Customer Reviews

Spinning Off Bukowski

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I you want to read the goods on Bukowski, check out Neeli Cherkovski's Bukowski: A Life. And if you want to see how bad Steve Richmond is threatened by Cherkovski's book, read the review Richmond posted of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I bought Spinning Off Bukowski. I'm glad I read it. Hell, I'm glad it exists in the world. The more material out there on one of America's greatest writers the better. It's especially important that those who knew him intimately get the words down on paper.

This effort has a lot of good anecdotes about the two writers' old days in California, but I wish there were more pages about Buk in it and fewer about Richmond.

If you're like me, you'll want everything you can find on Bukowski, the well done and the trash. This book is not trash by any means, but it's not all that great, either.

Buy it, read it, put it on your shelf, wait for the next one that comes out and get that one, too. That's my plan, anyway.

This guy knew Bukowski, it seems. Okay. The story is he was going to study law until he met Buk...and decided he wanted to write poetry.
Well, guess what? This guy Richmond should have stuck with law and abulance chasing...because, as a writer, he doesn't have it.
Nor do the other hacks: Cherkovski, Gerald Laughlin, et al.

Read the Sounes book, if you feel a need to read ABOUT Bukowski...
although, it may ultimately be a waste of time, because none of them
can touch what Bukowski created himself. Bottom line: just read Bukowski, and skip the pretenders. Also, SUNLIGHT HERE I AM is quite good. Contains just about every interview Bukowski ever gave.

My only criticism of this volume is a good number of vital chapters are missing.. edited out. Every chapter is a single interaction of myself with Bukowski: I relive the event (in the present tense) writing down exactly what is happening, along with the when/where/who/why factors involved. My publisher had a "pre-set" length in pages (around 150) that he wanted to print/publish. Therefore my original manuscript was cut down to a much shorter final manuscript. Thus SPINNING OFF BUKOWSKI shows a good deal of "blank canvas" in its final printed form (at least on my eye). It seems to me a finished SPINNING would approach 500 pages rather than the 150 page volume now on sale all over the place (Earth). E mail me (por favor) if interested.

Steve Richmond's memoir of his close friendship with the late, great American poet Charles Bukowski may not be the most orthodox of books - indeed it is a very strange book, written with apparently gleeful disregard for the conventions of structure, jumping about all over the place like a bunny rabbit on acid - but, paradoxically, that is one of its strenghts. Odd books stick in the mind long after other, smoother works are forgotten, and that is certainly true of "Spinning off Bukowski." In a conformist world, Mr. Richmond is clearly a singular personality and his entertraining memoir of a bitter-sweet friendship rings true, for this reader at least. It is also agreeably short, as well as having some rather interesting drawings. Recommended for those willing to try something new.

an honest and gripping story of a man and his friend straight from the dogs mouth.

A great book about buk by his drinking buddy, pal, and longtime devotee. Its hank warts and all, a very personal bukowskiesque picture of the man behind the poesy. It has the familer raw truth feel of a buk poem. In honor of the great man I'll bring it down to this: THIS BOOK IS A MUST FOR EVERY BUK FAN!

I am dismayed to see that my previous review of this book has been removed - it (my review) was truly a masterpiece. Let me try to sumamrize - this book is a terrible act of violence perpetrated onto all Bukowski fans. If you value your life, do not read this book. We only have so much time in this life, don't use a second of it to ingest this garbage. When I think of Richmond's writing style I am reminded of how I might feel the day after eating 8 lbs. of cheese - dry and painful. You get the picture. I'd rather read Tigerbeat magazine while sitting in a hair salon next to Joan Rivers than waste any more time on this worthless waste of paper glue.

As a huge Buk fan I decided to read some stuff about him. It's a good thing I got this book from the library because it really is no good. Richmond comes off as narcissistic and self serving. I haven't read any of his poetry or anything else for that matter, so I can't really comment on him as a writer or poet, but the writing in this book is just plain bad. I was only able to get through the first couple chapters. Perhaps the remaining chapters redeem him. But if you're looking for a good read about Buk, try Visceral Bukowski by Ben Pleasants.

this book is a taste of two poet-writer-friends in venice/santa monica calif in the 60's--the words take you right into the lives of bukowski and richmond and their odd interactions in rugged terrain

I would have to give it to the author on balance. Perhaps a few details about werner darton jr would have helped. Werner was Bukowski's secret bete noir. Even more than John Fante's ASK THE DUST, werner's novel published in pre-nazi germany circa 1924 and titled ADOLPH IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BOSTON, influenced Bukowski's style of making a short story plot/theme fit within prose poetry strictures.