On Drinking

If you are like me, you cannot get enough of Charles Bukowski. It is because I quickly lose myself in his writings and poetry. He is not like anyone else. As he laments in a letter in this book, that people are not more interesting. It is a sad and depressed letter, but strangely Bukowski’s pessimism is not depressing to this reader. What comes through to me is tremendous energy to live life to the fullest even if it means being dead drunk at ten in the morning. For most of us, this kind of life is not an option — or even a desired way to live. So, we read and live vicariously in barroom brawls, shutting the door to a world that just doesn’t get us, having love affairs, love quarrels and always writing. His genius is that everything he does write feels so spontaneous and new. We imagine that it is automatic typing, yet there is such craft in his writing. An undeniable genius and original.