Una notte niente male

by Charles Bukowski, Simona Viciani (Translator)

Una raccolta postuma di poesie dalla forte valenza narrativa, in cui si ritrovano i temi che Charles Bukowski ha trattato in modo mirabile in tutta la sua opera, e soprattutto quell'America sotterranea miserabile, clandestina, pezzente considerata il leit-motiv della produzione bukowskiana. Sono tutti componimenti fortemente autobiografici, dal momento che il loro protagonista è la classica controfigura di Bukowski, quell'Henry Chinaski ubriacone, scommettitore, gran frequentatore di prostitute spesso presente nei suoi lavori. Come sempre, in questi versi si rincorrono e si intersecano ulcere devastanti, invettive, maledizioni, vittorie di Pirro e tutte le altre espressioni di disagio e malcontento che sono state il "marchio di fabbrica" di Bukowski.

Genres: Poetry

231 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2008

About the author

Henry Charles Bukowski (born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books

Charles Bukowski was the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred a ten-year stint of heavy drinking. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. He worked a wide range of jobs to support his writing, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.

Bukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. His first book of poetry was published in 1959; he went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including Pulp (1994), Screams from the Balcony (1993), and The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992).

He died of leukemia in San Pedro on March 9, 1994.

Reviews

[Lorenzo Danesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"like a polluted river flowing

the freeways are a psychological
entanglement of
warped souls,
dying flowers in the dying hour
of the dying day.

old cars, young drivers,
new models driven by
aged men, driven by
drivers without licenses, by drunk
drivers, by drugged drivers,
by suicidal drivers, by super-cautious
drivers (the worst).

drivers with minds like camels,
drivers who piss in their seats,
drivers who yearn to kill,
drivers who love to gamble,
drivers who blame everybody else,
drivers who hate everybody,
drivers who carry guns.

drivers who don’t now what
rearview
mirrors are for,
what the turn signals are for,
drivers who drive without brakes,
drivers who drive on bald tires.

drivers who drive slowly in the fast lane,
drivers who hate their wives or their husbands,
and want to make you pay for that.
unemployed drivers, pissed.

all these represent
humanity in general, totally enraged, demented,
vengeful, spiteful, cheap denizens of our culture, vultures,
jackals, sharks, suckerfish, stingrays, lice…

all on the freeway along with you
tailgating,
cutting in and out,
cheating themselves,
leering,
their radios blaring the worst music ever written,
their gas tanks nearly empty,
engines overheating,
minds over the next hill,
they don’t know how to drive
or live,
they know less than a snail crawling home.

they are what you see every day
going from nowhere to nowhere,
they elect presidents, procreate, decorate their
Christmas trees.

what you see on the freeway is just what there is,
a funeral procession of the dead,
the greatest horror of our time in motion.

I’ll see you there tomorrow!"

[chiara_librofilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raccolta di poesie postume che spaziano tra tematiche sociali e psicologiche e che riflettono appieno la natura selvaggia, ribelle e dannata di Charles Bukowski, rappresentando una critica ironica e spietata verso la società bigotta e ben pensante e verso i mali che l’affliggono, compreso il cinismo, lo squallore, l’egoismo e l’ipocrisia.
Tra le cose che ho più apprezzato di questa raccolta c'è il sentirsi sempre fuori luogo di Charles Bukowski, il suo desiderio di inondare la sua vita di parole e di eccessi, la sua disillusione, il suo ribrezzo verso l’umanità intera e quella sua costante inclinazione verso la provocazione.