On Writing

by Charles Bukowski

Overview

Sharp and moving reflections and ruminations on the artistry and craft of writing from one of our most iconoclastic, riveting, and celebrated masters.

Charles Bukowski’s stories, poems, and novels have left an enduring mark on our culture. In this collection of correspondence—letters to publishers, editors, friends, and fellow writers—the writer shares his insights on the art of creation.

On Writing reveals an artist brutally frank about the drudgery of work and canny and uncompromising about the absurdities of life—and of art. It illuminates the hard-edged, complex humanity of a true American legend and counterculture icon—the “laureate of American lowlife” (Time)—who stoically recorded society’s downtrodden and depraved. It exposes an artist grounded in the visceral, whose work reverberates with his central ideal: “Don't try.”

Piercing, poignant, and often hilarious, On Writing is filled not only with memorable lines but also with Bukowski’s trademark toughness, leavened with moments of grace, pathos, and intimacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062417404
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/26/2016
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	522,432
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.

Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.

Date of Birth:

August 16, 1920

Date of Death:

March 9, 1994

Place of Birth:

Andernach, Germany

Place of Death:

San Pedro, California

Education:

Los Angeles City College, 2 years

Editorial Reviews

Always passionate, frequently funny, occasionally incoherent excerpts from a significant 20th-century American writer. — Kirkus Reviews

“The letters are a wild ride informed in equal parts by ego, alcoholism, misanthropy, erudition, and the genius, as Bukowski puts it, of one ‘touched by the grace of the word.” — Publishers Weekly

“By turns, the poet’s letters are humorous, boastful, self-deprecating, and angry at the world, but they are always entertaining. VERDICT: Bukowski fans will welcome this new collection tied to the celebration of what would have been his 95th birthday.” — Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/25/2015
Almost 50 years’ worth of the letters of poet, novelist, and screenwriter Bukowski (1920–1994) capture much about him: his compulsive writing, brilliant phrase-making, unapologetic drinking, and problematic relationships with women. The letters, written between 1945 and 1993 to correspondents including friends, editors, critics, and academics, are routinely obscenity-laden, often funny, always opinionated, and very occasionally tender. Just as Bukowski could be offensive when alive, many will find his letters equally offensive (as when he reacts unapologetically to feminist critics). Nonetheless, it is hard not to respect his unflagging devotion to his art and unflinching application of his hypercritical mind to whoever fell under his gaze. Many of the letters are occasions for passionate, searing opinions on subjects that include young writers, critics, and famous authors. Hemingway, Bukowski opines, “makes you feel cheated,” while Henry Miller is difficult to read when he gets “into his Star-Trek babbling.” And Bukowski’s opinions about writers are not confined to their literary merits: “I rather guess Lawrence was a breast-man rather than a leg-man.” The letters are a wild ride informed in equal parts by ego, alcoholism, misanthropy, erudition, and the genius, as Bukowski puts it, of one “touched by the grace of the word.” (July)

Publishers Weekly

06/15/2015
Debritto (Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground) sorts through thousands of pages of unpublished correspondence in university archives to bring together Bukowski's (1920–94) ideas on writing and writers. Arranged chronologically, the excerpts begin with a 1945 reply to a rejection slip from Story magazine and end with a 1993 thank-you note to Joseph Parisi for poems accepted by Poetry. Among Bukowski's most frequent correspondents are the few magazine editors, small press publishers, and writers he grew close to, including Jon Webb, William Corrington, John Martin, and Harold Norse. Bukowski had high praise for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Robinson Jeffers, Knut Hamsun, Sherwood Anderson, and John Fante; he had little use for the Beats, particularly Allen Ginsberg, whom he believed abandoned the Muse in pursuit of fame. Always a loner, Bukowski eschewed literary schools or movements. He disliked poetry readings, preferring to work in solitude while smoking, drinking beer, and listening to classical music. By turns, the poet's letters are humorous, boastful, self-deprecating, and angry at the world, but they are always entertaining. VERDICT Bukowski fans will welcome this new collection tied to the celebration of what would have been his 95th birthday. One caveat: an index and a "who's who" briefly identifying correspondents would have been useful additions. [See Prepub Alert, 1/12/15.]—William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

Library Journal

2015-05-16
A selection of writing on writing from the "Dirty Old Man" of American letters. Those who know Bukowski (1920-1994) as a barfly caricature will find revelation throughout these letters to editors and to fellow writers, Henry Miller and Lawrence Ferlinghetti among them. Many will be surprised at how well-read he was and how seriously he took his art. As he complains of aggressive editing, "my writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way. I don't want it smoothed out." He rails against those who aspire to fame, who think that anyone can teach writing, and who adhere to the strictures of academic rules. He proclaims himself "King of the hard-mouth poets" and "the Dostoyevsky of the '70s" and dismisses more refined poems as "bloodless butterflies" and "stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard." Bukowski's rants are great fun to read, often illuminating and inspirational. Their chronological progression presents a kind of alternative memoir to the thinly disguised autobiography of his fiction, since the life that informs the writing keeps seeping through the selected passages. However, there is plenty of obsessive repetition here, perhaps partly because of the format of the letters, which were never meant to be read as a whole, and partly because of the nature of alcoholism. "To get through this game drinking helps a great deal," he writes of the writing racket, "although I don't recommend it to many. Most drunks I've known aren't very interesting at all. Of course, most sober people aren't either." Of his foray into film collaboration with the autobiographical Barfly, he writes of his surprise that the director "wants a plot and an evolvement of character. shit, my characters seldom evolve, they are too fucked-up. they can't even type." Drawings and handwritten notes enhance the intimacy and vitality of the selections. Always passionate, frequently funny, occasionally incoherent excerpts from a significant 20th-century American writer.

Kirkus Reviews