Power of Silence by Carlos Castaneda

 The next volume in Castaneda's odyssey is similar to the previous one - he remembers events he's forgotten because he was in a Higher State of Consciousness, which he previously called Second Attention, but that term is rarely used in this volume.  

The backbone of the book consists of the conceptual analysis of the "cores" of the sorcery stories that Don Juan was telling Castaneda in the previous volumes.  It seems each story has a specifically constructed body, consisting of one or more cores, which are intended to lead the apprentice on the path of sorcery exactly in the way previous apprentices (especially for a Nagual) were led. 

We find out more details about Don Juan's teachers and benefactors, Don Elias and Don Julian, as well as events that transpired while Don Juan was a young nagual apprentice.  The main point from these stories is that Don Juan had to 'die' in order to continue his apprenticeship for nagual. This is not a conceptual death, but rather a physical one where he was buried in a shallow grave and was without pulse for many hours, only coming back to Earth because The Eagle refused to devour his awareness.  

The assemblage point and its shifts and moves are also discussed in great detail, and the most intriguing statement Don Juan makes is that the movement of the assemblage point is always a work of "the spirit" and the techniques and methods he taught Castaneda were there only to misdirect his attention. Castaneda learns to be (or the spirit teaches him) in two places at the same time, which happens during the incident when they are attacked by a jaguar in the mountains of Northern Mexico (where jaguars don't live) and are able to escape by Castaneda shutting down his "reasonable mind" and operating only within his "lake of quiet knowledge" mind.

The title of the book is related to the concept introduced in this volume of "lake of knowledge" which is the antithesis of the "reasonable mind" where a person has to put effort and time to learn new things.  By being able to access "the lake of knowledge" inside oneself, a person is automatically connected to any knowledge, without the need of learning, thinking, repeating and storing.  Don Juan says that sorcerers learn to silence their "reasonable mind" in order to operate from the silent lake of knowledge.  This reminds of the Gurdjieff's "Reservoir of Knowledge/Energy" concept which he claimed one is able to connect to by going beyond the physical and mental limits of oneself. 

Fire from Within by Carlos Castaneda

 This is the seventh volume in Castaneda's opus.  It is difficult book to write about, and is probably the most abstract of all the volumes so far.  The same concepts and principles and stories are visited from the previous books, but in more detail and from a different perspective.  The Assemblage Point and its shifting is described in great and painful detail, which makes very little sense for the lay reader which doesn't have the luxury of being an apprentice to a thousands year old sorcery tradition.

There are more stories about the nagual Julian, Don Juan's teacher, and the nagual Elias, Julian's teacher.  There are more stories about the sorcerer's party of Don Juan, mostly Genaro, Silvio Manuel and Vicente Medaro.  

The new concept that is introduced is about the "Death Defiers", a group of ancient sorcerers who found a way to close the gap in their abdomen where the Rolling Force hits against and from where Death takes the human being by destroying the luminous cocoon.  The Death Defiers found a way to close the gap and also to align their inner fibers (light them up) that correspond to the Allies, the inorganic beings which live for a very long time, almost infinite.  In this way the Death Defiers also became almost immaterial like the Allies, and live in a similar world like them, but spend much of their time buried underground, where the energy of the Earth can protect them against the Tumbler/Rolling Force.  One specific Death Defier is told by Don Juan to be the originator of his line of New Seers/sorcerers, who taught the first in the line, nagual Sebastian many secrets in exchange for energy to keep living.  Don Juan describes him as a very thin, dried out man with dark eyes and otherworldly countenance.

Sometimes I wonder if these books are written the Sufi way, i.e. it doesn't make much sense to your conscious mind but it is your unconscious that is really the target of the writings.

I got laid off.

Eagle's Gift by Carlos Castaneda

 This is the sixth volume of Castaneda's works, and it continues the narrative thread of Carlos remembering all the things that were said and done when Don Juan has pushed him into the Second Attention, which is a higher version of the First Attention, the one we use in everyday life.  There are many stories about seeing and Carlos working with La Gorda and all the warriors of Don Juan's group ike Silvio Manuel, Florinda and others.  Florinda teaches Carlos the art of stalking, which is a counterpart to the art of dreaming, the warrior's in a Nagual's party being divided into two main groups, Stalkers and Dreamers, with Couriers rounding up the group.

Another concept that is developed in detail is "The Eagle" which could be described as the Godhead, or the Creator/Destroyer in other traditions.  Don Juan says that even calling it "The Eagle" is somewhat false, as it doesn't look like an eagle, and nobody knows or can know how it really looks.  The name of Eagle was something that the previous seers came up with to describe it, but it could have been any other metaphor.  

The Eagle is the one who gives consciousness to humans when they are born and then, upon their death, it consumes their consciousness.  The entire point of all the previous seers and their parties, just like Don Juan and his warrior party, all of the practices, all of the effort, all of the denials, all of it is for the purpose not to be consumed by the Eagle but to "dart" past it.  Dart into where?  Nobody knows.  Don Juan calls it "Freedom" but what does that actually mean is anyone's guess.  The logic goes that anything is better than being consumed by The Eagle.

My father died of covid three days ago.  I hope The Eagle had mercy on him.

Second Ring of Power by Carlos Castaneda

 The fifth book in the series starts with Castaneda going back to Mexico to talk to his friend, the apprentice of Don Genaro, but when he arrives at his house, the mother, Dona Soledad, attacks him and tells him that Don Juan told her to kill him and take his luminosity.  Castaneda, shocked, defends himself properly.  Then the three girls and La Gorda ("Fatty") who Castaneda thought were daughters of Dona Soledad, also try to trick him and attack him, trying to take his luminosity for themselves, but, at a crucial moment, Castaneda's double comes out of his body and almost kills the girls.

Then Castaneda discovers that Dona Soledad and the girls were actually apprentices of Don Juan as well and that he doesn't remember much of the time he spent with them and Don Juan.  Eventually he goes with La Gorda to various secret places that Don Juan told La Gorda in order to become the Nagual of the new group or "warrior party".  Towards the end of the book he and La Gorda start remembering that they spent time and trained with Don Juan's warrior party, but they were in the Second Attention (First Attention is of the physical body and the physical world) and they cannot remember it, or have very difficult time remembering exactly what happened, who they met and what they did.

This book is more exciting than the others, as it doesn't simply narrate the events as they happen, but it has the quality of a thriller with so many unknowns that one cannot help but simply keep turning the pages, which about with new characters and personalities, never before mentioned in the previous books.  It also makes a definite break with the non-fiction pretense of the previous books and dives deep into what most people would call pure fiction, but it is a good fiction, so there.

Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda

 Continuing my self-imposed tasks to read all the books Castaneda wrote, I moved on to the fourth volume in the series.  This book is the last one in the "real" Don Juan timeline, i.e. where the apprenticeship of Castaneda was described in a linear manner.  At the end of this book Don Juan and Don Genaro and their "band" of sorcerers leave this plane of existence and can never be encountered in what we call the physical world.  Other books, later in the series, feature Don Juan however it is in a form of memories or more detailed dive into the meaning of the teaching, not a linear explanation of their camaraderie.

This volume concentrates further on the ability to "see" that Don Genaro is trying to develop in Carlos.  Don Juan tells Carlos that Don Genaro is Castaneda's "benefactor" while he, himself is his teacher.  He says that every apprentice needs to have a teacher and a benefactor.  Here both of his instructors are explaining to him the world of the "Tonal" that is the everyday physical world we live in, and the world of the "Nagual" which is everything else, the unexpressed, formless or otherness that exists in the infinity.  These terms, although Spanish and used for other functions in Latin America, are used by Castaneda to mean something completely different.

At the end, the final test is for Castaneda to jump into an abyss (and survive).  Don Juan and Don Genaro say goodbye before that and "fold into the darkness".  The book ends with Castaneda jumping into the abyss.

Septuagenarian Stew by Charles Bukowski

 This book pretty much concludes my reading of Buk's prose, novels and short stories, and some poetry.  I haven't read the majority of his poetry, which might be my next reading queue.  Septuagenarian Stew was published when Buk was in his 70s, therefor the title, and is a combination of stories and poems, that is narrative poems, which pretty much read like his short stories, just more compact, and with random line breaks, wherever he felt like.

The first story is pretty upsetting, about him and his friends as adolescents trying to hang, with a rope, a quiet kid from his neighborhood.  The kid almost choked on the rope and had scars on his neck from the slipknot that young Buk put on him, and tied the other end to his veranda, forcing the poor kid to balance on the tips of his toes to avoid being suffocated.  Young Buk ran away from the scene, but came back and released the rope, the poor kid being all purple in the face and barely breathing.  Later his father finds out and pounds him with his fist.  Disturbing, very disturbing, both as a commentary on US society in the 1930s, but also how Bukowski became a bully from being bullied himself. 

The other disturbing story is about his mother's cancer surgery, when he goes to visit her in the palliative care, but he is so hungover from drinking all night that he cannot stand the smells in the hospital and vomits in the rose garden.  He tells his mother he will come back tomorrow to see her.  She tells him that his father put her in the madhouse so that he can live with his mistress.  The next day Bukowski comes back with a bouquet of flowers, but his mother's rooms is locked and there is a wreath on the door.  She passed away the previous night. What an asshole will drink all night the day he should visit his mother in a hospital?

I read an article saying how Bukowski glorifies drunkenness, however there is nothing glorious about it, and only assholes do it the way he did.  He writes so many times how he drove dead drunk, but what if he hit a child or another person and killed them? Would it be so romantic and cool? Only selfish assholes drive drunk.

Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski

 This collection of short stories was published in 1983 and reviews say that it established Bukowski short story style and thematic range, however I was largely disappointed by the stories, as they are repetitive and sometimes boring (!).  Some are pretty good, but appeared in other places like "The Death of the Father", while others are pretty absurd like "I love you Albert". 

I am finishing another of his short story collections and I think I had enough of Bukowski for a while.  At least of his prose.  Maybe I will read some more of his poetry.  Maybe I will write some imitative Bukowksi poetry.  After all he is the most imitated poet in the English speaking world, so why not jump on the bandwagon.  It is kind of liberating to read his narrative poetry, without any regard for stylistic figures or metrics, with line breaks wherever he felt like, and entire dialogs and conversations woven in, so it could read like a really terse and compact short story if one removed the random line breaks and formatted it in proper paragraphs.  I think I am starting to like that.  Screw The Bard and his fucking boring sonnets.  Fuck literary rules and conventions!  Just let the blood and puss and gore and grit and shit pour out as they will!

The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the ship by Charles Bukowski

 This is a short book. It is non-fiction as it is taken from Bukowski's journal that he wrote on his new Macintosh IIfx.  Entries are taken from mid 1991 to February 1993, and as we all know, he dies of leukemia March 1994.  These are the last few years of his life.  Did he know they were the last? He writes in several entries about his own death, as if he felt it creeping in.  He is surprised that he is still alive, after all the things he has done to his body in his life.  He wonders how it would be when the milkman comes, and he cannot greet him because he's dead, or he cannot pick up the newspaper from his porch because he has died.  He finds the thought "Impossible!" 

Imagining our own death and how things would go on after we die, but without us, is such a waste of time and emotion.  It cannot be helped.  And, when the time comes, you'd be dead, so you won't be able to imagine or feel anything anyway.  It is a waste of good, given alive time.  Death will come to everyone.  No matter who.  Nobody has ever escaped death and nobody ever will.  Everything that has been born has to die.  It is the only immutable law.  Being afraid of it, freaking out about the inevitability of it, is just a waste of good, given alive time.  Being dead is like being stupid - it is only difficult for those around you (I stole that). 

Again this book contains way too many pages about horse racing.  I like his novels because they contain next to nothing about horse racing.  And the humor.  He writes in his journal entries about how much he detests people, finds them appalling, violent, stupid, basic, crazy, but also he admits that he needs them as otherwise who would change his car tires, pull out his tooth, or operate on him when he needs it.  I find his honesty refreshing.  My wife believes in reincarnation.  But why would we even reincarnate here on this tiny little speck of dust, in a side street of our galaxy, which is among trillions of other galaxies that we know about?  One Buddhist said that being incarnated as a human is so rare and such a great reward that it is like having a life saver (ring buoy) being thrown around on a surface of a stormy ocean and a turtle coming up for air once in a 100 years and the chance of the turtle having its head through the life saver.  Maybe it is true.  But also, maybe there is a joke in there.  

The people across from my apartment are fucking on the window.  Good for them.  It is dark in their apartment so I can see only shadows.  The woman is pressed against the windows with her arms up and the man is taking her from behind.  Now he threw her on the bed.  Good for them.

South of No North by Charles Bukowski

 Continuing to read all prose Bukowski wrote, I finished "South of No North" from my reading list.  As I said before, I prefer his novels as there is a continuity in the story and a clear sequence and structure.  Not so much in the short stories.  This book seems to be a collection of previous "chapbook" editions which usually contained one story and were cheap to publish (not by Bukowski, but by the actual publishers who took a chance on him).  

I like the best "All the Assholes in World and Mine" story which describes Bukowski's hemorrhoid operation and is enough to scare anybody away from having their hemorrhoids surgically removed.  I know your doctor told you there will be 1 week in bed recovery, but Bukowski found out that is more like 6-8 weeks, i.e. two months.  Good luck with that and not being able to pee or shit because of the spinal tap.

I don't like his rape fantasies, like the Penthouse story, and variations on the guy who bangs cars on the highway and then rapes the girls in them.  Rape fantasies are too vulgar, cheap and obvious - nothing much art about them.  I also dislike his "pure fiction" stories, i.e. the ones that are not based on some parts of his life as they sound hollow and fake, much like any other fiction out there, unlike the raw reality of his own life.

The last story in the book is pretty much the base for one of his later novels, and much of the material here is in a more raw and extensive form which was later reworked into parts of his novels in a much more polished and humorous way.  And enough with the horse racing instruction manuals already for God's sake - now I can go on the track and bet myself with all the instructions on horse betting I had to read from Bukowski - something I really never wanted to do, and still don't.

More Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

 This book collects further columns by Bukowski that he published in various underground newspapers, mostly Open City and LA Free Press.  Unlike the first "Notes" volume, this volume collects columns from the later life of Bukowski, after he already became famous, but he still published in underground newspapers, to honor where he came from and the decades he lived as a bum, a skid-row nobody.  

There are less autobiographical stories/columns from his early years, as he already used that material for his "Ham and Rye" and "Factotum", but there are stories and columns, especially the last one in the book, that will form the basis of parts of his later novel "Hollywood."  The cheap philosophy columns are also largely absent, as by this time Bukowski is already in his late 50s and early 60s, so he has no need of the angry philosophical lashing at the world and society, but is getting ready for his late years and his eventual departure from life.  He is more mellow and less angry than in previous columns.

I liked most his column where he talks about people diminishing him.  He talks about his liking solitude and being alone, and that when he is around people, in crowds, he talks about how being around people makes him feel diminished.  This is not to be interpreted as him being an extreme introvert, as Bukowski could be an extrovert with the best of them, but that he prefers solitude to being around people.  He says that men especially diminish him and he doesn't like hanging out with men, while women have their uses (i.e. fucking them). 

There are some stories that are developed in other places, especially the one with Robert, the ex-con, who knocks people's cars out of the highway and rapes a girl, which could be an exaggeration of another similar story in his novel "Hollywood."  Of course, there are entire stories dedicated to horse races, which are probably the most boring parts of the book, unless you're into horse races and gambling (not me).  Not too many stories here about various women, as in his later life Bukowski was settling down from his whore-chasing, and eventually married his wife who stayed with him until the end of his life, when he died of leukemia.  He says in various stories that he had sex with 2,000 or 2,500 women over the course of his life, but he immediately becomes humble and admits that most of them were whores, fat and ugly.  His longtime friend and directory of "Barfly" said that he wouldn't be inclined to sleep with any of the women he saw Bukowski gallivanting with.

This one, and the previous "Notes" volume, are good books to read after one has finished his novels (minus "Pulp", which is garbage), to see where the polished material in the novels originated from, just like reading Raymond Chandler's short stories, after reading his novels.

A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda

This is the second book, right after the Teachings of Don Juan, and is a continuation of the same story line, with Carlos returning to see Don Juan after he got defeated by the first enemy on the Path to Knowledge, Fear, at the end of the previous volume.  The emphasis in this book is on learning "Seeing" which in Don Juan's system is seeing the world and humans as they really are, consisting of energy lines, which form egg-shapes around humans and a cocoon around the planet.  Do not confuse these with the "Lay Lines" which are used for dowsing, if you believe in that. 

Don Juan uses the "Little Smoke" ally to teach Carlito about "Seeing" and also to let him see "The Guardian" at the gates of the Other World.  Don Genaro also tries to teach Carlito to see by displaying feats accomplished by the tentacles of his luminous egg, but it doesn't help.  Don Juan says that Don Genaro almost killed Carlito by trying to make him see, because he liked him a lot and wanted to help him.

At the end of the book, Don Juan tells Carlos that he doesn't really change by acquiring all this sorcerer knowledge and that he is still a luminous egg like every other human being and that he will die and disappear forever, just like everyone else.  Don Juan also demonstrates to Carlos that his belief that every moment in life is unique and unrepeatable is false.  He makes a leaf fall from a tree in the exact same way as a previous one, touching on the exact same branches, which Carlos says was like watching an instant replay on television.

This time around, I started reading the 10 books from the third, but I went back to the second before I got to the fourth because I realized I forgot many things, even though I've read it before.  I am still amazed at how Castaneda's critics take unimportant parts of his work and make them the arbiters of success or failure.  Like for example Clement Meighan and Stephen C. Thomas are amazed how Catholicism is not an important part of Don Juan's repertoire and call him decisively anti-Catholic, which is not typical of Yaqui Indians, which are fervent Catholics.  But these anthropologists are only looking at the outer, the exoteric, of which neither Don Juan nor Castaneda were interested much, but instead they cared about the inner, the esoteric knowledge, which has been passed on for thousands of years, before any of the current Indian tribes existed, and way before the white man came over the sea with his convenient religion that justifies oppression.

At one point Don Juan asks Carlos why does he assume that he is really a Yaqui Indian?  Maybe he is a Mezotec Indian, or some other tribe?  Don Juan had a very low opinion of the Indians in the Americas, and often regretted that he was born as an Indian.  He was absolutely not interested in Yaqui "group life" and similar traditions which he considered primitive superstitions,  These are the outer forms that other anthropologists and missionaries would usually see when living among these tribes.  The secrets that Don Juan was party to and which he tried to convey and teach to Carlos were infinitely older and more powerful, the true supernatural powers of the sorcerers of the dawn of time. 

Don Juan mentions that the teachings came through the Toltecs, which taught pyramid building to the Maya and inspired the space ship designs on the inner pyramid walls, but at another time he mentioned that this Secret Knowledge predates even the Toltecs, going back to the mist of the earliest times of humanity.  Basically, trying to learn the Yaqui way of life from Don Juan's and Castaneda's teachings would be like trying to learn outward Tibetan Buddhism from Gurgjieff's writings.  Both men were completely uninterested in the current superstitions and empty rituals that the common folk were wasting their time with, but instead wanted to learn the primeval secret knowledge that has been passed only to the rare ones who were chosen by "The Spirit" in an uninterrupted line from teacher to student, without anything being written down until very recently. 

Similar critics of Castaneda ask about how come Don Juan is not hostile to the Mexican state, and Mexicans in general, which massacred the Indians.  However, Don Juan, in this very volume, tells Carlos that his mother and father were brutally murdered by Mexican soldiers, while he watched, as a little boy, and then he was viciously beaten by the same soldiers, breaking several of his bones.  However, while for a long time he plotted revenge, eventually when he started advancing on the Path of Knowledge, he realized that the biggest punishment for those soldiers is that they will die and disappear into nothingness, like phantoms who never really existed, while those chosen by the Spirit, who became true warriors on the Path of Knowledge, never died in this world and moved consciously to another plane of existence.

Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda

Long time ago, when I was just entering my teen years, my uncle, once removed, who later died of Multiple Sclerosis, gave me the book "The Teachings of Don Juan" with the task to read everything else by the author.  I was mesmerized by the story inside, and also by the addendum describing the hierarchy of the spiritual beings encountered.  I wolfed down the book, and then got the next one "Separate Reality" and wolfed down that one too.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find the rest of the books, although these were the early 90s already, so Castaneda has already published 8 of the total 10 books.  My English was not that great at the time, so I had to read the first two books in Serbian/Croatian translations, where they were published in small batches, and were difficult to find.  Of course, there were none in a Macedonian translation, the domestic publishing industry being pretty much a joke.

Soon after, life took over and I forgot about my promise and Castaneda.  Some years later, when I was a sophomore in university, I remembered Castaneda again and read the third and fourth books, "Journey to Ixtlan" and "Tales of Power", however at the same time I got access (through the nascent internet) to the writings of Richard de Mille and other Castaneda critics, which resonated with me as initially I truly believed these to be works of scientific anthropology.  Also, when I found out that the last two books have to do with "Tensegrity" which critics say Castaneda lifted from some traveling Chinese teacher - I got even more disappointed, as most of the moves in "Tensegrity" seemed to be modifications of Tai Chi moves, which I was practicing at the time. So, I decided to forget about Castaneda and considered my time spent reading his books (and practicing the exercises!) to be a complete waste.  For many years.

Then, one day in the far future, after I got several degrees and moved to half a dozen different countries, older and fatter and balder, walking through a nearby neighborhood I saw "The Teachings of Don Juan" lying by the sidewalk.  It was like meeting a long-forgotten friend.  No, I didn't immediately go back to believing in everything Castaneda wrote, but it was more like nostalgia trip into my long gone past.  I did make a note to get my Castaneda books when I go back to my parents house in Europe.  And so I did last summer, but did not start reading them until this summer.  This summer I decided to actually read all ten books, but since I've already read the first one several times, and the second twice, I decided to start with the third one.  This time I was not under the belief that these books are anthropological fact, but saw them as a mixture of mysticism, biography and instruction, alike the books of Swedenborg and Gurdjieff. When you look at them through that prism, they become much more valuable, especially if you find a way to apply some techniques to your everyday life.

The third book "Journey to Ixtlan" deals with "Stopping the World", a major step in a sorcerer's life when they become separated from the delusional and unreal world around us, but make a breakthrough to the "other world" which is the only real one.  Hallucinogenic plants and drugs are completely de-emphasized, and emphasis is put on sorcerer's (Carlos') training in a different perception using his default five senses, but in a different way than normal.  Don Juan also explains the further path of the sorcerer, when one chooses whether they will be a hunter or a warrior, which is the root of the much more fine distinctions built upon in the later books.  Acquiring an Ally from the Other World and being constantly conscious of one's own impending, unavoidable death, which should serve as an advisor, not a threat, are also some of the main points discussed in this volume.  The books ends with Don Juan (Matus) and Don Genaro (Flores) leaving young Carlito to meet his ally face to face, after he succeeded in stopping the world, as they think he is ready.  But Carlito decides to leave the assigned place and go back to LA, feeling himself not ready for face to face meeting with the Ally. The journey to Ixtlan, Don Genaro's home, is a metaphor on how when the sorcerer succeeds in "Stopping the World" (which might have parallels in Gurdjieff's teachings), then the person is never the same anymore, and cannot really go back to what he thought as home before, as that place doesn't really exists for him, and all the people in his life, except sorcerers, become like phantoms, with ephemeral, unimportant existence.  The journey to Ixtlan is a journey that can never be completed, Don Juan says, and what is Ixtlan for Don Genaro, is LA for Carlos. 

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

This book is a collection of columns that Bukowski wrote for LA underground newspapers, mostly Open City, where the editors would allow him to write whatever he wants, and that's exactly what he did. Most of the columns/chapters, separated only by short vertical lines, are stream of consciousness writing with no regards to punctuation or grammar rules.  Pretty much every sentence is run-on.

The prose is dense, full of memories or musings about the nature of the world.  I prefer the stories about his past, that he actually lived through, rather than his opinions on philosophical issues, which are neither very original nor very entertaining.  Some of the columns/chapter are precursors to chapters in his later novels "Ham and Rye" and "Factotum", but in a very rudimentary form, and without much humor, which one can find in the novels, but with pure anger and frustration, with some very strong and disturbing language spread throughout (obviously not edited by an editor).  One especially memorable sentence starts with "All women are animals ..." which is a disturbing statement, though it becomes clear later what he meant and that he has a similar opinion about men as well, and the entirety of the human race.  Not sure if that makes it much better, though.

It is much more difficult to read than his novels or even short stories, even though some short stories are interspersed among the columns.  He universally refuses to use a capital letter at the beginning of sentences and there are almost no paragraph breaks or other punctuation rules that help with reading, so it is a bit of an effort to go through, but eventually it is worth it if you enjoy Bukowski sharp sarcasm, observations and rawness.

Hollywood by Charles Bukowski

This novel follows, chronologically, "Women" and in it there is no promiscuous sex, since Chinaski is now married to the last woman from "Woman" which he calls Sarah in the novel, and who is Linda in real life. As in previous books, pretty much everything in it reflects Bukowski's real life, only the names are changed, and not much either.  As one of his former USPS colleagues said in the biographical movie "Born into this" - everything in the novel "Post Office" was true, only the names were (slightly) changed - the character in question was named Tom in the novel, while he is Don in real life.  Same with Hollywood.

Lots of crazy Hollywood types in the book, but by now (2020), we're quite used to Hollywood types being brainless idiots with egos larger than the universe, so it is not as shocking as his previous books.  I think Bukowski is getting older here and almost feeling his impending death, which occurred just after he finished his last novel "Pulp" - which is his only novel where Hank Chinaski is not the main protagonist, and is not based on Bukowski's real life, which makes it, as one critic put it, "the worst American novel ever written." 

I really got sick and tired of reading about horse races and horse race gambling.  I've never been a fan of gambling in my life, as it is only for idiots who can't do math, and I learned way too much about betting on horse races than I ever wanted to know.  Also boxing matches and betting on boxing.  Don't care and never will. 

It is a good idea to see the movie "Barfly" first, so one can compare the parts in the movie with the descriptions Bukowski gives in the book.  Some parts were changed, because his script was far more brutal and anti-social than what the Hollywood producers (Firepower=Cannon) allowed.  And also, while Mickey Rourke makes a passable Chinaski, Fay Dunaway is definitely not the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed broad from Bukowski's script.

An interesting read overall, however not as vile and shocking as "Women", not as well-written as "Post Office", not as relevant as "Ham and Rye" and not as comprehensive as "Factotum."

Factotum by Charles Bukowski

This book describes the 20s and 30s of Bukowski's life.  It starts where "Ham and Rye" finishes, and ends before "Post Office" begins.  Of course, in between are the "10 years of drunken blackout" as Bukowski likes to call it.  It is written in his recognizable style, and fans will love his flowing prose and conversational writing.  It has even less women in it than "Post Office", so any accusations of misogyny would have even less proof than in his other books.

The book describes Bukowski traveling around the US: St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, etc. and working random menial jobs, from where the title of the novel comes from.  A couple of times he tries to get a job as a journalist, mentioning that he has two years of Journalism at LA City College, but editors are uninterested, and instead offer him job as a janitor, which he soon abandons.

The two important women in the book are Jan and Laura.  Jan is round-of-the-mill barfly, promiscuous alcoholic that Bukowski (Chinaski) shacks up with several times, but as he puts it, things went downhill when Jan would "not get her four fucks per day". Laura on the other hand has a rich sugar daddy, who also keeps two other women around, and she shops on his credit.  However, when the rich sugar daddy dies after consuming a bottle of vodka, the whole gig falls apart, and Chinaski says that he "never saw Laura" or the other two women again.

The 2015 movie "Factotum" is quite accurate representation of some plot points in the book, though Bukowski's writings are simply unfilmable.  The whole immersive experience in Bukowski's writings is to do with his internal dialogue, and his take on descriptions of places, things and people (with his dark humor and sarcasm), which cannot possibly be transferred to a visual medium, unless the entire thing is done as a full narration.

The 1986 movie "Barfly", for which Bukowski wrote the script, and appeared as a bar wino, and also used the experience to write a scathing novel about the film industry ("Hollywood"), is also based largely on "Factotum", but the script takes other liberties and veers off the actual book, which might a good thing, more original content.  Mickey Rourke had down the general leering, non-serious attitude that Chinaski shows in the books, but Matt Dillon is closer to how Chinaski treats other people, especially women.  Both films are interesting to watch, but nothing special in the big picture of things.  Just read the books.

"Ham on Rye" by Charles Bukowski

I always thought Mark Twain's novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were the seminal American coming-of-age works, but that was only until I read this work about Bukowski's childhood and youth. The title might be a word play on "Catcher in the Rye", another seminal coming-of-age American novel, which was actually banned for a while because it had some sex and suicide in it. If that's the criteria, then Bukowski's novel should have been banned for all times, since it has all that and way, way more.


First the random violence that his father bestows upon him is absolutely disturbing by today's standards. I read online reviews saying "that was normal in the 1930s and everybody did it", but hell, it is still disturbing, especially when teachers at school do it, like the principal who almost broke little Charles' hand to prove he is tougher than the little kid - what a psychopath!


The kids at school beating on each other, especially on the weaker ones, is also described very disturbingly, especially incidents like and older kid breaking smaller kid's teeth by shoving his mouth into a water fountain, which went unpunished. Growing up in such environment Bukowski realized that there is only one way to survive - became more asshole than all the assholes around him. And he succeeded!


 By the time he is in high school, he is one of the toughest kids around and nobody dares messing with him. That also leaves him with no friends as well, which is why he turns to alcohol about age 15 and keeps at it until the end of his life, just before his 74th birthday.


The book is written in a very flowing and conversational manner, as Bukowski always said that one should write as one speaks, and he hated the flowery, embellished language of the 19th century writers (which I actualy like, quite a bit). Things like a 13-year-old girl being raped by her father ("her father took her virginity"), suicide and egregious domestic violance are mentioned in passing, as if they are the most normal things.


Bukowski describes how he hit his own father eventually, although their relationship ended later, when his father threw out his short stories and typewriter, which Bukowski couldn't forgive (he had to draw a line somewhere).


Bukowski's advice for writers is, when a story or a chapter is finished, delete the first and last paragraphs, so this book ends pretty much in mid-page, mid-action, just like it starts.

Women by Charles Bukowski

This is probably one of the most controversial works by Bukowski, although all his works are more or less controversial.  It depicts the period of his life when he was already quite famous, though not famous enough to stop with the public readings.  Later on he started making enough money from royalties, so he stopped appearing in public, which he always hated, as he hated crowds, fakers, posers, and most people in general. 

The book describes his relationships with about a dozen women, who, with one or two exceptions, were all crazier than him, greater addicts than him, and more promiscuous than him, which is quite an achievement.  The longest relationship is with Lydia Vance, actually Linda King in real life, who comes across as a total psycho, though Bukowski rose up to be her equal, even breaking her nose in a fight once.  The other women are always-high-on-uppers Tammy, who slept around as much as she could, and even offered to blow her own brother; Katherine, a Texas cutie, who doesn't stay long, Iris, a British Columbian waitress with a hot body, Tanya, who couldn't give good blow jobs, and many others.

There are lots of accusations of misogyny thrown Bukowski's way because of this book, however he was always surprised by that, often repeating that he treats men much worse than women in his novels, and yet nobody complains about that.  Indeed the men in the novel are all opportunists, cowards, thieves, frauds, weaklings, without morals and generally unlikable. 

The book ends after he finally decides to shack up with Sara, who is a devotee of Dryer Baba (Meher Baba), and doesn't let him fuck her in the vagina until the very end of the book.  He talks a lot about "mounting" women for sex, and I guess many people take offense to that, but it is just another of his mannerisms and ways of speaking, which makes his prose more interesting to read. 

"Post Office" by Charles Bukowski

I've read some of Bukowski's poetry long time ago, when I was not much into reading poetry (you need to get old for that), so I soon forgot about it until recently (somehow) I remember him again and decided to read a novel from him - his first novel.

He wrote it in less than a month, and it is pretty short.  It probably would not have published today where publisher expect 700-page novels because they sell better to half-brained customers who do not know better.  It is pretty good though.

Pretty much everything in the novel is scaled down to the absolute minimum.  It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk's writings, but without the agenda. The novel describes the 10 or so years that he spent working for the US Post Office and all the ins and out of job plus all the ladies he shacked with during that time.  The US Post office is described like something from a Kafka or Orwell novel, employing imbeciles with imbecilic rules and dark career prospects.  He describes how he was assigned the worst routes, because he always gave lip to his supervisors and never gave a damn about their imaginary authority. 

His descriptions of the women he lived with are very rudimentary, as he wasn't fully aware who they were.  That's probably true since he was drunk most of the time when he wasn't working and most of the working time he was hungover, so very little mental capacity remained to get to know someone deeper (except himself), besides the default biological, physiological and companionship needs.

I enjoyed his curt and to-the-point style, though, nowadays so much extreme garbage has been written, his expressions don't seem all that edgy anymore.

"12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" by Jordan Peterson

I read this book after watching many hours of JBP's videos and reading the blog on his web site. A couple of weeks ago I saw the video from his daughter Mikhaila that he is going through a chemical detox in Russia, and I wish him all the best. He has some great things to say, and should definitely be allowed to speak, although I don't really agree with everything he puts forward. I am especially peeved by the frequent and extensive recourses to Biblical stories. Not because they are not important, after all, many of us spent hours upon hours during our teenage years going to Bible School, but because those same things could have been said through a different reference, and there have been many of those in the past 2,000 years. Although the Bible contains plenty of common sense wisdom, there are also plenty of cringe inducing passages, especially in the Old Testament, like the one where it is OK to rape a girl as long as you pay 50 shekels of silver to her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). No, it doesn't make it better that the passage tells the rapist to marry the girl. Who wants to marry their rapist??? Passages like that one make those of us who were born and raised in Christianity look for answers to life's questions outside the Bible. 

 
I thought the book started very strongly. I really enjoyed the allegory with the lobsters. I read some criticisms as to why he chose lobsters, and JBP actually answered that in the book - he was looking for a species that is as low as possible on the evolutionary scale while having serotonin as a regulatory mechanism, similar to humans. Some people just don't pay attention to what they read, if they read at all. There was this lady who wrote a review of this book for the "National Post" and it was blindingly obvious that she only read the first couple of chapters and then just the titles of the following ones. Yes, the book is 450 pages, but if you're going to write a review for a national newspaper, you better suck it up and read all of it! She didn't understand the points of the later chapters because JBP intentionally uses playful titles that are only tangentially related to the content of the chapter, in order to punish careless readers.

I liked the next few chapters as well. Pretty strong points and references from JBP's life and clinical practice. The middle of the book disappointed me though, with all the Bible stories and long winded explanations, most of which are not explained in his trademark straightforward language and go in circles for too long. The book picks up again towards the end, and I especially liked the last "Coda" chapter where he talks about how he got the idea to write this book and about the "Illuminated Pen" and the conversations with God that he was having. I am sure Catholic Priests would not approve of the JBP's version of the Biblical God, but maybe it is a good sign that he pisses off people on both sides of the spectrum. 

I am going to leave the criticism there, and the below chapter-based content is my attempt to summarize what I got out of each of the chapters.

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Physical posture is important for emotional well being. Maybe you cannot control your emotions but you can control your physical body. Do it. 

2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
It is easy to give way to the nihilism of your internal critical voice. Don't. Think of yourself as of a someone who you like and would like to help. 

3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
Often friendships happen just because you are at the same time at the same place. Don't choose your friends by proximity and convenience, but choose those who actually want you to succeed. There won't be many.

4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
Comparison disease is a recipe for misery. You don't know how other people got where they are, so don't compare. The only person you know everything about is you, so only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. 

5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
For young parents: don't allow your children everything. Don't think they are allowed to do whatever in the name of some creativity or similar bullshit. Discipline them when they disobey.

6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
Often "changing the world" is an excuse not to deal with your own problems. Deal with your own problems first. Run as fast as you can from people and groups (cults) who claim they want to "change the world".

7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Basically don't do what is easy and immediately available. Delay your pleasure. Delay your fulfillment until it is bigger and more meaningful.

8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
This is probably the most difficult one. Often we don't know what the truth is because we lie to ourselves so much and so constantly. At least try to tell the truth. Not your truth. THE truth.

9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
This is difficult because we're always engaged in an unending monologue in our heads. It is very difficult to actually listen as opposed to just waiting for your turn to speak.

10. Be precise in your speech
Don't ramble. Don't just chatter like a broken machine. Stop. Be silent. Think. Formulate a proper, truthful response. Then speak.

11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
Let your children take risks. Don't overprotect them. Let them make mistakes no matter how painful it is for you.

12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
Your life is NEVER going to be all fine. Don't wait for that moment. Take things as they happen, good and bad. Set aside time to deal with the bad, but don't brood and spend every waking moment on them. Enjoy the little moments you can even when surrounded by horrible circumstances.

"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I've had this book as a required reading in High School and never read it.  I always hated reading "required" readings. Then I saw it mentioned through many other books, not the least in Dan Simmons' works (sci fi, of all things!) and still didn't read it. Does that mean that I have some kind of resistance towards Russian writers, like many in the west (even without admitting it)?  Maybe, but maybe I was just lazy, and I was to busy reading the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, and wanting to be a Witcher, as a liberation from the chains of western industrialized society and the expectations thereof.

Finally, Dr. Peterson's constant reference to the works of Solzhenitsyn made me reach for the kindle version of Ivan Denisovich, since the multi-volume, thousands-of-pages, "Gulag Archipelago" seemed too intimidating to start, with family and work obligations and all that jazz.  It is a short book, but powerful.  It reads very easy in English translation, and I guess, the same is true for the Russian original.  It is a shocking book.  Ivan Denisovich Shukov is in a 'special camp' in Kazakhstan, working outside, with the other prisoners, 14 hour days in -40C temperatures, and they are only allowed to have a thin coat as a protection, bad boots, and no heating from a stove.

It all happens in one day, from waking up in the dark before dawn, to coming back to the barracks, long after dark.  The details are striking.  The thin stew that is the highlight of the day because everybody is trying to get more.  The way the prisoners wrap themselves in rags and pieces of discarded cloth just to protect from the instant frostbite, even though they never get to be really warm.  The random beatings, the "cells" where the rule breakers are sent, and which mean almost certain death from cold and starvation.  The real horror of the communist gulags is revealed without making any accusations, any argumentation, just plain describing the objective reality of the daily life in these degenerate products of the sick human minds.

The pleasure with which Shukov eats his food is described in such heart-wrenching detail, one instantly feels for the guy, whose only pleasure and hope in life consists of the bite of an occasional piece of dry sausage or sucking the juice from a fish bone.  It makes one think how ungrateful we are today just for the fact that our stomachs (for most of us) are always full.  Of course, Shukov is Solzhenistyn, who spent 10 years in a "special" gulag, after which he was exiled from the Soviet Union and wasn't admitted back until the SU fell apart.

This book is a definite verdict on the horrors of a communist society, however Solzhenitsyn was not treated all that well in exile in the West, especially the US.  The yanks expected that he will be eternally grateful and praise the US society to high heavens, but Solzhenitsyn was a man who speaks his mind without regard to any power that be, and his critique of western society and way of living was just as stinging.  He is famous for his address at a Harvard Commencement, criticizing the West for its materialistic ways and slavery to money.  It was not well received, and he was never invited back.