Factotum - Charles Bukowski

A couple of weeks back it seems,I scribbled few lines like "What am I reading""...Yes after finishing this dirty and filthy read I couldn't help but questioning myself ""What the**** am I reading ?" Forgive me for writing this way,but this must be Bukowski effect for sure..And this is going to be my first and last read from this author..The other day I stumbled upon some of his impressive quotes on net and without a second thought I picked up his work..I'm used to picking up a book with blank impression for I feel getting to know the details always spoil the actual experience of reading..

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However I would always enjoy a book,either good or bad when it comes to reading,for I believe in the popular saying by Benjamin Disraeli "A new acquaintance is like a new book.I prefer it,even if bad, to a classic..

Now after all the negative blabbering about this sort of gritty literature,let me tell you some positives too.At the beginning Charles Bukowski sounded like a renowned Telugu author Chalam,who wrote in the similar way but in a very composed manner I must say) But as we go further,it turned out to be more and more raw and naked..Needless to say Bukowski is horribly honest,however it is so disagreeable and nasty..It was said that the protagonist Henry Chinaski's characterization is based on the author's real life personality..Yet another theory of existentialism but completely unrefined in style...

If we consider the fact that a capable writer is the one who only writes about the life he lived,we would certainly honour Charles Bukowski for the awful revelations of his life through the character of Henry Chinaski..If you are one of those who believe literature is not only about fairy tales and glass castles,then you'll be able to understand this author,he'll show you the the other side of the coin..Vulgar language,dirty lanes,whore houses and the wild wandering life of Henry Chinaski..

Here are few interesting lines from the book,

But starvation, unfortunately,  didn’t improve art. It only hindered it. A man’s soul was rooted  in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a  porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could  ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the  starving artist was a hoax. Once you realized that everything  was a hoax you got wise and began to bleed and burn your  fellow man. I’d build an empire upon the broken bodies and  lives of helpless men, women, and children—I’d shove it to  them all the way. I’d show them.

Frankly, I was horrified by life,  at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank.

“I’m a genius but nobody knows it but me.”

My ambition is handicapped by laziness.” 

I don’t think that flowers are meant for the dead who  don’t need them,” I said rather lamely.

I wasn’t very good. My idea was to wander about doing  nothing, always avoiding the boss, and avoiding the stoolies  who might report to the boss. I wasn’t all that clever. It was  more instinct than anything else. I always started a job with  the feeling that I’d soon quit or be fired, and this gave me a  relaxed manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some  secret power.

These people are assholes, assholes! They have no intel-ligence! They don’t know how to think! They’re afraid of the mind!They’re sick! They’re cowards! They aren’t thinking men like you and me. 

                      I need a writer. Are you a good one ?
                     “Every writer thinks he’s a good one.”

We chatted and after a few minutes a girl came in and  handed John the check. He reached across the desk and handed  it to me. A decent guy. I heard later that he died soon after  that, but Jan and I got our beef stew and our vegetables and  our French wine and we went on living.

I  wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not  everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile  mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those  fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they  were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i.e., almost everybody  could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren’t writers,  or even cab drivers, and some men—many men—unfortunately  aren’t anything.

"Some people don’t like anybody who is famous.”  “And some people don’t like anybody who isn’t".