(re)reading Bukowski

a dear friend of mine introduced me to Charles Bukowski in the late Nineties. he was at school in Gainesville, i was in Chapel Hill. our temperaments were complimentary; he wore the mask of the artiste while i chose that of consumate poseur. i visited from time to time, but was quick to dismiss my friend's literary interest as the result of a local band being named after one of Bukowski's novels.

on my last trip to visit, i stumbled across an autobiography of John Holmes in a local bookstore and bartered it for a collection of Hank's short stories. i found the stories boring and needlessly grotesque.

i reread South of No North this weekend, and something had changed. perhaps it was the documentary i watched on its author, perhaps it was my own experiences in the intervening years, perhaps it was losing the book in a complicated departure from my ex-wife, perhaps it was learning that Porn King went out of print shortly after i bought it and currently commands nearly $400 on Amazon.

i reread South of No North this weekend, and it touched me in a way i wasn't capable of imagining when i was 23.