Not for novices, but a welcome addition to Bukowski’s growing library.
More posthumous uncollected prose from the Dirty Old Man.
Calonne (English/Eastern Michigan Univ.; William Saroyan: My Real Work Is Being, 1983, etc.), who previously edited a volume of Bukowski’s interviews, digs up a few more fragments from the author’s vast—and scattershot—oeuvre. As with many “uncollected” selections, the results are a mixed bag, but Bukowski’s gruff directness and take-no-crap attitude shine through. Discussing his style in “Basic Training,” he writes, “I hurled myself toward my personal god: SIMPLICITY. The tighter and smaller you got it the less chance there was of error and the lie. Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.” Certainly, much of Bukowski’s genius lay in his plainspoken, immediate, self-assured prose, but his constant attack on the literary establishment also earned him accolades—and scorn—from fellow writers and critics. He held special contempt for pretentious elitists, those, as Calonne eloquently notes in his illuminating introduction, “who tried to domesticate the sacred barbaric Muse: the disruptive, primal, archaic, violent, inchoate forces of the creative unconscious.” In the more than 35 pieces that comprise the volume, Bukowski runs through all his favorite topics—drinking, fighting, women, horse-racing (“A track is some place you go so you won’t stare at the walls and whack off, or swallow ant poison”)—but he’s at his most lucid and powerful when he explores the process of writing, both his own and others (Artaud, Hemingway, his hero John Fante). There’s a neat deconstruction of Ezra Pound, excerpts from his “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” column and a peripatetic review of a Rolling Stones concert. Though a few of the selections are little more than ill-formed rants, probably originally scrawled across a bar napkin, there is plenty of the visceral, potent, even graphically sexual (tame readers beware of “Workout”) material to satisfy fans.
Not for novices, but a welcome addition to Bukowski’s growing library.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-87286-492-4
Page Count: 284
Publisher: City Lights
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
A substantive, reasonably candid memoir from the founder of Detroit's legendary Motown Records, creator of the soundtrack of the '60s. Gordy opens in 1988, as he agonizes over the sale of his independent company to conglomerate giant MCA, but quickly flashes back to the period everyone wants to read about: Motown's Golden Age, 19601970, when Gordy and his crack team of songwriters, producers, and studio musicians (many of them affectionately portrayed here) created a series of brilliant pop records—from ``My Girl'' to ``Where Did Our Love Go'' to ``I Heard It Through the Grapevine''—that made artists like the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, and the Jackson Five famous. Along the way, Motown's success completed the destruction of musical segregation that had begun with the rock and soul explosion of the early 1950s. `` `Pop' means popular,'' writes Gordy on the subject of categorizing art. ``I never gave a damn what else it was called.'' His solidly middle-class, high-achieving parents were remarkably patient with his long search for a career (he was 29 when he started Motown in 1959 with an $800 loan from the family credit union), and he warmly depicts them and his siblings, many of whom came to work at Motown. A fair amount of time is also devoted to his active love life; he had eight children with five different women, including one with Diana Ross, the supreme Supreme he calls ``my star...my leading lady.'' Knowledgeable music fans will spot some selective recall on Gordy's part—he glosses over widespread resentment of Ross in particular—but for the most part he is frank about tensions within Motown and convincing in his rebuttal of charges that the company exploited its artists financially. His descriptions of the famous ``assembly-line'' process by which Motown crafted hits the way Detroit's auto companies cranked out cars shows the producers/songwriters as the primary artistic force behind the music. Nothing really new here, but a vivid recreation of a great period and a seminal company in popular music. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1994
ISBN: 0-446-51523-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
A contribution to the debate over professional forestry's environmental impact by someone who believes that people take better care of trees than nature does. The US Forestry Service—and professional forestry in general- -has come under heavy fire in recent years for, among other sins, the irresponsible destruction of trees. Jordan, who has worked for 40 years in the forest products industry, argues that environmentalists and government regulations are standing in the way of healthy, sustainable forests. He takes as a hopeful sign President Clinton's 1993 Forestry Conference, which attempted to find a common ground between conflicting environmental and economic demands. Some kind of resolution is necessary, Jordan argues, if the forest-products industry is to continue to fulfill the American Dream by supplying cheap housing and consumer goods. In 1993, Jordan asserts, 129,000 people were busy writing 66,000 pages of federal regulations, many of which were contradictory. Worse still, in his view, Congress is designating countless acres as national wilderness or protected parkland. Nature rules in these areas, states Jordan, causing ``catastrophic `clearcuts' through the devastating ravages of wildfires, hurricanes, insects, disease and old age,'' while in the hands of private industry these same areas would have watershed protection, erosion control, care of wildlife and plant habitat, recreational opportunity, and, most important, stewardship of a valuable renewable raw material. He calls for a national campaign on the part of the forest-products industry to spread the word about its successes, combat its negative public image, and cultivate grassroots support. Jordan is an articulate and fervent advocate of sustainable forestry, and his perspective on the issues is refreshingly different, but he fails to adequately address such major environmental concerns as the loss of genetic diversity among forest trees. A valid comment, but far from the final word on the fate of our forests. (Photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-89526-483-8
Page Count: 269
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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