Despite the collection’s inevitable repetition, it provides another necessary, unsettling window into alcohol and art.
A writer confronts his muse, “my woman, my wine, my god.”
Following writing, cats, and love, this is the fourth in what has become a series of Bukowski (1920-1994) anthologies edited by former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow Debritto. Drinking is one of the activities the self-described “life-long alcoholic” was most famous for—and was usually accompanied by writing. Covering the period from 1961 to 1992, the book is a hodgepodge of previously published and unpublished poetry, prose, interviews, letters, humorous drawings, and some photographs, most of the author with a bottle of beer or wine. Bukowski was always honest about his disease. In a 1971 interview, when asked if he was an alcoholic, he responded, “Hell, yes.” He was proud of his capacity for drinking and writing in spite of the suffering and hospital visits it caused. Never a fan of drugs, when drinking, he preferred writing poetry over prose, which was “too much work.” In 1989, he wrote to a friend, “I think I write as well sober as drunk. Took me a long time to find that out.” The collection reveals a man who claims he’s old and getting older, has worked odd jobs here and there, had sex with many women, and written a lot: “I drink when I write. It’s good luck, it’s background music.” Thank goodness Bukowski could laugh about his plight. Responding to an interviewer, he says, “In fact, I am drinking as I answer these questions.” This is a sad and depressing portrait of a talented man in self-destruct mode. In another interview, he says, “drinking is a form of suicide….It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn.” The title of a 1973 poem says it all: “another poem about a drunk and then I’ll let you go.”
Despite the collection’s inevitable repetition, it provides another necessary, unsettling window into alcohol and art.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-285793-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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