A Work on Charles Bukowski

‘Song: My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than All the Dead Christmas
Trees of the World’: a John Donne song in the style of Charles
Bukowski.
Source Text 1: ‘Bukowski’ (song) – Modest Mouse
Source Text 2: ‘Song: Sweetest love, I do not go’ – John Donne
Source Text 3: Factotum (novel) – Charles Bukowski Source Text 1: ‘Bukowski’ (song) – Modest Mouse
Source Text 2: ‘Song: Sweetest love, I do not go’ – John Donne
Source Text 3: Passages from Factotum (novel) – Bukowski
Draft 2: Typed and annotated
Draft 3
Song: My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than All the Dead Christmas Trees of the World
V1: In Donne’s song, the speaker can see n o fitter love for h imself than his mistress, but views himself in ‘jest,’ as he knows that one day he will die. Parodies Donne’s implication that he is competent in relation E
to ‘he who hath no desire’: Chinaski is more competent than Wilbur; Chinaski advances Wilbur’s woman. V3: Donne contemplates how ‘feeble’ man’s power is, but resolves noting that men can look to themselves for inner strength and use ‘bad chance’ to their ‘advance’. Puns on Donne’s opening “I’m going. Goodbye Jan,” – Oh!
line ‘Sweetest love, I do n ot B
“Yes, Mr. Chinaski,”
go’ A
Demonstrate when we will know
B
Four dimensions, not three.
Typically romantic images C
Full of port wine;
contrast to Chinaski’s D
What kind of man am I?
vulgarity. D
Blue water, trees, blue sky
C
Are loves great forms, not mine.
A
E
Very cold; it is the chill –
F
She climbs with me in bunk
With three women; Oh, “Where’s Wil?”
F
“He’s not coming back.” Drunk,
B
My hand was free;
G
I felt her ass and kissed her.
G
Grace has joined us too, Wilbur!
B
Me; Laura, Grace, Jerry.
H
Frankly horrified for man,
I
I drink the world numb well;
H
Bleed and burn your fellow man
I
With port and muscatel.
J
Dark blonde, vile hex
K
Leaky faucet of my doom;
K
Pretty, “You like my bedroom,
J
perfect, pure, maddening sex?”
L
F
L
Faceless, sexless, sacrificial
Laura;
dice and fucking bunk –
Alludes to ‘Laura’, Petrarch’s Starving artist hoax roots all,
mistress F
Delicious, swaying drunk.
B
Shot of Whiskey
M
Build an empire on a mass
M
Of broken bodies; class
Chinaski references Henry Miller. B
Is Henry M with me.
“How’d you like a piece of ass,
N
poor white trash?” revels;
V5: Donne concludes b y asking M
Rejected manuscripts pass
his mistress not to think him any N
By hundreds of devils
ill. B
Who’d want to be...
O
(“Are you a writer?” – agreed;
O
Yeah – I’m a pretty good read!)
B
Me? Asshole Chinaski
V2: The sun is anthropomorphic in Donne’s poem: it represents the speaker’s doubts but the verse resolves through the speaker’s affirmation of his sufficiency. Puns on Donne’s resolution to cope through inner strength; Chinaski attempts to subdue his contempt for mankind through alcohol and women. V4: Donne refers to h is mistress as ‘unkindly kind,’ claiming that she cannot love him; he claims as she wastes his life. M
References ‘Bukowski’, Modest Mouse (inserted lines from song) Top Copy
Song: My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than All the Dead Christmas Trees of the World
“I’m going. Goodbye Jan,” – Oh!
“Yes, Mr. Chinaski,”
Demonstrate when we will know
Four dimensions, not three.
Full of port wine;
What kind of man am I?
Blue water, trees, blue sky
Are loves great forms, not mine.
Very cold; it is the chill –
She climbs with me in bunk
With three women; Oh, “Where’s Wil?”
“He’s not coming back.” Drunk,
My hand was free;
I felt her ass and kissed her.
Grace has joined us too, Wilbur!
Me, Laura, Grace, Jerry.
Frankly horrified for man,
I drink the world numb well;
Bleed and burn your fellow man
With port and muscatel.
Dark blonde, vile hex
Leaky faucet of my doom;
Pretty, “You like my bedroom,
perfect, pure, maddening sex?”
Faceless, sexless, sacrificial
Laura; dice and fucking bunk –
Starving artist hoax roots all,
Delicious, swaying drunk.
Shot of Whiskey
Build an empire on a mass
Of broken bodies; class
Is Henry M with me.
“How’d you like a piece of ass,
poor white trash?” revels;
Rejected manuscripts pass
By hundreds of devils
Who’d want to be...
(“Are you a writer?” – agreed;
Yeah – I’m a pretty good read!)
Me? Asshole Chinaski
Commentary
During a workshop in the Transformative Writing 1 seminar, the task I was
given was to investigate song lyrics as a source text. After initially writing a
short story (Appendix 1) from ‘Pablo Picasso’ by The Modern Lovers; I
concluded that ‘Bukowski’ by Modest Mouse would have been more suitable
to my text. Noting that the title ‘Bukowski’ is a literary reference, I investigated
the author Bukowski. In investigating literary styles, it was interesting to note
that songs are an important influence in Renaissance literature,1 prompting
me to investigate into using a text from the Renaissance period as another
source text. Donne, who ‘perplexed the minds of the fair sex,’2 I felt would be
an interesting comparison to make to that of Bukowski; experimenting with
style I explored the outcome of combining two very different literary voices by
attempting to transform a Donne song into a song narrated by the voice of
Bukowski. Noting the syllables and rhyme scheme, I recorded the structure of
Donne’s song with the intention of taking lines from Factotum that would
convey or exaggerate the mood of each verse of Donne’s song, fitting the
rhyme scheme and metre.
I began by changing the opening line of Donne’s ‘Song: Sweetest love,
I do not go’3 to ‘I’m going. Goodbye Jan’ for comic effect; this, I felt was a
starting point to attempt to convey Bukowski’s ‘black humour’.4 I replaced the
lines ‘Nor in hope the world can show/ A fitter love for me’ with ‘Demonstrate
when we will know/ four dimensions, not three,’ referencing Chinaski’s
1
See Isabel Rivers, Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1979). 2
William Empson, “Donne and the rhetorical tradition,” Elizabethan Poetry: Modern Essays in Criticism ed. Paul J.
Alpers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976) 73. 3
John Donne, “Song: Sweetest love I do not go,” John Donne’s Poetry, ed. A.L. Clements (USA: Norton & Company
Inc, 1996) 8. 4
See Charles Bukowski, Factotum (GBR: Virgin, 2009). contempt for ‘society because he feels betrayed by its mores,’5 in describing
to his partner, Jan, that one day a man will be able to ‘just disappear’ when
the world will have a ‘fourth dimension.’6 My intention was to convey a sense
of irony, as the sincerity of Donne’s poetic voice is undermined by character
Chinaski’s pessimism in conversation with his partner. Through the use of
images ‘Blue water, trees, blue sky’7 (line 7) I intended to convey a sense selfconsciousness as Chinaski’s voice acknowledges that these typically romantic
images are very different from his ‘subtle forms’ of romance8. The speaker in
Donne’s song anticipates that he ‘shall make/ speedier journeys’ than ‘he’
who ‘hath no desire nor sense,’9 reassuring his mistress of his sufficiency. In
the second verse of my reconstruction I have exaggerated Donne’s speaker’s
affirmation of his self-sufficiency, through the portrayal of Chinaski’s
promiscuity, adapted from a comic chapter in which Chinaski advances
Wilbur’s woman10. In verse three of Donne’s poem the speaker expresses his
concern for ‘how feeble’ ‘man’s power’ is, but concludes that ‘we join to it our
strength’ and use it to our ‘advance’; through adversity humanity is made
stronger. I have alluded to irony in this verse in my transformation of Donne’s
song: I have conveyed Chinaski’s contempt for mankind; ‘bleed and burn your
fellow man,’11 emphasises Chinaski’s cynicisms through a blunt plosive
sounding phrase. At the end of the verse, I have reversed Donne’s optimism,
‘Itself o’er us to advance,’12 with Chinaski’s interest in ‘port and muscatel,’13
women and sacrilegious attitude. Donne’s fourth verse demonstrates his
Neeli Cherkovski, “Introduction”, Bukowski vii. Bukowski, 72. 7
Bukowski, 73. 8
Bukowski, 73. 9
Donne ed. Clements 9. 10
Bukowski, 56-57. 11
Bukowski, 44. 12
Donne ed. Clements 9. 13
Bukowski, 72. 5
6
contempt for his mistress, his ‘unkindly kind,’ his ‘life’s blood doth decay’;
Donne claims his mistress cannot love him is she wastes his life. In my
transformation I have developed the idea of unrequited love: as Elizabethan
poetry is closely linked to Petrarch14, who’s ‘songs and sonnets are designed
to represent a lifetime of passionate attention to one mistress, to Laura,’15 I
alluded to Petrarch’s Laura as an ‘unkindly kind’16 mistress, referencing Laura
in Factotum; ‘Laura, dice and fucking bunk’17 crudely acknowledges the
debauchery in Bukowski’s novel that defies any romantic or courtly
conventions of the Renaissance period. I concluded the song with a reference
to ‘Bukowski’ by Modest Mouse, paraphrasing song lyrics ‘yeah I know he’s a
pretty good read... God who’d wanna be such an asshole?’ acknowledging my
first source text.
In this exercise, my initial idea was expanded through Source Text 1;
however, the piece of writing that resulted from this avidly relied on Source
Text 2 and 3, only casually referencing Source Text 1 in the concluding verse.
In an article, Halsey has investigated how reactions to Elizabethan texts have
‘changed over time... about how those texts are likely to have been written to
be read’ and about how the ‘Elizabethan reader saw and valued in the style of
the texts he read’18; it was interesting to combine two very different literary
voices, challenging the way in which Donne’s song has very different values
than modern texts today.
See J. W. Lever, “The Petrarchan Sonnet” The Elizabethan Love Sonnet (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1956) 1-13. David Kalstone ed. Alpers, “Sir Philip Sidney: The Petrarchan Vision” 190. 16
Donne, ed. Clements 9. 17
Bukowski 59. 18
Kate Halsey, “Folk Stylistics and the History of Reading: a Discussion of Method,” Language and Literature, 18:3
(2009) 233. 14
15
Primary Sources
Bukowski, Charles. Factotum. GBR: Virgin, 2009.
Donne, John. “Song: Sweetest love I do not go,” John Donne’s Poetry, ed.
A.L. Clements. USA: Norton & Company Inc, 1996.
Modest Mouse. “Bukowski,” Good News For People Who Love Bad News.
Ugly Cassanova, 2004.
Secondary Sources
Empson, William. “Donne and the rhetorical tradition,” Elizabethan Poetry:
Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Paul J. Alpers. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1976.
Halsey, Kate, “Folk Stylistics and the History of Reading: a Discussion of
Method,” Language and Literature, 18:3 (2009).
Lever, J.W. “The Petrarchan Sonnet” The Elizabethan Love Sonnet. London:
Methuen & Co Ltd, 1956.
Rivers, Isabel. Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979.