the missing piece

by shel silverstein

is one of the most delightful and profound stories i have ever read.
just.

factotum

by Charles Bukowski

this book does not sit well with my current state of mind. it's either that, or it works perfectly well for my current state of mind. in either case, (and i mean this in the most phenomenal way possible), it's a messed up book about messed up people in messed up states of mind. through endless whiskeys, perpetual hangovers and countless fucks, through terrifically sexy women, the most nonchalant of bosses and the most mindless of jobs, henry chinaski is either looking for himself in the least profound way possible, or he's making an effort to lose himself in all of this.

i ought to mention how he talks about jobs - there's a comment very early in the book that i loved - "that's when I realised that it's not enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest for it, even a passion for it." and, most evidently, mr. chinaski doesn't. not in his job, not in anything, really. but the point isn't about mr. chinaski, the point is how well bukowski writes the mindless, assembly-line jobs, talking about exactly why they suck. i'd write a longer, more involved comment about why this is fascinating to me, but right now, two hours into finishing the book, that's not what i'm caught up with.

what i am knocked into a daze by, is how well he makes it all okay. being lost. or losing oneself. whichever. not having intimate relationships. not having anything to ground you. at the same time, the writer-self in the background is just as fascinating. because, for all his not giving a fuck, he does have something he does passionately - he incessantly writes. he has parents that he did fall back on. and hot meals. (the women. that's a whole mess by itself, that i don't even want to think about yet.)

anyway, it's just gone and messed with my head and i'm probably going to read more bukowski this month because you know i can't tell if it's a good thing or bad that i know something is just going to pull me into this shit further.

it was just a little while ago

by Charles Bukowski

almost dawn
blackbirds on the telephone wire
waiting
as I eat yesterday's
forgotten sandwich
at 6 a.m.
an a quiet Sunday morning.

one shoe in the corner
standing upright
the other laying on it's
side.

yes, some lives were made to be
wasted.

**

(it's that kind of day. deal with it.)

An Almost Made Up Poem

by Charles Bukowski

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it' all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I' not jealous
because we' never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame -- not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they' told
us, but listening to you I wasn' sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, " her, print her, she' mad but she'
magic. there' no lie in her fire." I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn' happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn' help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.
I JUST REMEMBERED MY RESOLUTION ABOUT NOT TO START SERIES THAT HAVEN'T YET BEEN FINISHED. I ALSO REMEMBERED WHY. BLOODY HELL, PATRICK ROTHFUSS, I WANT THE THIRD BLOODY BOOK.
gah.
i'll probably un-cap this post later, but WHAT THE HELL, 2014! for ONE BOOK. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

patrick rothfuss

is my new favorite. (this is a good month for my reading already, i feel.)

apart from the fact that i've read name of the wind twice over in the past three weeks, i just started reading wise man's fear - and i'm unable to tear myself away from the book. i love the way he builds his story. over three days books, this man, kvothe, who's a hero in this world, tells someone his story. so he just sort of starts with saying "oh, so today i'm going to tell you how i did this-that-and-the-other-thing", and you have no idea what these things are but he goes on to pull the earth from under your feet nevertheless.

an excerpt from wise man's fear:

“I have an apple that thinks it is a pear,” she said, holding it up. “And a bun that thinks it is a cat. And a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce.”

“It’s a clever lettuce then.”

“Hardly,” she said with a delicate snort. “Why would anything clever think it was a lettuce?”

“Even if it is a lettuce?” I asked.

“Especially then,” she said. “Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.”

something to tell you

i officially love hanif kureshi. from the very first page of 'something to tell you', he had me reeling with love. nothing but love. let me explain:

"Secrets are my currency: I deal in them for a living. The secrets of desire, of what people really want, and of what they fear the most. The secrets of why love is difficult, sex complicated, living painful and death so close and yet placed far away. Why are pleasure and punishment closely related? How do our bodies speak? Why do we make ourselves ill? Why do you want to fail? Why is pleasure so hard to bear?"

these are the opening lines of the book.
what can i say, he had me at 'secrets'.
:)

codex alera

okay, so in three days i have all but devoured the first three books of the codex alera series. don't look at me like that, okay? i do indeed have a life - i just happen to have a choice about whether or not i get any work done. the thing i like best about this series is that i don't have to wait years and years and years to know how it ends. i (ha! take THAT, robertjordanandbrandonsandersonandjkrowlingandkategriffinandjasperffordeandamitavfrickinghoshalsobah).
i also really, really like the way jim butcher writes cheesy love. sigh.