material contingencies, it continues all the same to depict the daily infamy, exploits the seam of its job of factor, drinks always more and vomits its contemptible life of loser. It develops a Ulcère, is made prohibit drink, and discovers at this period the horse-races with its regular, Jane, which tries to find a substitute with the gnôle to him. Jane, it, continues to drink. Its health declines, their relation is degraded, they end up breaking.
It is at this period that Buk publishes for the first time of the poems in a small review, re-examined of which it will end up marrying editor association. It is a texane, girl of Texan great landowner, Nymphomane and Hystérique, in worship in front of the talent which she guesses at Buk. The girl is rich, it lets herself maintain, dream of comfort and facility. They will remain 2 years together, before Buk does not end up being made the beautiful one, not supporting the sudden changes of mood and the vampiric temperament of his wife. It cuts the bridges, gives up this easy life with the hooks of the heiress, turns over to L.A.
It is at this period that it will regulate its last accounts with childhood: in 58, his/her father dies; a few years after its wife. Buk inherits the house, which it sells very quickly. It settles in Los Angeles, recrosses there his former companions of drinking bout, of which Jane. Pushed by the need, it reinstates the federal postal services.
There will remain there this time 12 years. It will be one period as painful as fertile: Buk is compelled to keep its job and with the writing. Its small room becomes a blackened of poems and stained paper jumble Whiskey. The radio spits of the Mahler and the Bach. The small publications follow one another in more or less obscure reviews, and the name of Bukowski starts to be made known. A first collection appears, Buk is invited to attend literary circles, writers, editors. He deserted the medium, hates it, very embourgeoized of clanism, dandyism, sufficiency and pedantry.
He is published in The Outsider , re-examined more largely distributed, at the sides of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac (which has just published On the road ), William Burroughs. Popularity growing, one proposes readings in the universities to him. Irony of the destiny. In 64 is born the girl from Bukowski with Frances Smiths, Marina. Bukowski, which refused any idea of paternity before this “incident”, is devoted to his/her daughter, seeking to avoid the life of misery to him which it hardly starts to be left.
It is only in 1969 that appears its first large collection of news and chronicles, under the delicious title of Journal of an old disgusting person , courageously published by L. Ferlinghetti, poet and editor Beat with San Francisco. The collection, drawn with 20 000 specimens, gains a greater success of regard in the happy medium, which will be worth in Bukowski to quickly have comparable this movement, thing which it will reject of its dires and of its actions. Forever known Buk the happy ones (it at most crossed Burroughs, much later, and besides scorned to go to tell him a word).
This publication corresponds to the first public readings of its poems by Buk, generally in BDE of facs, small literary circles, bars. Buk goes there to move back, distressed and always also not very inclined with this kind of demonstrations where it feels forced prostituer its poetry for the floor of iron ores degenerated in best of the cases, of let us poétillons under-inspired in the worst (and most frequent) of the cases. It enivre before each rise on scene, drunk died, as many déblatérant insults as of poetries. The public likes that, vibrates with the wild imaginings of the old disgusting person, émoustillé by his believed verbs, its attitude boxer, his gouaille furious.
Success is there, Buk leaves the post office to be devoted completely to the writing. It then delivers its first novel, the Post-office employee (1971), in whom it depicts his daily newspaper of postal worker, its soaked feet and its stops with the bar during the rounds. It is a pugilism, an ignited catharsis, of which 2 000 specimens run out very quickly. It meets at this period Linda King, artist at his hours, mother of two children. Their history is as of the beginning very chaotic, excessive, sometimes forces. The ruptures alternate with the fist and shouts, Buk moving away from it to live little stories with editors, alternating with villainous nights with fans drunk-dead. The true literary turning is acquired in 76, with the publication of a collection of news the tales of the madness ordinary , not very autobiographical, and not very representative of the total work of the author.
In 1976, it meets Linda Lee, during a reading in a bulge of L.A., 25 years younger than him, than it will end up marrying. It is a young person Hippie, any influence of Philosophie Tibetan and which holds a restaurant Macrobiotique with Los Angeles. It is large and fair, charismatic, protective, soft and structuring for the old disgusting person. They will not be left any more. It is at this period that, probably feeling a turning in its love life, Buk tackles the drafting of Women , thick autobiographical novel, quasi-pornographic, where he writes with delight chaos of his life with the women. All pass there, exposed in their defect and their evil, trained with Buk in a spiral of madness to two. Alcohol, sex, vice, Buk play mackerel of its own life. These 450 pages of bitter loves are published in 77.
It is only around 60 years that Buk settles finally with Linda, in San Pedro, California. It passed from beer to the wine, writes several poems per day, is let rock by a calmer life, surrounded by cats. Bukowski saw its royalties and especially of its seals of public readings, but does not give up of anything its crasseux way of life. The surplus of money will be simply redirected towards the horse-races. Its international celebrity passes by the Germany and especially the France - where three of its poems were published by the review The Star Screwer since 1971, before it is published by the editions of Sagittarius -, where its memorable appearance in the emission of Bernard Pivot Apostrophes (1978) the fact of reaching immediately the statute of writer worship: Buk, enivré, baragouine in its corner, " be interested of près" with Catherine Paysan, threads two liters of Gewurztraminer on the plate and finishes, encouraged by Bernard Pivot, by leaving the plate, then leaves a knife to be caught some with a person in charge of safety (you find the integral of the emission in Doc. of J. Dullaghan, Bukowski , available in DVD, subtitled French version).
Its success in Europe becomes colossal: the press reports the event, Marco Ferreri adapts the tales of the ordinary madness to the cinema and later Barbet Shröeder will adapt a script of Bukowski in Barfly with Mickey Rourke in the role of Hank Chinaski, which will not leave before 1988.
Buk rolls in BMW to go to the races, marries Linda Lee in 1985, publishes its last novels and poems, far from the tumult of Los Angeles and its old demons.
He dies the March 9th 1994 with San Pedro (California), of a Leucémie. One can read on his tomb the epitaph “ DON' T TRY ” (does not test), to understand by there that one should not test, it is necessary to make.
Work
French bibliography
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Tales of the ordinary madness
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New tales of the ordinary madness
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To play of the drunk piano as of a percussion instrument until the fingers bleed a little
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the post-office employee
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In the South of nowhere
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Factotum
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the love is a dog of the hell - volume I
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the love is a dog of the hell - volume II
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Memories of a step large-thing
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I love you, Albert
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the ragout of the septuagénaire
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Hollywood
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Pulp
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the Captain left to lunch and the sailors seized the boat
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With damnés the
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Correspondence 1958-1994
Bibliography supplements in English
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Flower, Fist and Bestial Wall (1960)
- Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1962)
- Run with the Hunted (1962)
- It Catches My Heart in Its Hand (1963)
- Crucifix in has Deathhand (1965) off
- Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
- Confessions has Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
- All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
- The Curtains Are Waving… (1967)
- Poems Written Before Jumping out off year 8 Story Window (1968)
- At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
- has Bukowski Sampler (1969) off
- Notes has Dirty Old Man (1969)
- Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
- Fire Station (1970)
- Post Office (1971)
- Another Academy (1970)
- Anthology off Poets (1972)
- Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck (1972)
- Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Bruise off Ordinary Madness (1972)
- South off No North (1973)
- Burning in Drowning Toilets in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
- Factotum (1975)
- Scarlet (1976)
- Love has Dog from Hell (1977)
- Women (1978)
- You Kissed Lilly (1978)
- Play the Piano Drunk Like has Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed has Bit (1979)
- Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)
- Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
- Post Office (1981) ISBN 0876850875
- Ham one Rye (1982)
- Hot Water Music (1983)
- Bring Me Your Coils, Robert Crumb Illustrator (Paperback 1985) ISBN 0876856067
- There' S No Business (1984)
- War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)
- You Get So Alone At Times It Just Makes Sense (1986)
- The Movie Barfly (1987)
- has off Visitor Complains My Disenfranchise (1987)
- Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988)
- Hollywood (1989)
- Septuagenarian Stew: Stories and Poems (1990)
- People Poems (1991)
- Bluebird (1991)
- In the Shadow off the Rose (1991)
- Three Poems (1992)
- Last Night off the Earth Poems (1992)
- Run with the Hunted: With Charles Bukowski Reader (1993)
- Screams from the Balcony: Selected Leters 1960-1970 (1993)
- Pulp (1994)
- Shakespeare Never Did This (Augmented Edition) (1995)
- The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Cuts Taken over the Ship (1998) off
- The Flash Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (2003)
- Betting one the MUSE: Poems & Stories (1996)
Films of fiction
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Tale of the ordinary madness
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The Killers
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Crazy Coils (or Love has dog from hell or the love is a dog of the hell )
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Coils Pig
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the Cold Moon
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Brings to me your love
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Factotum
In connection with Bukowski
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Neeli Cherkovski : Life of Charles Bukowski
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Of the articles in the war of the taste , Gallimard, 1994 and Praise of infinite the , Gallimard, 2001 of Philippe Sollers.
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Jean-François Duval: Buk and the Happy ones - one evening follow-up at Buk, new discussion with Charles Bukowski
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Bukowski
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Schultheiss : Ordinary madnesses
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