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Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) - alter ego: Henry Chinaski | |
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American author of the second wave Beat Generation, noted for his stories of survival and heavy drinking on the fringe of society. Before starting his career as a writer, Bukowski worked in menial jobs and as a journalist at Harlequin and Laugh Literature. He was described by Jean Genet and Jean-Paul Sartre as America's 'greatest poet'. However, the author refused to meet Sartre - he had his bottle to take care of. "There are so many," she said, "who go by the name of poet. But they have no training, no feeling for their craft. The savages have taken over the castle. There's no workmanship, no care, simply a demand to be accepted. And these new poet all seem to admire one another. It worries me and I've talked about it to a lot of my poet friends. All a young poet seems to think he needs is a typewriter and a few pieces of paper. They aren't prepared, they have had no preparation at all." (from Hot Water Music, 1995) Heinrich Karl (Henry Charles) Bukowski, Jr. was born in Andernach in Germany the son of Henry Bukowski, a US soldier, and Katharina Fett, a German woman. His family emigrated to the United States in 1922, and settled in Los Angeles, where Bukowski spent most of his life. The city became an integral part of his writing. Bukowski's father was in and out of work during the Depression years, regularly beating the boy. "I had to sleep on my belly at night because of the pain." Bukowski depicted his childhood in HAM ON RYE (1982), portarying his father as a cruel, shiny bastard with bad breath. He died in 1958. To shield himself, Bukowski began his life-long occupation with alcohol in his youth. He also suffered from acne - the boils were "the size of apples" - which left scars on his face. During the school years Bukowski read widely, he was especially impressed by Sinclair Lewis's Main Street, Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Carson McCullers, and D.H. Lawrence. After graduating from Los Angeles High School, Bukowski studied for a year at Los Angeles City College, taking courses in journalism and literature. He left home in 1941 - his father had read his stories and threw his possessions onto the lawn. However, Bukowski still returned to his parents' house when he was totally broke. During World War II Bukowski lived the life of a wondering hobo and skid row alcoholic. He travelled across America, working in odd jobs: petrol station attendant, lift operator, lorry driver, and an overman in a dog biscuit factory. At the age of thirty-five he began to write poetry. In 1944 his story 'Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip' was published in Story. He returned to Los Angeles and met Janet Cooney Baker, with whom he lived the next decade. She was ten years older than Bukowski and also drank heavily. She died in 1962. Bukowski started to work at a post office in 1952 - this period lasted three years. He was then hospitalized with an alcohol-induced bleeding ulcer and came close to death. "If you are going to write, you have to have something to write about," Bukoewski once said. "The gods were good. They kept me on the street." Bukowski also claimed that ninety-three per cent of his work was autobiography. Bukowski's marriage with Barbara Frye, the rich publisher of a small poetry magazine, lasted two years. Barbara published in her Harlequin magazine Bukowski's poems and he wrote several poems about her. In 1958 Bukowski began his twelve years work as a Post Office clerk. The salary was bad but Bukowski needed the money. He lived some years with Frances Smith; they had one daughter, Marina Louise. In 1955 Bukowski began writing poetry, publishing volumes almost annually. His first collection, FLOWER, FIST AND BESTIAL WAIL, was printed in 1959. It was 30 pages long and the print run was only 200. Bukowski's early poems have much in common with the work of Robinson Jeffers. He admired strength and endurance, and featured violent and sexual confrontations between men and women. Bukowski's first volume of prose, ALL ASSHOLES IN THE WORLD AND MINE, appeared seven years later. One of his publishers in the 1960s was Jon Edgar Webb from The Outsider magazine, which published works from such writers as Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and William Burroughs. Gradually Bukowski established a loyal following for his depictions of down-and-out people. "A persistent rumor for many years declared that those gusty poems signed with his name were actually written by a nasty old lady with hairy armpits," said Arnold Kaye in Literary Times (1963). Bukowski shifted in poetry from introspection to more expressionistic writing, as seen in AT TERROR STREET AND AGONY WAY (1968) and THE DAYS RUN AWAY LIKE WILD HORSES OVER THE HILL (1969). His columns, The Notes of a Dirty Old Man appeared in Open City and Los Angles Free Press. The texts were later collected in a book (1969). In 1970 Bukowski left his job after the publisher John Martin of the Black Sparrow Press had offered him $100 a month for life to write full time. In the same year Linda King entered Bukowski's life; she was 20 years younger. The tumultuous relationship ended in the mid-1970s. As his social situation changed, Bukowski's poems no longer engaged the adventures of an outcast, but became meditative and sarcastic comments on his surroundings, trips to the race track or his daily routines. Although prolific, Bukowski remained a literary outsider who published his works with small presses, primarily on the West Coast. In 1973 Bukowski gained a wider audience when an award-winning television documentary by Taylor Hackford was shown. Bukowski's alter ego in the books, Henry Chinaski, has its literary roots in Dostoyevsky's underground man and Louis-Ferdinand Céline's protagonists. Chinaski is a tough, hard-drinking womanizer, who lives with the bums and criminals, sometimes also visiting high society. The character was introduced in the autobiographical CONFESSIONS OF A MAN INSANE ENOUGH TO LIVE WITH THE BEASTS (1965). Chinaski's adventures were further chronicled in the novels POST OFFICE (1971), in which he survives the tyrannical nature of paid labor, FACTOTUM (1975), WOMEN (1978), and HAM ON RYE (1982), in which Chinaski returns to his childhood and youth. Bukowski married in 1985 Linda Lee Beighle, a health food proprietor twenty-five years his junior. They had met in 1976. This also started a more balanced period of his life. Towards the end of his days, the author lived in a house with a swimming pool, drove a black BMW, wrote on a computer, and listened to records of his favorites: Sibelius, Mahler, and Rossini. A longstanding friend of Raymond Carver, Bukowski was numbered among the original 'dirty realists'. THE LAST NIGHT OF THE EARTH POEMS (1992) was Bukowski's last book published in his lifetime. It consisted of reflections of people who have passed from his life, and forward visions of his death. Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9, 1994 in Los Angeles. The actor and director Sean Penn dedicated his film The Crossing Guard (1995) to Bukowski. Film Tales of Ordinary Madness was based on stories of the author. It was directed in 1983 by Marco Ferreri, starring Ben Gazarra and Ornella Muti. The story depicted a drunken poet who is obsessed by sex but can't find a happy relationship with his women. Script drew material from EJACULATIONS, EXHIBITIONS, AND GENERAL TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS (1972). Another film, Barfly, directed by Barbet Schroeder, written by Charles Bukowski, starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, was about a writer, who meets a lush who takes him under her wings. Bukowski documented the making of the movie in his novel HOLLYWOOD (1989). Crazy Love / Love is a Dog from Hell (1989) was based on 'The Copulating Mermaid of Venice and other Stories' by Bukowski, directed by Dominique Deruddere, starring Josse de Pauw, Geert Hunaerts, Michael Pas, Gene Bervoets. In the story a frustrated boy, full of romantic longing, grows up to be a necrophiliac. Lune Froinde (1991), directed by Patrick Bouchitey, starring P. Bouchitey, Jean-Francois Stevenin, Laura Favali, was based on Bukowski's stories 'Copulating Mermaid of Venice' and 'Trouble with the Batery'. For further reading: Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study by Hugh Fox (1969); A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski by Sanford Dorbin (1969); Bukowski: Friendship, Fame, and Bestial Myth by Jory Sherman (1982); A Chales Bukowski Checklist, ed. by Jeffrey Weinberg; Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski by Neeli Cherkovski (1991); Against the American Dream by R. Harrison (1994); A Sure Bet by G. Locklin (1995); Charles Bukowski by G. Brewer (1997); Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes, Charles Bukowski (1999); The Hunchback of East Hollywood by Aubrey Malone (2003); Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993 by Charles Bukowski, David Stephen Calonne (2003) Selected works:
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