[HN Gopher] The tragic rape of Charles Bukowski's ghost by Black...
___________________________________________________________________
The tragic rape of Charles Bukowski's ghost by Black Sparrow Press
(2013)
Author : Melchizedek
Score : 174 points
Date : 2022-01-21 09:18 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mjpbooks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mjpbooks.com)
| g5095 wrote:
| I'm hardly a SJW but it's 2022, can we stop equating rape which
| is a shockingly violent violation/assult of a real a human being
| with anything less. I'm sure I'm gonna get slammed for this but
| whatever.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's 2022, can't we stop conflating analogies and metaphors
| with "morally equating"?
|
| When we "kill" a program there's no life murdered or equivalent
| moral issue involved either.
|
| But I don't take issue with the wording just because I've had a
| relative killed in a bad situation. And I don't think anybody
| should (or if they do, they should get over it).
| elefantastisch wrote:
| At issue is not whether analogies and metaphors are a type of
| morally equating. At issue is whether it is appropriate to
| use a particularly severe term in a decidedly less severe
| manner.
|
| "Kill" is used in many less severe circumstances. We kill
| plants and mold and bacteria. "Kill" does not nearly
| universally refer a specific severe act with a real human
| victim. Notice we don't murder programs.
|
| Regardless of historical usage (words do not have some innate
| meaning which persists through all time), the current usage
| of the word is almost exclusively limited to a very
| particular crime. A better comparison would be "genocide". We
| should ask ourselves how we would feel about a company
| transitioning from cross-platform to a single OS being
| described as committing a genocide of other OS users. Or even
| better, we should ask actual survivors of genocide how they
| would feel.
|
| And in this case, survivors are already telling us how they
| feel. For example: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stop-
| saying-rape-out-of-conte...
|
| There are terms which because of their specificity and
| severity (in modern usage) cannot be used metaphorically
| without calling to mind the non-metaphorical meaning. This is
| quite distinct from more standard metaphors which we barely
| recognize as metaphors at all (no one thinks of a sprinter
| when we ask them to run a program).
|
| Regardless of what decision we end up making on what terms we
| are comfortable using, we can recognize that not all violent
| terms are equal in how concretely they call to mind their
| violent meaning when used metaphorically and that victims of
| violence are speaking out about the usage of certain terms.
| How we should respond to that is a judgment call we all have
| to make.
| dpark wrote:
| > _At issue is not whether analogies and metaphors are a
| type of morally equating._
|
| He literally used the word "equating".
|
| > _Notice we don 't murder programs._
|
| And if someone does say that, will you swoop in to tell
| them that it's inappropriate? Because I have absolutely
| heard people use the word "murder" metaphorically.
|
| > _And in this case, survivors are already telling us how
| they feel._
|
| Interestingly those are all cases where I can easily
| imagine someone saying "murder" instead of "rape". I also
| think those examples are pretty flippant and waste the
| impact of the word.
|
| For the record, I think this particular use of the word
| "rape" to describe the poem's butchering is reasonable. The
| work shown was utterly destroyed.
| elefantastisch wrote:
| My intention is not to argue that the usage is
| inappropriate. Sure, it's probably obvious from my post
| that I think it is, but that's not the argument I was
| trying to make. And I'm certainly not trying to silence
| anyone (as the other replier pointed out one should not)
| because of their word choice. I didn't downvote/flag any
| of what I'm replying to.
|
| The argument I'm trying to make is first that it's not
| arbitrary to question the use of this word but not "kill"
| or other violent words. There is a distinction because of
| the specificity and linguistic contexts in which the word
| is used.
|
| And second that because it's not arbitrary, the
| complaints from survivors are also not arbitrary and
| should be considered--not taken as absolute unassailable
| truth, but considered.
|
| For comparison, I can imagine those who lost loved ones
| in the infamous Air France Flight 447 might be upset to
| be reminded of Air France. But Air France is a 10+
| billion euro company operating hundreds if not thousands
| of flights per day. It is stunningly rare that "Air
| France" is used to refer to that accident and on balance,
| I think most would conclude Air France is of positive or
| neutral impact to the world. I would be quite suspect of
| an argument that "Air France" is inappropriate language.
|
| On the other extreme you have a term like "Holocaust"
| which effectively has no other meaning or usage than a
| reference to that genocide.
|
| Now you may conclude that no usage of any word is
| inherently inappropriate, and if that's the case, we're
| simply at an impasse, and I'm fine with that. I won't try
| to stop you or change your mind. But for most people, I
| think there is a point where the triviality of the use
| and the severity of the word add up to inappropriateness.
|
| It's not clear-cut. You'd probably be hard pressed to
| find anyone genuinely bothered by "killing" a process.
| But you also won't find too many people who would defend
| say... being kicked out of a bar for causing a drunken
| fight being described as being persecuted like in the
| Holocaust. There's a spectrum.
|
| So my point is just this... there are some logical
| reasons why many people consider a usage like this
| article on the inappropriate side of the spectrum. We can
| at least acknowledge that and recognize that there's a
| legitimate judgment call to be made here. We aren't in
| "killing a process" territory. And we certainly aren't in
| arbitrary word policing because we happen to be bothered
| by it territory.
|
| Unless of course you fundamentally disagree that any
| metaphor could be inappropriate because of the thing
| which is alluded to in the metaphor. In which case we're
| just starting from different fundamental assumptions,
| which is fine. I'm not trying to challenge anyone's
| values.
|
| I'll end here. There are obviously legitimate grievances
| in the article regardless of the word choice in titling
| it, and I've done enough to derail the discussion of
| those already. For that, I apologize.
| eezurr wrote:
| Personally I think people should be free to say what they
| want to. And people are free to react the way they want to
| too. But neither side should have the power to silence the
| other.
|
| Also since this submission hasnt been downvoted into
| oblivion, your personal, anecdotal reaction is not the norm
| (on HN)
| g5095 wrote:
| user-the-name wrote:
| Indeed. Rape is what Bukowski wrote about doing.
| dandare wrote:
| That was my first thought as well, but then I realised there is
| a big difference when one just grossly exaggerates (e.g.
| "touching someone without consent is rape") and when the word
| is used with poetic licence. Rape of a ghost is clearly not
| meant literally.
| Mizza wrote:
| This is textbook usage of an alternate dictionary definition of
| the word, not just usage for hyperbolic shock factor. Though
| obviously, it is a word which carries a lot of weight.
| mixedCase wrote:
| I got the impression that was the point, to exaggerate.
|
| But I can't help but wonder, would you had felt the same way
| had the author chosen other shockingly violent acts such as
| "disembowelment", "lobotomy", "castration", or "amputation"?
| user-the-name wrote:
| Those do not happen to a sizeable fraction of the population.
| Rape does.
| dpark wrote:
| Is that really the deciding factor? What percentage of the
| population it happens to?
|
| Why?
| _jal wrote:
| Those are also over the top, but comparing text editing to
| violent sexual domination is well past the American taste for
| absurd overstatement, and just comes across like a silly,
| blinkered person overly absorbed in their little drama.
|
| It works against the author's apparent interest. They throw
| the dials to 11 as a bit of norm-setting editorializing about
| supposed severity of the unjust edits, but it just ends up
| being more bullshit clickbait, blending in to the background
| of every! other! desperate! headline!
| twox2 wrote:
| I disagree. It's very fitting within the context of
| Bukowski's work.
| tokai wrote:
| Too me all those words are over exaggerated. Nothing close to
| that has been done to Bukowski. His work is being
| misconstrued, and that's bad enough. Turns out rights holders
| are usually scum.
|
| I guess it depends on how much you like Bukowski if it feels
| overdone or not.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Since the topic is poetry, I took it as a somewhat literary
| allusion: eg. "The Rape of the Lock".
| throwaway37388 wrote:
| This is 2022, this term is very diluted now.
| dokem wrote:
| You're free to use, or not use, what ever words you like. Also,
| why is rape such a bad word but not murder or torture or
| suicide?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| There are billions of survivors of rape living and trying to
| cope, and it is wrong to trivialize their experience by
| comparing it to a misguided editor trying to make some bad
| poetry better.
|
| Murder and torture and suicide occur at nowhere near the same
| scale, and in two of those the primary victims are not around
| to suffer poor choice of words. For what it's worth, I also
| wish we didn't speak so trivially of "killing" e.g. UNIX
| processes. "Rape" is an easy word to avoid.
| dokem wrote:
| Yes I agree it's a strong word with strong connotations.
| It's good to have such words and make a language strong and
| effective. You seem to be equating use of the word rape
| with the act of rape. Maybe we should also not use the word
| war, maybe we should not speak at all because someone is
| trying to cope with something. It shouldn't be used in a
| professional environment, but out in the world or on the
| internet who are you to play hall monitor?
| [deleted]
| golemotron wrote:
| Now do "violence."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >can we stop equating rape which is a shockingly violent
| violation/assult of a real a human being with anything less
|
| sure, we can but in fact using rape as a metaphor for really
| bad things that one person does to another person is not used
| to downgrade rape but really to point a finger at why the thing
| being done is bad. Because rape has power as a bad thing.
|
| Sure, but I mean we must not use rape as an analogy for
| anything that is not rape, holocaust for anything that is not
| holocaust, fraud must only be used for things that are legally
| prosecutable as fraud and so forth. The language must be
| cleaned and simplified, metaphor and analogy while a seemingly
| necessary component of the human mind must be excised.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| You don't get it, do you?
|
| This asswipe, Martin. He fucked up Bukowski's poems. With his
| mincing, middle-class stink.
|
| Oh, it's not a _dirty_ poem anymore, it 's a _vulgar_ one. By
| the time he 's done, it sounds like _Bukowski_ went to Vassar.
|
| Now you? You're going to mince around like this too?
|
| But Michael Phillips -- _he_ respects Bukowski. _He_ knows how
| to write. _He_ uses the right goddamn word in the right goddamn
| place.
|
| Like: "castrating". Because Martin took the balls from his
| poems. "shitty". Because he shat all over them. "unmolested".
| Because it's like he diddles kids.
|
| That's the same thing you're doing. You're trying to castrate
| Phillips. And you know what that is?
|
| Rape.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| To be honest though, while I don't like what Martin did to
| the poems, and while he should never have taken those
| liberties with them, I sort of get what he was trying to do
| with the example Phillips gave.
|
| By changing "ancient" to "medieval" and "dirty" to "vulgar",
| he's trying to invoke the switch from Church Latin to the
| _vulgate_. I mean, there 's the organ music in the
| background, the red wine like the blood of Christ. And then
| he's saying, "Look at Charles Bukowski, he writes in the
| language of the common people".
|
| He then reinforces "no vulgarity" later. An addition about
| "clean[ing] up my act" is also there, to go with the
| "cleaning the shit stains" (now also explicitly "cleaning").
| Which is about devulgarifying the poems.
|
| To go along with all this he makes the poem about why he
| writes "like" that, not just "why he writes". To make clear
| that it's about why the poems are vulgar specifically, not
| why the poems exist at all.
|
| And then he emphasizes that Bukowski is pleased with the
| result (he puts "pleased" in twice).
|
| So there's a logic to it. It's a little pedantic and a little
| pretentious. And it changes the meaning of the poem. And it
| does some of the very devulgarification it's talking about.
| But it's not totally dumb.
| ambrozk wrote:
| But what about all the ghosts who're reading this who might
| have also been victims of tragic sexual abuse?
| djmips wrote:
| Give me a break. Can't he have an opinion? I guess you're
| raping the OP.
| [deleted]
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I happen to agree, but I feel the need to explain why "rape" is
| used this way.
|
| The original meaning of the word was "to take by force". Using
| it to exclusively describe sexual assault is a more modern
| thing.
|
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/rape
|
| This kind of double meaning in English is very common. The word
| murder can also be used as "to perform badly".
|
| A way to look at it is English often has two forms of words
| like this. There is murder (general) and there is Murder
| (specific).
|
| As someone who is bipolar, the "misuse" of labels around mental
| health is aggravating. The misuse of "rape" is the same.
|
| The general usage of words dilutes the impact of the specific
| use. I'd love to bring back capital letters to English nouns.
| That way we could use Murder and murder to clarify what which
| meaning is used.
| tokai wrote:
| But the 'take by force' meaning does not make sense, as
| nothing is being taken from anyone. While its a literary
| crime, Black Sparrow Press is not doing something they don't
| have the right to do.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| You're taking a direct translation of the root words
| literally and only applying it to mean legal rights and
| excluding moral or ethical rights.
|
| In this case, they are taking the original work, corrupting
| it, and passing it off as the original. Legal, but
| definitely not moral or ethical.
|
| I think "rape" is a little strong, but not inaccurate.
| tokai wrote:
| >root words literally and only applying it to mean legal
| rights
|
| No I'm not.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| If this bothers you, definitely don't read Bukowski. He
| uses offensive metaphors that could cause serious damage to
| you!
| smoyer wrote:
| I also came here to complain about this use of the word
| "rape". If you titled this article "The Tragic Rape of
| Charles Bukowski's Poetry", then it would be used solely as
| the original meaning. The current title is specifically
| designed to invoke the idea of a sexual assault - what if the
| title used the word "Corpse" instead of "Ghost"?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It definitely could. Depends on the meaning of "ghost". In
| context of the article, I took ghost to mean "legacy",
| rather than the person.
|
| English is frustratingly imprecise.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| The imprecision is a very human and cultural aspect of
| language where much poetry sneaks in, though.
|
| If we all spoke Lojban, I'm sure the poetry would be very
| precise, but I wonder if it could convey the same things.
| itisit wrote:
| I think the vulgarity is very much in line with the subject
| matter.
| adolph wrote:
| I think the word would be "Corpus" not "Corpse."
|
| Also, is sexual contact with a corpse rape? As of 2015 it
| was not in Massachusetts and many other US states:
|
| _When you die, you lose your status as a person, Troyer
| explains, although you are still human, your body or your
| remains are quasi property. "You're not really a subject,
| but you're not fully an object," he says._
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/04/necrop
| h...
| adultSwim wrote:
| Thank you.
| aaron695 wrote:
| dhosek wrote:
| One of the most interesting things to do in terms of looking at
| editorial changes is to read side-by-side _What We Talk About
| When We Talk About Love_ and _Beginners_ by Raymond Carver. The
| latter is the unedited version of his collected stories. It 's
| really fascinating to see how Gordon Lish really formed what
| people think of as Carver's style, although there are some really
| odd changes like the number of a hotel room was changed from
| Carver's original to Lish's version. In this case, though, I
| personally believe that Lish's editorial changes definitely
| improved Carver's work and while Carver originally disagreed, you
| can see the lasting impact on his style in his later works.
| worik wrote:
| Do not use the term rape for anything but serious sexual assault.
| Deeply offensive.
| bobberkarl wrote:
| This is a stupid comment. Policing language will bring you
| nowhere.
| kentrado wrote:
| That's subjective. The meaning of words depends heavily in the
| context they are used.
| dentemple wrote:
| And we're even talking about poetry! A subject that's
| famously all about playing with the meanings of words.
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| _Rape_ isn 't originally sexually connoted and broadly means
| _taken by force_.
| bambax wrote:
| Bukowski dead drunk on French TV in 1978:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C99h2r8txh4
|
| At the time there were only 3 channels, and that show was very
| popular, so it's a famous moment. What I find surprising is how
| elegant he is, even in that situation.
| tokai wrote:
| (2013)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| could maybe considered similar to what Griswold
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Wilmot_Griswold did to Poe.
| Haneant wrote:
| Hoasi wrote:
| These "corrections" are indeed a serious crime. And such a
| letdown from an old Bukowski friend.
| aasasd wrote:
| When I recently listened to an audiobook of Kafka's 'The Process'
| in English, it turned out to be based on a new edition, which
| explained that Max Brod originally applied some of his own
| editing to Kafka's manuscripts before releasing the books. And
| that the proper order of the chapters is currently unknown--
| whether because of Kafka or of Brod. Plus, apparently old
| translations of the book to English also mangled the words
| plentifully, introducing even more confusion. So there was some
| effort by modern editors to at least put the chapters in the
| order that makes more sense, and translate the text more
| straightforwardly.
| Finnucane wrote:
| I'm not a Bukowski fan in particular, but I have worked as an
| editor, and I can't imagine _any_ writer I 've worked with
| accepting that kind of heavy-handed rewriting of their works. For
| myself, I never tried to rewrite an author's work, generally the
| idea is to try to get the writer to do the work and follow your
| feedback willingly. When the writer is deceased you have fewer
| options, but I think you pretty much have to accept it as is, and
| say, this is what we have.
| dahak27 wrote:
| Is it common for editors to add to a writer's text? My naive
| assumption was that they often cut and re-structure and maybe
| suggest re-wording, but I'm surprised to see an editor actively
| add content that wasn't there at all
| Bayart wrote:
| Editors are to writing what rubber ducks are to debugging
| [1]. Their point is to make an author a better one, not
| another one.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
| mewse-hn wrote:
| Editors do participate in revisions quite a lot and for them
| to suggest additions is probably common. To take a writer's
| work posthumously, change it so drastically that you've
| reversed the meaning of paragraphs ("I lost at the track" ->
| "I won at the track"), and then publish it _as that author 's
| work_ without their involvement, I think that's beyond the
| pale.
| Finnucane wrote:
| The main point is that the process should be collaborative.
| Both parties are in agreement that the changes improve the
| result. And, I, for one, had no desire to do the author's
| work for them.
| dmitriid wrote:
| That example at the end is just so cringeworthy. The editor
| deserves to be dragged through the mud for basically re-writing
| the entire work.
| masswerk wrote:
| While word replacements and omissions are bad enough, I totally
| fail to understand why anyone would have thought that these
| meandering additions were a good thing? How is this even
| editing?
|
| Edit: While substitutions and what you do, when your Mom sees
| you writing a piece and points at a word, asking, if you maybe
| could do without it, are a not so much a necessary thing, the
| writer of this comment doesn't fully understand how this is the
| professional accomplishment that it is. Last Christmas, I
| didn't go skiing. How is this even editing? ;-)
| akudha wrote:
| It never ceases to amaze me that people think they can get
| away with very obvious stuff, like this editor for example.
| Bukowski is not some unknown author - he has a good
| following.
|
| Did this editor really think nobody would notice? That nobody
| would get pissed and complain? I just don't get it
| toyg wrote:
| There is clearly a pathological element in such an
| operation, whether it was by Martin or someone else.
| Inserting yourself in the work of somebody else can be a
| power move, or a subconscious desire to get noticed - like
| a serial killer leaving signature clues. Or it could be a
| misguided commercial consideration, that Bukowski can be
| "too sad / depressing / offensive" and so he needs to be
| toned down to sell more books.
|
| Besides, Bukowski the writer is famous but Bukowski the
| poet, like all poetry, enjoys very limited popularity.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| For those who do not know Bukowski's work and wonder why a drunk
| post office worker gets so much attention, check out Bluebird:
| https://allpoetry.com/poem/8509539-Bluebird-by-Charles-Bukow...
| ms-fellag wrote:
| A couple of weeks ago i was surprised to discover his "16-bit
| Intel 8088 chip" poem : https://allpoetry.com/16-bit-
| Intel-8088-chip
| mlyle wrote:
| He wrote this on a Mac IIsi--
| https://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/charles-
| bukow...
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Although I had read him, I did not have a Bukowski "phase" that
| many do. I was introduced to him by a man who had worked for
| the United States Postal Service, which he frequently derided.
| He said to me, "If you want to find someone who hates the
| Postal Service more than I do, check this out ..."
|
| Well, I did, and read other things, and eventually began to
| recognize his contribution to culture, which is kind of a last
| step before my awareness of a particular author might fade, the
| way "The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California" turns up in
| the concept for the Tom Petty video for "Mary Jane's Last
| Dance," and so on; I recognize, nod, and forget. I hadn't
| thought about him in years until I stumbled across "The
| Laughing Heart" as I was in a late night fit of hating my job.
| A part went "... be on the watch. the gods will offer you
| chances," which struck me as a kind of admonition. It was one I
| took to heart, because a "chance" happened not long after and
| I, in a rare fit of boldness, took it.
|
| Some of his short stories stood out, the fantastical ones, and
| of course the poetry. The poetry here is just ... well, one can
| imagine the early transporters in the Trek universe not working
| particularly well. Something emerges at the other end, it has a
| similar shape to it but doesn't quite fit together well enough,
| and you're left with something you hope will die on its own
| before it realizes what has happened to it. The "vulgar poem"
| sample is like that, some kind of tortured Bukowski clone
| flopped out of a steaming vat, bleated an unnatural sound, and
| then you don't know if you're crushing its head out of mercy or
| disgust, but you'd rather not have that happen again.
|
| And the article provides a handy index of avoiding such
| abominations, to boot!
| [deleted]
| rdtsc wrote:
| John Martin used Bukowski as a cash cow basically. Bukowski's
| books funded other books that flop which John Martin's company
| published.
|
| https://www.poetrynw.org/interview-serious-books-a-conversat...
|
| It would be interesting to see how John Martin would explain
| those edits. They just look so bizarre, some invert the meaning
| completely, others are just petty edits to change stuff just for
| the heck of it.
|
| It's like there was a love-hate relationship between the two. In
| interview I found above, John keeps talking about himself when
| asked how the two of them hit it together, or how it was like
| seeing Bukowski rise and his response was basically "It was
| great, but look how much work I was doing".
|
| One could almost write a book about their relationship just based
| on the edits and reading into them all kinds of interesting
| things. It's like John hated the drinking and the vulgarity and
| try to correct some of it, but ended up ruining the work in the
| process.
| vintagedave wrote:
| This is extraordinary. The sample edits given at the end of the
| article go far beyond normal editorial changes. They completely
| change the meaning and content of the poem. It is a _different
| poem_.
|
| This comment about the editor struck me:
|
| > "Now, when I bring this subject up among a certain crowd, they
| bristle. They become very defensive of Martin and downright
| antagonistic toward me while they list the many ways in which he
| is a wonderful man..."
|
| Does anyone know more about the relationship between Bukowski and
| Martin, and why Martin would be revered today? Why he would have
| supporters? Why he would even need supporters? (It seems odd that
| he'd have any role that meant he needed either detractors or
| fans; either seems a mistake in an editor.)
| clsec wrote:
| >Does anyone know more about the relationship between Bukowski
| and Martin,
|
| IMO his deal with Martin made it so Bukowski was able to write
| full time in the later years of his life. Otherwise he may have
| had to still work at the Post Office and only be able to write
| part time.
|
| >and why Martin would be revered today? Why he would have
| supporters? Why he would even need supporters?
|
| He's revered because he (Black Sparrow Press) published many
| works by authors who would have otherwise never gotten a
| publishing deal. His supporters are most likely fans of the
| authors he published and those from the San Francisco Beat
| Generation. He, and Black Sparrow Press, had/have a close
| relationship with City Lights Books and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
| glenstein wrote:
| >The sample edits given at the end of the article go far beyond
| normal editorial changes.
|
| Right, as I was reading along, I thought how bad could this
| possibly be. But they changed:
|
| >I lost $40
|
| >at the track
|
| >today
|
| >so I'm somewhat
|
| >bitter.
|
| To this:
|
| >and I won $400
|
| >at the track
|
| >today
|
| >so I'm somewhat
|
| >pleased.
|
| Not that I've ever been a reader of Bukowski, but this is just
| changed into something that he simply didn't write.
|
| I had no idea that this was something that people did.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Now I'm wondering what other books of poetry this has
| happened to and I didn't know it?
|
| Altering a poem is a whole different animal than editing a
| book or a movie, for instance.
| sombremesa wrote:
| > Altering a poem is a whole different animal than editing
| a book or a movie, for instance.
|
| I don't know about that. George Lucas has managed to
| butcher his own movies after the fact, and newer audiences
| would never know.
|
| Hundreds of thousands of people still believe that "Go Set
| a Watchman" is a new book as opposed to the first draft of
| "To Kill a Mockingbird."
| Hoasi wrote:
| Martin supported Bukowski early in his career (as a late-
| blossoming writer). There are many friendly mentions of him and
| Black Sparrow Press from Bukowski himself. They had a contract.
| Martin would publish anything Bukowski wrote, as long as he put
| himself to work. In hindsight, that offer does appear much less
| generous.
| twox2 wrote:
| This truly is a quite depressing abomination.
| dahak27 wrote:
| People are rightfully pointing out how ridiculous some of the
| overt substantive changes in that end poem are, but I was pretty
| amazed by how even the quite minor changes _totally_ alter the
| feel of the thing too.
|
| "Sit on a couch and look at a wall"
|
| to
|
| "Laying on the couch and looking at the wall"
|
| loses a lot somehow in a hard-to-pin-down way. It's almost an
| impressively efficient butchering
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| "Sit" is from Middle English sitten, from Old English sittan,
| from Proto-West Germanic _sittjan, from Proto-Germanic_
| sitjana, from Proto-Indo-European *sed- ("sit").
|
| "Lay" is from Middle English lay, from Old French lai, from
| Latin laicus, from Ancient Greek laikos (laikos).
|
| In English, "sit" feels immediate and active where "lay" is
| passive and indirect. The distinction is both important and
| rooted in history.
|
| It is incredibly stupid that we still have editors trying to
| force English poetry into Latinate forms almost a millenium
| after the battle of Hastings and all the consequent
| Anglo/Norman jockeying for position.
| cafard wrote:
| "lay" as in "layman" or "lay preacher" does have the
| derivation you give.
|
| As a verb, "lay it down" has Germanic roots, e.g. "liegen".
| The Greek cognate seems to be "lexos", "bed". (All this from
| Skeat's etymological dictionary.)
| burnished wrote:
| Can't comment about the roots of the words, but I agree with
| your assessment of those words.
|
| This is actually one of my favorite games to play with
| friends, taking a word and talking about it's connotations,
| or contrasting it with another similar word. Nothing super
| academic, just our own thoughts and feelings and examples of
| use.
| ng12 wrote:
| Whenever there's a pair of synonyms where one is fancier
| than the other it's almost always because one is French in
| origin (i.e. used by the Norman upper class) and the other
| German (i.e. used by the Anglo-Saxon peasantry). Think
| "purchase" vs. "buy".
| srcreigh wrote:
| My favourite example is "fact" vs "factitious". The word
| "factitious" actually means bogus, make, made up. Whereas
| "fact" means quite the opposite. However they both come
| from the same latin word "facere" which means to do or to
| make.
|
| Have fun digging into that one!
| urubu wrote:
| Not to be pedantic, but I think 'laying' has a different
| etymology, namely this one (quote from the OED):
|
| 'lay, v.1 General sense: To cause to lie.
|
| [OE. lecgan = OFris. ledsa, lega, leia, OS. leggian (Du.
| leggen), OHG. lecken, legen (MHG., mod.G. legen), ON. legja
| (Sw. lagga, Da. laegge), Goth. (= OTeut.) lagjan, f. _lag-
| ablaut-variant of OTeut._ leg-: see lie v.'
|
| OE = Old English, OFris.= Old Frisian etc.
| Haneant wrote:
| uberdru wrote:
| "Laying on the couch" is loaded with the kind of
| psychoanalytical implications that Bukowski hated. Which is a
| major reason why this feels so wrong. He would lie on the floor
| and listen to the radio.
| clsec wrote:
| I've read a lot of his works and I could _never_ imagine
| Bukowski "laying on the couch and looking at the wall."
|
| Fortunately I have read only a few of his posthumous works.
|
| edit: changed very little to few
| praptak wrote:
| Shorter phrases, shorter words and imperative sentences feel
| more powerful.
| dahak27 wrote:
| Good point yeah, I think the switch from indefinite to
| definite article also makes it feel less dissociated/bleak
| too somehow
| swayvil wrote:
| >impressively efficient butchering
|
| He removes the testicles while leaving the valuable meat and
| fat entirely unblemished.
| [deleted]
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Perhaps John Martin thought he was doing Charles Bukowski a favor
| with his educated corrections but I find them atrocious. The
| publishing world is rife with this type editing work. The film
| world is replete with changes that butcher the original work and
| intent of the original creator. When watching a movie look for
| the director's cut if multiple cuts exist.
| abbub wrote:
| I mean...it kind of depends. As a history buff, I _love_ the
| French plantation scene in the long version of Apocolypse Now
| Redux... I _totally_ understand why it was removed from the
| original theatrical release, though. I think director cuts tend
| to play to the more 'hardcore' fans of a piece, and sometimes
| serve to make the work less accessible to more casual viewers.
| [deleted]
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I love the side by side. The crisp debauchery shines next that
| other flabby timid slop
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