Post Office, Charles Bukowski (1971)
Like Cormac McCarthy and William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski is a big name in terms of the non-conformist maverick community.
Like McCarthy and Burroughs, it’s taken me years to get round to trying one of his books.
Like McCarthy and Burroughs, I’ve discovered that I can’t stand him.
I’m once again relieved to confirm that I’m not a member of the non-conformist maverick community.
Okay, Bukowski isn’t pretentious like McCarthy or paedoproctotropic like Burroughs. But he makes up for that by being even more boring. Good writers can make the English language sing. Bukowski makes it snore. Then turn over in bed and fart. And snore some more. He uses simple sentences, see? Page after page. For a whole book. Simple sentences. For a whole book. Page after page. Sentences that are simple. Page after page. Simple sentences, see? Page after page. For a whole book.
Not that I got anywhere near finishing the whole book. I didn’t even finish the first three pages. And not that simple sentences can’t be used to say interesting things and conjure vivid images. But Bukowski doesn’t use them to say interesting things or conjure vivid images. He uses them to write boringly about American low-life. To non-conformist mavericks outside America, the “American” of the low-life undoubtedly explains much, if not all, of his appeal. Non-conformist mavericks in Britain, for example, are endlessly fascinated by America because they’ve seen it so much on TV and film. Just like non-maverick mainstream British folk, in fact. It’s just that maverick Brits watch maverick American stuff and mainstream Brits watch mainstream American stuff. But the same rule applies in both cases: Monkey see, monkey like. Indeed, you’d think that many British non-conformist mavericks were American, from the vocab they use and the ideas they express and the things they’re passionate about. Sorry: passionate.
“Maverick” is, of course, an American word and concept. Charles Bukowski was a maverick, for example. Like Burroughs and the rest of the Beats. So no wonder mavericks in Britain like the Beats and Burroughs and Bukowski. As for me, I think the Beats were (and are) a private American joke at the expense of foreigners. Americans thought: “Can we pass off a whole bunch of boring and banal writers as far-out and radical and exciting just coz they’re American?” It turned out they could. And still can. I admire the American ability to keep a straight face for so long.
But I don’t admire Bukowski. If you do admire him, let me make a simple prediction: You say (and write) “in terms of” and “prior to” a lot.
Previously pre-posted on Papyrocentric Performativity…
• Highway to Hell – review of The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Elsewhere Other-Accessible…
• Titus Graun – interrogating issues around two keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community…
Papyrocentric Performativity 
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