Thoughts about Bukowski are always reasons to celebrate, right? Cake and champagne for everyone! …not you, Mother.
Ahem. So the thing is this. Bukowski was clearly the historical master and only actual believable practitioner of the wizardry of portraying real losers in print. Factotum is really the only one of his books you need to read, to understand this. Others have tried; all have failed. Looking at you, Robert B. Parker, in Hope and Glory; looking at you, John O'Brien.
So. Clearly, you cannot be this successful in a chosen endeavor and not inhabit the role completely. He had to live the life. Living the life, honestly, probably came first. So Bukowski actually was this complete loser.
And so a complete loser is actually one of our best authors ever. How is this possible? This is the challenge that most of those who try to set the life down in print fail at. They're actually good at what they do, and they are therefore unable to be complete losers. They can't, most of them, even come close.
Bukowski did it. He really did. That is stranger than I imagine. Maybe even stranger than I can imagine.
by tolkienfan2759