Along the lines of the first thing: one of my bugbears is people who hate Bukowski who have not read his novels. I don't love his poetry, but the novels are incredible, and in prose he is an extraordinary writer. Ham on Rye is still one of my all time favourites and that is despite the fact that the book is actively pushing you away the entire time you're reading it, particularly if you are, at the time of reading it, a girl. Bukowski is indeed misogynistic but *he knows that*. He's very explicit about it. His prose is about grappling with that misogyny. I compare that experience to reading Calvino, who is also misogynistic but does not realise it. I personally couldn't stomach Calvino for that reason, and had to put "If on a winter's night..." down. I seem to semi-regularly surprise people who assume that only the worst, evil people like to read Bukowski, and yet most of those people didn't even seem able to pick up on the flippant and objectifying way that Calvino describes women in his prose. Anyway people should read more though & whatever, who cares.
Along the lines of the first thing: one of my bugbears is people who hate Bukowski who have not read his novels. I don't love his poetry, but the novels are incredible, and in prose he is an extraordinary writer. Ham on Rye is still one of my all time favourites and that is despite the fact that the book is actively pushing you away the entire time you're reading it, particularly if you are, at the time of reading it, a girl. Bukowski is indeed misogynistic but *he knows that*. He's very explicit about it. His prose is about grappling with that misogyny. I compare that experience to reading Calvino, who is also misogynistic but does not realise it. I personally couldn't stomach Calvino for that reason, and had to put "If on a winter's night..." down. I seem to semi-regularly surprise people who assume that only the worst, evil people like to read Bukowski, and yet most of those people didn't even seem able to pick up on the flippant and objectifying way that Calvino describes women in his prose. Anyway people should read more though & whatever, who cares.
I have not read Bukowski but yes hard agree, people should read more and read for the love of prose and actually think about what they read!!
Arsy-Versy link didn't work for me; somehow looped back to my own email account. link here, in case broken: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/1583602/arsy-versy-argy-bargy
a real trove of links, thank you for them
updated, thank you!