Ubik and VALIS are amazing. Even read a bit of his Exegesis for my diss lol, insane stuff. His work is/was immensely fun to write about. Palmer Eldritch was the biggest mindfuck ever when I first read it haha, I cherish my first reading of that book. If you're anything like me you'll love Camus' The Plague as well. I notice I have that same copy of 'It Can't h=Happen Here' lmao, still haven't read it after all these years though, always did wonder if it was good.
I was reading this book and felt so happy about the object I had to post here out of excitement
Lucas Martin
Dylan Foster
I always had a fondness for this edition's cover art. Fits quite nicely.
Andrew Reyes
aesthetics are gay
fuck effortposters
Jaxon Martinez
Can you not post them sideways?
Ethan Richardson
I have so many books I’ve not read yet, and many I’ve only read a portion of, and I love it. What was the theme of your dissertation? I’m ramping up to enter school again for an MA or MFA, can’t decide which, yet.
Now I know the reputation the bastard has on this board, and it’s partially deserved. He falls into that depressive, mopey nonsense I can’t stand sometimes. I stopped reading him when I stopped reading Hemingway and HST because I quit glorifying the type of lifestyle that lead to alcoholic self destruction though I’ve Collins of ironically fallen into greater comfort with it at this point. But I love Buk. He preserves a very specific aesthetic state, and I fall into a simple rapture whenever I read the dumb old bastard.
His Black Sparrow Press prints are beautiful. I love these paperbacks code the texture and the simple design and coloration. I’ve another I might just attach in a second...
Ryan Stewart
It’s very pretty.
I’m drunk and on a phone, so no. I could take the pics horizontally and itd post correctly, but it just seems retarded even though it’d work. Maybe I’ll do that moving forward. I’m an inveterate imbecile
The second Buk book. Found this one at an antiques store. Bukowski is a space in my soul. I read him when I was just blowing my brains out of my head on amphetamine and caffeine and pit and booze and nicotine and everything, and abandoned the glorification and the authors long before the habits. But the old bastard persisted and the verve remained. His incessance about some inglorious bumishness and the music he could play through such an archetype made him like a lobotomized Diogenes who never found enlightenment. I still read him at least twice a year.
Carson Sanchez
Basically a cultural materialist analysis anchored around Braver's characterisation of PKD's work as 'postmodern gnostic' - wanted to try and shift the discourse from authorial/biographical stuff to a more historical, contextual style of reading - least, those were my high-minded intentions when I started it lol. Bukowski I've only read Factotum, my impression was that his style was extremely cool but extremely limited - perhaps that's just a more negative version of your 'specific aesthetic state' though, makes me want to try more as I appreciate stylistic coherence generally speaking.
Hunter Cox
It’s funny, that kind of postmodern Gnosticism is an interesting thought. I’ve been reading Baudrillard, made it to a book called Passwords, and I’ve found a kind of postmodern mysticism that I’m trying, in my limited way, to reconcile with reality and the Kabbalah shit I read as a child. I feel I’ve need of more semiotic study and linguistics. Bah.
Buk is fine but he’s like comfort food to me.
This is a first edition Burroughs which’ll be worth something some day but I don’t like Burroughs and I thought this book was a complete mediocrity. Liked the look, though. That’s actually why I bought it. I should do a converse thread of my favorite ugly books.
Wyatt Nguyen
Yeah the pomo-gnostic/esoteric/mystic axis is a very fruitful framework for discussion in my experience, though obviously Dick is like that on steroids haha. I'm going to bed though, take care user, good speaking to you.
Daniel Taylor
Likewise. If this is still up tomorrow, I’ll post more tomorrow. I think the draw of mysticism is how amorphous and infinitely creative that cloud of energy is. However we try reality is still ill-defined, and always needs reframing in the present vernacular. That’s the beauty of the pomo, that attempt to reinterpret reality as it constantly shifts around one in terms of a linguistic frame. Mmmmh. That’s why I’ve fallen in lust with Baudrillard lately.
Keep it up. I’m no academic yet, but it’s my aim. I can’t decide between a postmodern theorist (as I write essays akin to Barthes’s, as I’ve just learned by reading Barthes) or a fiction writer (which is more a tangential discipline that serves to explain thoughts and philosophy in a more-visceral way). WE’LL FUCKING SEE.
This book I literally bought because it was beautiful, a gigantic hardback about a Phil-manufactured cult by a Frenchfag that’s on my list. The cover is beautiful, but so is the spine. The combo plus the blurb (of course! I’m no Cretan) convinced me of a purchase, and this beaut has full image prints and essays and letters and criticism and I just want to fuck it. Unnnngh.