Alienated Man too clever for Modern Life

[Clinamenic]

Before Bukowski, I had never truly considered the aesthetic dimension of the beer shits.

 

[Benny B]

Doing a massive beer shit, stepping back and admiring "that lovely stink"

 

[wild greens]

The other Murakami- Almost Transparent Blue

A lot of vomit though

 

[Benny B]

Does au rebours fit into this thread or not? I read it in my 20s but I don't remember much about it, but I do have a copy in the house as it happens, maybe worth reading again.

 

[wild greens]

I am surprised that i havent met more people who try and emulate this shit tbh, as i have met a lot of drunks and a lot of cunts

Its good to try and write this stuff i did a couple

 

[luka]

a couple of novels????

 

[wild greens]

Yeah i wrote loads when i was young, never said they were any good

 

[Benny B]

its true. edmund recommended every french novel ever written. i also asked jim who summarised the genre as
'the sickly gout ridden nihilist outsider who is actually having a really great time hating everybody but eventually
succumbs to madness and is consumed'

What is it about French literature and all this scatological stuff? Most of the French stuff at the beginning of that poems for the millenium anthology is like this too. It's all really well written but it leaves you feeling dirty and horrible afterwards. Sometimes you wish you'd never read it, you could do without it in your life.

Not just the French obviously, but you can't help but notice it.

 

[luka]

id write one definitely if i had the concentration span. probably feminists would tell me im not allowed to be an alienated man too clever for a modern society that has no use for me but we can't let them spoil our fun

 

[Benny B]

id write one definitely if i had the concentration span. probably feminists would tell me im not allowed to be an alienated man too clever for a modern society that has no use for me but we can't let them spoil our fun

This "not allowed to" thing is a recent thing and I think is a massive misconception. Andrea Dworkin and Kate Millett were actually huge admirers of people like Miller and Ginsberg and Genet and Tolstoy and DH Lawrence etc even as they were criticising them. They definitely weren't saying "you're not allowed to write this" like some do these days.

 

[luka]

i was only being silly

 

[Benny B]

Fair enough.

 

[Benny B]

It is interesting that writing like that isn't really 'allowed' these days though isn't it?

 

[luka]

It is interesting that writing like that isn't really 'allowed' these days though isn't it?

i dont think youre supposed to have that kind of self-valorisation now. you should have an ironic attitude towards yourself. no drama.

 

[Benny B]

Another thing about this genre is that you're supposed to grow out of it after being really being into it when you're a teen, but that's a mistake I think and handwaves a lot of the artistic merit it has.

 

[Benny B]

Just remembered Billy Childish has one in this genre in which he details his fucked up relationship with Tracy Emin and 'has sex' with a dog as a youth. Bukowski/Fante rip-off - not recommended

 

[version]

What is it about French literature and all this scatological stuff? Most of the French stuff at the beginning of that poems for the millenium anthology is like this too. It's all really well written but it leaves you feeling dirty and horrible afterwards. Sometimes you wish you'd never read it, you could do without it in your life.

Not just the French obviously, but you can't help but notice it.

It's definitely a thing with the French in particular. You get it in the theory stuff like D&G and Bataille and you've got de Sade and a bunch of other filthy novelists like that Guyotat guy Craner likes and Robbe-Grillet; some of the notorious English stuff was published in France first too: Naked Lunch, Ulysses, Miller's Tropics.

There's also the 'New French Extremity' stuff that came out of France in the 2000s, films like Martyrs.

 

[Benny B]

I need a shower

 

[Benny B]

We might be getting off track a bit here though.

I do think bukowski fits in here cos he's an intelligent self-taught man that looks down on most people, just wanted to be left alone by critics, and was much more well read than he let on - was a fan of the cantos for example, though he said he didn't really understand them. But you can tell from his arrogant tone when he talks about other writers that he thought of himself as 'too clever for modern life'

 

[Leo]

I still think of "post office" when I see a mail carrier. the mind-numbing repetition, regardless of how much you deliver today there's another thousand letters piling in tomorrow. occasionally chuck a bag of undelivered mail into an empty field, what does it matter? just trying to keep your head above water.