Last call?

Absence of the Hero is a compendium of some
of Charles Bukowski’s best unknown work

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

American literary giant Charles Bukowski may have earned himself a reputation for being a womanizing, brawling drunk, but behind the fisticuffs, hangovers and tough-guy façade, the man possessed an immense talent that broke through stuffy literary circles and spoke to the common man. Matching his talent was his prolific output.

Even shortly before his death in 1994, “Hank” (as his friends called him) was still pounding out numerous poems, novels and short stories. It’s no wonder then that new, previously unpublished works regularly see the light of day.

Released this month, Absence of the Hero is the second volume of collected works (essays, fiction, autobiographical stories etc.) that spans his 50-year career. The quality of these supposed mongrel scraps is amazing, and for Bukowski fans, they are historically interesting since the works appear in chronological order.

The book opens with one of Bukowski’s first published pieces, the whimsical “The Reason Behind Reason” from 1946. In this early short story, Bukowski writes from the perspective of a defeated baseball player and begins to carve out his literary outsider status. Using the baseball field as a metaphor for life, the central character, Chelaski, gives in to his sense of disconnect after a flash of clarity in the middle of the game and refuses his appointed role as a team player.

Most telling in this early story is Bukowski’s use of the protagonist as anti-hero, the sowing of a seed that would flower in his later work. He also shrugs off traditional literary arcs with immense craft, eye for detail, rhythm and lyrical finesse while speaking directly from the heart.

Shortly after this story was published, Bukowski took a self-imposed hiatus from writing as he plunged headlong into a hedonistic lifestyle marked by depression and alcoholism. It was during this “lost decade” that he took refuge in Los Angeles skid row rooming houses and drifted around Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans working menial jobs.

Despite Bukowski’s insistence that he didn’t write during this time, the collection includes 1957’s “80 Airplanes Don’t Put You in the Clear.” This amazing slice-of-life story gives us a glimpse of Bukowski’s own life at that time, as three drunks gather in a cheap room to drink port, flirt and discuss high-brow art in hilariously low-brow terms.

Of course it’s the ’70s, Bukowski’s most prolific and arguably best decade, that make up the bulk of the book, including reprints of his column “Notes of a Dirty Old Man,” documenting his sexual escapades.

In “Bukowski on Bukowski,” he dons his literary critic’s cap and fearlessly tips over sacred cows, exposing and lambasting the literary celebrity culture while shamelessly expounding his own virtues.

Absence of a Hero will fit nicely between his better-known titles on your bookshelf and while it will certainly appeal to Buk completists/fanatics, it proves to be more than just tossed off in hopes of keeping his words in circulation.

When Bukowski sat down at his trusted Underwood typewriter to “play the piano,” it was the only time in his life he felt immortal, with every word painstakingly chosen and direct from the gut. If you haven’t had the pleasure of digging into one of his already published works, these easily digestible stories are a perfect starting point.

ABSENCE OF THE HERO; UNCOLLECTED
STORIES AND ESSAYS, VOL.2: 1946-1992
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI, CITY LIGHTS
PUBLISHERS, PB, 275 PP., $16.95