This Darn Book

I've gone through two full rounds of edits on this nonfiction business-technology book I'm doing. I was totally exhausted after that last round, and have barely been able to function for over a month. But I was about ready to start on the second book (in the three-book series) but now the editor at the publisher are saying the first two times, the editors didn't catch everything, and this new copyeditor found some more things I need to correct to fit their style (things like brackets instead of parentheses, but also some heavy paraphrasing) so, of course, I have to go back through it and pick to the tiniest detail and make some more edits.  And just when I felt this 10-ton truck lifting from my compressed ribs!

Hunter Thompson's Rum Diary

Saturday morning was a brilliant, warm one, brought on by the Santa Ana winds, but the winds hadn't arrived yet.  The Pacific was calm and peaceful, the sky was pure blue, and rather than running off to exercise at 8 am I sat down with Hunter S. Thompson's novel, The Rum Diary. The movie has just come out and Johnny Depp plays the main character, a young journalist named Paul Kemp (who is basically HST).  I want to see the movie, but when I saw the book in the window while walking in downtown San Diego, I just had to get it.

The book had been sitting on my desk for a few days tempting me, making me relish the feasting of it all the more. I sat and read, interested, delighted, sometimes amused and laughing out loud, and wondering why he couldn't get it published until 30 years after he'd written it.  He had to be famous first. Plus he had this good friend named Johnny Depp.

I read half of it in the morning, and the other half as the afternoon waned.  It is not a great book, but a good book and a good story that is told in a writing voice that little resembles some of his later writings. There is some poetry of writing in it, certainly, and some well-written passages.  But mostly, it is readable. The Rum Diary takes you on a fun little jaunt to Puerto Rico, with a some foibles and fistfights. There is a petite blonde who is first introduced when he sees her in the airport boarding the plane, and for a while I thought he had forgotten about her --- breaking a cardinal rule of writing when introducing characters. But she was there again, angelic nymphet, coquettishly frolicking  naked in the ocean, and then teasing and flirting throughout the book until the final wildness (which I won't reveal, so I don't spoil the book for you).

So, on one hand, I saw a young writer following the rules, but on the other, breaking them: in an early scene on the plane he (Kemp) beats and old man for trying to take the seat he wanted to save for the blonde.  Then he thrashes him again while hurrying out of the plane to find the fine blonde. Not exactly a "likable character" and this is the protagonist.  And any Creative Writing 101 class, I'm sure (although I've never had one) will tell young writers that they must first create likable characters and then put them into "challenging" situations. But as Tom Robbins says, "in fiction, whatever works, works."  There should be no rules.

I enjoyed the book, from cover to cover, with only a little drag in the middle.  There were a lot of hamburgers and beer and glasses of rum, a lot of eating and drinking scenes, and several fighting ones.  It's a fun story, a little depraved and a lot of drinking -- especially toward the end -- but not near as much boozing as a Bukowski novel.

It is clearly and plainly written, an easy read. There aren't wasted sentences or too many adjectives, although he probably overused the word "savage" and he tended to begin paragraphs too often with "I" -- sometimes 4-5 times on a page.  This is a weakness to me, the sign of a young writer.  But then again, he was young when he wrote it.  On the other hand, I am sure it has been thoroughly scrubbed and edited dozens of times so that the finished book is far from the original manuscript.

The plot-line of the story is simple and well done, and it follows a logical progression while keeping you interested. There is good tension.  The writing may be considered on the "crude" side at times but it is not raw or pornographic -- absolutely not a mention of a private part beyond pink nipples and a muff, and the sex scenes are mostly romantic, nuanced or suggested, and not so much graphic detail.

Here are a few funny and/or notable passages from the book:


The light in gambling rooms is not good for aging women. It catches every crease in their faces and every wart on their necks; drops of sweat between fallow breasts, hairs on a nipple momentarily exposed, a flabby arm or a sagging eye.

*     *     *     *     *

Suddenly she began to howl: at first I thought I was hurting her, but then realized she was having some sort of  extreme orgasm.  She had several of them, howling each time, before I felt the slow bursting of mine.

*     *     *     *     *

I bought a bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on the bench in the clearing, feeling like an old man.  The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories--not of things I had done but of things I failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back.

 

*     *     *     *     *

The waterfront was nearly deserted, the stores were closed, and only the churches seemed to be doing any business. We passed several of them, and in front of each one was a colorful knot of people--tan-skinned men and boys in freshly pressed suits, flowery women with veils, little girls in white dresses, and here and there a priest in a black robe and a tall black hat.

*     *     *     *     *

"If you insist on going by appearances then you'd be better off in some place like Texas."

*     *     *     *     *

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside.  Like a frog evading a shillelagh in a midnight marsh.

*     *     *     *     *

The Rum Diary

My Near Drowning

Last Thursday, September 15, seemed like any other cloudy warm day.  It was almost the day I perished.

I'd just finished writing my new nonfiction book after 2 months of heavy work.  I'm not used to that much hard writing at a shot, and it wore me out mentally.  I was exhausted; got up at 3am Wednesday and finished the last bit by 6am.  At 7, The Crazy Canuck and I went off to a yoga class.  He'd stayed for another week after Baby Doll left to go back to work in central Mexico.

The class was uneventful, although, as with every new class, there were some new stretches, and angles.  I hit the weights afterward but not too much.  So when I got up Thursday morning, I had a couple of sore spots.  Canuck was sleeping in so I went off to try the pilates class.  It was uneventful, but some of the exercises hit muscles I don't usually hit, and in different ways.  Afterward, I hit the weight circuit a bit again.

That afternoon, Canuck was up for a workout so we walked to the gym and he did some spinning while I did weights; he did some stretching and pushups and I stayed in the weightroom. Afterward, he wanted to take a dip in the cold Pacific -- it's great for the post-workout muscles, and we'd done it a couple of times since he arrived, which was more times than I'd been in that water all year.  It's just too cold, and the beach isn't so nice.  But the sunsets are gorgeous to look at.

I donned my short wetsuit, and he was still looking to buy one, so we stopped in at a used clothing store on the beach.  No wetsuits, so we walked down to the beach, set our things down, and he grabbed his goggles.

We waded in---oooohh, damn it was cold!  I got the first splash in, spraying Canuck with cold droplets while my wetsuit fended off his return splashes.  The water got deeper and we dove in.  I'd told him I wanted to get a good workout, try to keep moving for 20 minutes, so I was running in the water, taking bigger and bigger strides to stretch out this hip muscle that's been bothering me.

When my a-hole high school track coach had me run a pre-season race my senior year after I'd already injured my back with another of his stupid ideas (doing field events indoors, since it was raining, and I missed the high jump cushion, landing with all my weight on the hard floor and jarring my back hard), permanently injuring it then - running in the water was the only way I was able to get back on the track and even then, I was never the same.  Like Bo Jackson.  Um, sort of.

So I'm running, and paddling some, and the waves got bigger, and bigger, and I was leaping off the ocean floor high to the top of the waves, all the while, laughing, playing, and joking with Canuck. It was invigorating.

Suddenly -- and I mean within seconds, I turned and we were separated, he was 40 or 50 yards away, and I was going further out, so I swam as hard as I could, looked up, and I was even further out.  I tried again and was going nowhere.  Then all the things they tell you about drowning started to happen. I was confused.  Fatigue set in.  Things weren't right.

I could see Canuck making his way back to shore and I could see a yellow truck and red lifeguard suits.  Something was being barked through a megaphone.  One of my contact lenses came off and the whole scene went blurry.  I was panting for air, really tiring, and it got serious.

Here's a poem I wrote a few nights ago (between sobs):


MY NEAR DROWNING

by Robert F. Smallwood

A cloudy September day over the sea
ordinary, gray;
vast, sleepy waves
surging

Rolling surf nears the shore
growing, gaining power

we wade in
BRRRR! It's cold!

Colder than it should be
  on a warm day

SPLASH! A playful volley

SPLASH! SPLASH! It's returned
laughter
bounding in, jumping,
  squealing like kids
embracing the cold
Pacific waters
 loving them
 refreshed by them
foamy gray waves
   rise crash and fizz

I leap in rhythm
bounding high
buoyed by the surf
kicking as joyously
as a little boy
Again.

A wave rises
  and rolls in
I spring up
off the ocean's floor

leaping high
like Superman!

running and kicking
salty cool waters
welcoming waters
as if I can fly
in the Ocean

A few more seconds of joy

Then, so fast it was a blink
I see my friend
halfway to shore
struggling
and me
pushed out to sea.

The shore seemed
   too far off
Something wasn't right
I looked for the
   next wave
Tried to launch with
my legs
kicking maniacally
head down, pumping
arms overhead
putting all my strength
into battling back
to shore

But when I looked up
gasping for breath
the shore was farther
than before

So I swam
harder, this time
as fast as I could
pounding
those monstrous
                         waves

Slapped in the face
  with a crest
  lungs burning
  panting hard
  heart pounding full force
another crest smacks my head
from the other direction
like a right hook from a boxer
to finish me off

I lose a lens
and things become blurry
    and worse

Struggling more
   paddling arms and legs
   almost flailing
   gasping, panting
now wheezes

There isn't enough air

My limbs become leaden
Heavy and tired
 in the icy waters

Heart is leaping out of my chest
there is no Rest;

I look to the shore
  and see a small blurred crowd
    gathering to watch
I see a truck
I see the red blot
of lifeguards
I hear garbled noise
  from a megaphone
It's loud
but I can't hear
what they're saying

I am so tired
There is no Rest
hard to breathe
not enough air
water everywhere
I can see the shore
  with all my effort
all my Strength
all my determination
I cannot beat it.
Failure.
I am fighting
for my Life
wheezing and coughing
and splashing
I wonder
'Why don't they help me?'
'Where is a jetski?'
'Why don't they help me?'

I'm confused
exhausted
tired as I've ever been
I raise my hand slowly
      in defeat

"help" comes out of my mouth
It's not a word I've used
It seems foreign
traveling through my brain
and out of my lips

"Help!" Again, a little louder
but weak
I knew they couldn't hear
I hoped they could see
I was in Trouble
'Why don't they help me?'

my hand dropped into the water
to help the other
I was in real trouble
and I knew it

I paddled and panted

Suddenly a voice, close
right behind me
Words, fast and unintelligible
Spanish
I turn
A brown-faced teen
with big shoulders
threw a float over me
He went to work
   securing the harness
Rattling off more words
  I didn't understand

But that thin yellow float
a beautiful bright yellow
  was the best thing
   the most cherished thing
I'd ever laid my hands on.

Some relief,

He ducked his shock of raven hair
underwater
and I was pulled,
propelled quick
with animal power

Like a porpoise
with a purpose

as if a dolphin
were towing me
the kind of strength
I no longer had
   Maybe never had
I tried to help
kicking, flailing
hoping the joint effort
would help us both
Survive.

He moved swiftly
diagonally
through the sea waters
toward the shore

He popped up
and said something
It didn't register
He went back to slapping the waters
Powerful, brave
Otherworldly strokes
of marine power
that few humans
ever possess

We got nearer
a foot touched down and skidded
I'm panting harder
as hard as ever
He drags me
I try to get to my feet
I stumble
He keeps dragging
I stagger
Like a roped steer

finally get my feet
under me

The current is only
knee high now
but it's still strong
trying to pull me into
the rip current

I'm staggering forward
He's pulling the rope
we make it to shore - unsteadily

My friend is there
I'm still alive
(I'm supposed to be here, for now)

I feel feeble, never so feeble
Weak, tired, old, depleted, grateful,
humbled, tired, scared, happy,
thankful, regretful, tired

and so very stunned.

Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those books you hear about over and over but hardly anyone actually reads.  I found it joyously well-written, with some incredibly nimble and poetic passages.  It is a profound work.  Here's the opening Preface, which is serious and philosophical, and at times, confusing.  It makes you think.

The Preface

 

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.

This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies.

An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.

From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless. 

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 

I'll try not to give it all away, since everyone should read it, and when they do, they will be changed. It's a Faustian story, about a young man who makes a devilish bargain to stay youthful his whole life, and to focus only on things of beauty.  Not in an artistic way, but in a materialistic way. The Gothic setting takes you back to old tyme London with carriages, private clubs, and exquisite manners.

Here are some of sentences and passages that stood out to me:

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think.

* * * * *

The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.  They can sit at their ease and gape at the play

* * * * *

"... the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties."

 * * * * *

The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass white daisies were tremulous. 

* * * * *

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air.

* * * * *

"You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages." 

* * * * *

"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to Royalties, and people with Stars and Garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses."

* * * * *

"... none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves." 

* * * * *

"We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty."

* * * * *

"... there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than beauty." 

* * * * *

 There was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. 

 * * * * *

And that's just in Chapter One!

Real Examples of Bestselling Garbage

I've railed before about the crap that is on bookshelves today, the garbage that the American public is hungrily consuming, thinking they are literate, since they are "reading" a book.  But there's hardly anything literary at all about most of these bestsellers.

Adding to that, a friend and colleague pointed me to a hugely successful new self-published author on the scene who is selling hundreds of thousands of copies of her book, and, well, why didn't I just do some of that?

So I looked into Amanda Hocking and her books.  First of all, hitting the USA Today Bestseller list is an accomplishment in itself. She's also a terrific self-promoter: she's a self-professed "obsessive Tweeter" and on ONE of her four blogs last year she did 182 posts! So she is all in when it comes to social media.

I'm pretty sure she does her own social media posts and I 'm also pretty sure that James Joyce or Hemingway or Faulkner or Flaubert would not have time for that.

The genre she writes in is "urban fantasy" and "paranormal adult romance" or whatever you want to call vampire fantasy romance.  It's not something I would ever get into, but there's a big audience for it.  A different audience. Mostly teenagers and young 20's.

It seems that most of her "books" are sold as 99 cent downloads, but some are as much as $2.99.  She stated that she uses iTunes a lot so the pricing made sense to her, and, quite smartly, she has grown her audience, and the "books" are serial, so when she gets a reader they can get another and another and another, reading about the same characters.

 Now, let's take a look at a sample of her writing. I previewed the first book that came up on Amazon.com and here's some from the opening page.

The summer air slid in through the windows, filling the car with the green scent of the park, and the frightening sound of highway traffic.

Not bad.  Some imagery, good rhythm, but perhaps a bit overdone at the end. Let's keep going:

The mid-afternoon sun shined brightly above us. Ordinarily, that sounds like the best time to drive, but sunlight made Jack groggy. He'd already started to yawn.

I'm yawning, in fact I'm nearly puking.

Jack is not like everyone else. I really like him, more than I should. He's attractive in his own right, with dancing blue eyes, perpetually disheveled sandy hair, and flawless tan skin, but he's not what I would call drop dead gorgeous.

Really?  At this point I feel sullied and need to shower after typing those terrible sentences.  This is so bad it sounds like a diary entry by a fawning teen, and it sells like crazy!  Too many adjectives, too trite. I wonder how much effort she put into polishing those colossal sentences.  Did she toil? Push the limits, find exactly the right words and arrange them lyrically with excruciating effort? I doubt it.

So, yeah, you can sell first-draft teen diary entry vampire crap for 99 cents and thousands will buy it.

Sorry, it's not my audience, and it's not exactly the direction I want to take.

Now, let's look at another example, and this is from New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn.  My brother and millions of others apparently read his books. I borrowed "Pursuit of Honor" a counterterrorism blockbuster featuring "elite operative" Mitch Rapp.  Bear in mind he's written a dozen bestsellers and has a contract for at least 10 more.  Glen Beck says it is, "FANTASTIC" and Rush Limbaugh says it is "JUST FABULOUS" and Bill O'Reilly says, "Every American should read this book."

So it must be good, right?

Let's take a looksee.

On page 4 toward the end of the first paragraph:

The other man was a concern, to be sure, but Rapp was not in the habit of killing private citizens simply because they were witnesses...

And the beginning of paragraph three, same page:

Bad form, to be sure, but nothing had risen to the level of outright sedition.

All I can say is that using "to be sure" is trite, boring, and unnecessary, and using it twice on the same page is just plain lazy.  He should be shot.  And he's got an army of editors!  Garbage, pure garbage.

Maybe that was just overlooked.  Surely this "writer" is outstanding, since Dan Brown (Charlatan #1) says, he is "The king of high-concept political intrigue."  So I forced myself to read the next page, which felt like being fed through a tube.

Rapp casually took another drag from the cigarette and watched as the waiter placed two snifters of cognac in front of the men.  A few minutes earlier, Rapp had listened as the other man tried to pass on the after-dinner drink.  Rapp's coworker, however, insisted that they both have a drink.....

Now, with the rain softly pelting his umbrella, Rapp watched the waiter place two snifters on the table.....


Wait a minute!  The waiter placed the snifters down twice?  Four Rapp's in four sentences?  That is just lazy, lazy writing, pure garbage. I could not read another word.


And now, I just feel completely filthy and disgusted and I need a shower.

See why I am not impressed with contemporary best-selling writers?  

Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"

If you told me that a book was about a woman having affairs, a sort of tragic romance, I wouldn't be interested in reading it. But I'd heard many times over the years about this French writer Flaubert who was very good.  I particularly remember Hemingway saying Flaubert was a key influence, so that stuck with me.

I'd had Madame Bovary on my bookshelf for a while, and after reading some Turgenev, and the letters between Turgenev and Flaubert, and all of the latter's hard work and 10 hour days of reading and researching, toiling in his writing, and constant financial struggles (even after the great success of Bovary) that got to the point of him trying to get a plum job at major Parisian library, well, then I was really interested to read Flaubert, and to read his best.

All I can say is that there is so much notable hard work and genius that went into that book that it is simply awe-inspiring. Page after page, all the way through, incredibly beautiful poetic yet lean sentences, musical words, nimble and nuanced descriptions of thoughts and things, and a complex, yet natural plot that spins through it -- which kept me interested.  There were even a few laughs, and enjoyable ironies.

To be able to delve into the inner thoughts of Emma Bovary took some real artistic effort.  It all comes off so naturally, and it is not overdone. Also, to be able to describe in detail all those ladylike, girly, frilly things that a proper woman of that era would know, that took some research and effort.  I would surmise that Flaubert,  who lived with his mother most of his life, was constantly asking her what you call this or that.

People don't realize when they read a book that anything in it that the author isn't intimately familiar with has to be researched -- like the types of leaves or trees or bushes in a setting, or the cloth and cut of a suit or dress -- all that has to be researched and verified and then presented in such a way in the book that it is natural, unassuming -- a given.

I noticed a lot of that type of detail in Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, when he described all the cherished, worldly items that Mr. Gray surrounded himself with (I haven't written about that book, but I'll get to it in more detail in another post).


One thing I did notice was a particular detailed description of a character's fingernails, and of a woman becoming flushed red to the roots of her hair, which are similar to what I remember in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.  Flaubert and Turgenev were friends, so I looked up when they met and started exchanging letters, and when their respective books were published (although a book's publication date does not reflect its completion date -- it could be published years later), to see who had 'stolen' -- I mean borrowed -- from whom.

It looks like Flaubert's book was out five years before Turgenev's and several years before they met.  But there is one other possible explanation -- which is that since Turgenev translated Flaubert's books into Russian, he may have at some point inserted those phrases, or rather, translated them as that, and they became a part of the text. This is plausible, since, I also read that apparently some critics objected to Turgenev's translations of Flaubert back then, saying he had added his own edits and touches and interpretations to make the book even better, but they were not true to the work.  Which is all quite possible.

Nevertheless, the talent of Flaubert and the writing in that book kept me interested in a story that I would not have normally had an interest in, and the beauty of his writing had me smiling and underlining particular phrases or passages.  And also, it was more than just a story, it's a detailed, tidy plot and ending that carry a moral theme, ultimately.

What is funny is that the book was almost stopped from being published by an obscenity trial, but ultimately allowed to "scandalize" the nation.  There isn't the least bit of sex in it -- only implied.  Like when she gets in the carriage taxi with Leon, and they both professed their unrealized lust, and the carriage curtains are drawn and Leon keeps telling the driver to just keep going as they drive on and on about the city and even the country for hours and hours.  It's implied that they were getting it on, although not a speck of detail, or disrobing.

But the writing, the writing is exquisite.  They call it realism but it is more than that, since it is so tight, terse, succinct and yet powerfully lyrical and poetic.  The book is filled with great sentences that paint a scene, but here are some of the phrases and sentences that stand out:

Through the wooden slats, the sunlight fell upon the stone floor in long thin stripes which broke upon the corners of the furniture and went glancing up to the ceiling.


*******


As it was almost empty, she leaned back to drink, and, her head thrown back, her lips parted her throat elongated, she laughed at being unable to taste anything, while the tip of her tongue thrust out between her delicate teeth, licked tiny drops from the bottom of the glass.


*******

She bit her lips and a tide of blood flooded up under her skin which flushed deep pink from the roots of her hair to the edge of her collar.  

*******

Everything seemed to her to be swathed in a black miasma that drifted confusedly across the surfaces of objects, and sorrow rushed into her spirit with soft moaning sounds, like the winter wind in a deserted castle.


*******

Little by little, love was extinguished by absence, regret smothered by habit; and that fiery glow which had washed her pale skies with purple sank away into shadow and was gradually obliterated.


*******

He no longer offered, as he had once done, those words so tender that they made her cry, nor those violent caresses that drove her to frenzy; with the result that their great love in which she lived submerged seemed to dwindle away about her, like the waters of a river being absorbed by its bed, until she saw the slimy bottom.

*******


Her eyes, full of tears, glimmered like flames under water;


*******

SEE WHAT I MEAN?



The man struggled his whole life, but what a writer!

A Day for Ol' Buk

On Sunday I drove up the coast to San Marino, California, where the Huntington Library held an exhibition of Charles Bukowski's works and life. I thought about how nice it would have been to lay around in the sunshine on the beach and not fight traffic for 6-7 hours, but I reasoned I could do that most any day, and this was an important piece of the history of literature. And I wanted to see how it was presented.

The Huntington 'Library' is actually this expansive campus with long, perfectly-groomed rich green lawns, large trees, and classic statues. It's much more than a library in that it includes several buildings full of art, botanical gardens, and a collection of rare books and manuscripts. If I'd done a little more research, I'd have gone up for a day or two!

I approach these kinds of things with a sort of reverence and respect for the author. I was first going to take the train, then I was looking for someone to take the ride up there with me, but it didn't work out. That was OK, though, since it gave me time to think, and to think about writing. I wasn't the slightest bit bored or lonely; it was satisfying.

This was similar to visiting Hemingway's house on that bluff overlooking Havana, only that was a was a deeper look into Hem's life, home and elevated writing room. To peek at his stocked bar and books and mounted big game was like taking a step back in time. And then to climb the stairs to the study where he wrote, to see the same view that he saw when he was writing great books -- that was almost chilling.

When I pulled into the series of full parking lots, their size hidden by the wooded grounds, I almost expected to see a few spontaneous parties, maybe a tailgate party and kegs of beer, with various smokes wafting about; but no, weaving and circling through the lots I couldn't find a spot and only saw a few young couples heading toward the main building. I backed into a spot that wasn't really a space, and figured it'd be OK.

I was just a little late, and harried, and still I was looking for that bubbling, raucous crowd, but no, there were just families and ordinary citizens.

I bought my ticket at the window asked for directions and quickly overshot the building, but it gave me a view of the beautiful grounds. Doubling back and nearing the exhibit entrance, anticipation sizzled inside me.

The Bukoski exhibit grabbed you when you walked in: a huge poster with his picture and name, and there, encased in glass, was his beaten-up typewriter (or "typer" as he called it), his radio and a stained glass of wine. The the typer was lightly splattered with different paints, as Bukowski did a lot of sketches and some painting too.

I scanned the crowded room. No loud drunks, no smelly bohemian-types, just college students and bespectacled middle-aged couples. One college kid with a hat, maybe an aspiring writer.

Viewing the personal sketches, poem and novel drafts he'd hand-edited, first edition books, his racing forms, postcards, letters, and those from a few dedicated supporters and editors, along with some adoring fans, one got a real personal look into his life. I read every single description of every single item exhibited in the two rooms, which were pretty full of visitors, so full that you had to sometimes wait and shuffle and squeeze by to get to the next exhibited item. Every so often I'd glance around the room, and still, everyone looked perfectly normal. No crazies, no drunks. Just silent study and reverence. Strange.

I've read all his novels, and some of his poetry, but I learned a little more about Charles Bukowski and also about writing by seeing the exhibit. He'd written more short stories than I knew about, and he was busily sending them out to magazine editors. When he found he couldn't get into staid publications like the New Yorker or Atlantic, he hit the smaller ones, and built a following. He also published in mainstream porn magazines like Penthouse and Oui. The point is that he was working, pushing, trying the whole time. Scraping and scratching his way into history, like it or not.

Bukowski never wrote a New York Times bestseller, but he left his mark. He was mostly ignored by academia, but now he has to be dealt with. Sure, he's the hard drinking, brawling, dirty old man, but he did that better than anyone else. In fact, I recently saw him at the top of a prominent 'dirty writers in history' list, ahead of the likes of James Joyce and Philip Roth.

They had some sort of tour and reception and they were going to read some of his work but I can hardly stand it when those pathetic literary gadflies get up and start trying to imitate. I was there to see Buk.

After an hour I went to the bookstore and they had the largest display of Bukowski books, postcards, and memorabilia I've seen. I bought a few things, including a mousepad with a picture of his typer and some postcards that read, "what matters most is how you walk through the fire."

I also bought a small journal book with one of his drawings on the cover.

Heading back I got slightly lost at first, then got on the freeway and soon I was ensnared in 10 mile per hour L.A. traffic. It didn't much matter though, since I was pretty satisfied with those 90 minutes I spent to peer into the life of a modern writer whose popularity is growing, now almost 20 years after his death. That's the sign of a true artist.

When I got back home in Mexico, I sat in my recliner, sipped a dry martini, and wrote six poems in my new Buk journal. And I hardly ever write poetry!


 

Some Bits from Turgenev and Flaubert.

In their letters, there were some enjoyable tidbits, although many of the little jabs were "of their time" and dealt with the politicians, socialites, critics, and writers of the day, some of whom never rose to the prominence the two literary friends eventually did.


Quotes from Turgenev to Flaubert:

"We are a pair of moles burrowing away in the same direction."

"The living, human truth that you pursue indefatigably can only be captured on good days."

"Find another title. 'Sentimental Education' is wrong."

"I have not thanked you for the photograph..... Why don't you have good ones taken?"

"Yes, people have certainly been unfair to you, but this is the time to brace yourself and hurl a masterpiece at the reading public."

"Oh we have hard times to live through, those of us who are born spectators."

"You have remained a man through all this, because you have been able to work: now things will be easier."

"I'm becoming more and more snowed under by life's events."

"Fate is so abominably brutal to strike at the one man in the world who is least capable of making a living from his work."

"Old age is a dreadful thing -- begging Cicero's pardon."

"After the age of 40 there is only one word to sum up the basis of life: Renunciation."

"Illness, a cold, slow disgust, painful stirrings of useless memories are, my dear fellow, all that await us once we're past the age of fifty."

"The newspapers find me worn out and throw my own earlier works back in my face (like you with 'Madame Bovary.')"

"Anyway fate has decreed that everything will go wrong in this business."

"I shall send you shortly a novel in 3 vols by Count Leo Tolstoy, whom I consider to be the foremost contemporary writer. You know who in my opinion could challenge him in that position."



Quotes from Flaubert to Turgenev:

"My interminable novel is making me sick and weighing me down..."

"There is nothing more ridiculous than making out that one is misunderstood."

"My noble motherland is becoming more and more idiotic. The general stupidity is having and effect on individuals. Gradually each one slides with all the rest."

"Who is there in our wretched country who still 'cares about literature'? Perhaps one single man? Me!"

"Voltaire said life is a sick joke. I'm finding it too sick and not at all funny; I try to keep the upper hand as much as possible: I read for about nine or ten hours a day."

"Never have affairs of the mind counted for less."

"Oh! Action! As soon as I have anything to do with it, I'm in trouble. And then there is the maxim of Epictetus that one shouldn't forget: 'If you seek to please you will be undone.'"

"I could do with sleeping for a year. I'm harassed out of existence. That's the truth."

"What a book! What an abyss (a wasps' nest or a latrine) I have stuffed myself into! There's no going back now."

"Thank you for making me read Tolstoy's novel. It's first rate. What a painter and what a psychologist!"

"My poor play has had no luck. But then why did I listen to the advice of Other People? Why did I give in!"

"I am pursued by ill fortune."
Flaubert and Turgenev: A Friendship in Letters : The Complete Correspondence

Writers Two: Turgenev and Flaubert

I've been reading a book with the letters between Turgenev and Flaubert. They were instant friends and colleagues, peers driving at the purity of literature from their respective countries, Russia and France. They often met up in Paris. Amidst political turmoil, war, great distance, writing struggles and the everyday problems of life (Turgenev had recurring bouts with gout, which sometimes crippled him for weeks at a time) - they managed to keep their very cordial friendship intact.

It's rather amusing and intriguing to read about their foibles and tribulations, the tedium of their lives, the depression, the despair, the strife -- while they wrote great works.

All men, it seems, at least at times, live lives of quiet desperation -- even the Great Ones!