Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Beat me to it. I've only read "The sound and the fury". It was pretty good.
Drunken writers
- Thread starter ska invita
- Start date
Beat me to it. I've only read "The sound and the fury". It was pretty good.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Raymond Carver. I would advise everyone to buy "All of us", his collected poems. Very conversational, very prosey, very bloody good.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
raymond chandler
fritz leiber
fritz leiber
ska invita
back on the other side
thats the soho fella isnt it? someone was talking about him the other day at the salon! whats the best to look for kb?
im a convert to that - ms invita rates him and weve got that one at home but not read it yet. will do. only read short cuts so far... didnt reaise he was a big drinker. i know he was a door to door salesman and only started writing in his forties. thats the way it should be - less of the this oxbridge english lit masters degree and a bit more living please!
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
edgar allan poe
aye, the very same. there's quite a bit of his stuff back in print now - check him out. the army stories are particularly great: i don't think he liked the war too much...
ska invita
back on the other side
new years resolution - telly unplugged at mains and read some books. just got to turn the fucking computer off and i'll be there!
(i wonder whats going on in general :timewastingmylifeaway: )
(i wonder whats going on in general :timewastingmylifeaway: )
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Cracking stuff. Only read him for the first time a couple of years ago - seemed almost clichéd, but that's because he invented the private dick genre, along with Dashiel Hammett. Yeah, it's pulpy, and ripping-yarny, but there seems to be a brilliant metaphor or simile on every page.
little_legs
Поехали!
omar khayyám
i don't think anyone really sees chandler as a pulp writer Icarus - sure, it's genre fiction, but the prose is so gloriously constructed it transcends it's humble origins. this was fairly well recognised at the time too - the bloomsbury set were obsessed with him... hammett was a bit more straightforward, but still a fantastic writer. 
not sure, but charles buckowski is king. Theres things he has said that have made me change my life! And saved it! they are private things though never to be revealed x
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Writing drunk is easy- writing WELL while drunk is not. When I write under the influence I always go back the next morning to check for errors of grammar, spelling, context and sheer understandability. This is called having respect for the reader- even if the reader is just a hypothetical. Normally you can rescue about two great phrases out of every second sentence. Other authors might go on one but I am a writer- I am a craftsman-wordsmith who might now and then touch artistry.
It's like being a carpenter waking up in the morning and seeing that you tried to make a toy wooden sailing boat while fucked but you've only laid some perfect craftsman ship on the hull but have totally fucked up the prow and made masts that look like arthritic claws. You save what you can.
It's like being a carpenter waking up in the morning and seeing that you tried to make a toy wooden sailing boat while fucked but you've only laid some perfect craftsman ship on the hull but have totally fucked up the prow and made masts that look like arthritic claws. You save what you can.
all very true, if you are talented which few are! You are, however, blessed with the gift. Dont waste it x
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Are you drunk or something?
little_legs
Поехали!
bret easton ellis
ska invita
back on the other side
agree on that. the books are great, but the one off quotes about this and that are pure (bar room) philosophical genius. cheers!
thats the probelm with posting pissed on here - theres no going back - that ship you built last night sunk fast, and took you down with it. then again drinking can give me a shame and guilt complex. maybe it was a good ship after all? no it was shit. im shit. *opens another bottle
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
It's like being a carpenter waking up in the morning and seeing that you tried to make something but you fucked it up because you were pissed.
quite.great drunk writers are great in spite of their drinking, not because of it. the thrust of their art may have been different without booze, but it would still have been great regardless...
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Eh, but you can save bits- if you are good you will have done a few good bits- cutting the shit is the task.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
I had a period of a couple of years where all I did was work, drink and write...I found I could write fine up to a certain point, after which either I wrote a load of old shit or I chucked the pen down and listened to records. Nothing I ever wrote while being too drunk to remember writing it was any good.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
I can't add much to Spanky's great description of Flann O'Brien's work ... but wrt to J. P. Donleavy, you might find his writings dark/sick/humorous - he's been criticised avidly
I'm reading a biography of Behan at the moment - (By Ulick O'Connor) Behan was a mad drinker, chaotic, and passionate - worth looking into.
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
Just read The Saddest Summer Of Samuel S, good stuff. Ordered Fairy Tale Of New York and The Ginger Manbut wrt to J. P. Donleavy, you might find his writings dark/sick/humorous - he's been criticised avidly
sparkybird
ask the bird...
Simon Gray's the smoking diaries.
Cigarette fuelled writing....
Cigarette fuelled writing....
Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutierez.
Cuban womaniser has sex and drinks, repeat until end. Or you give up. If this is actually a trilogy, I'm not sure but while it was a grungy, sleazy tale from Cuba's streets, I pretty much had enough of it by the end.
Cuban womaniser has sex and drinks, repeat until end. Or you give up. If this is actually a trilogy, I'm not sure but while it was a grungy, sleazy tale from Cuba's streets, I pretty much had enough of it by the end.
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
I just looked up what I said when I read it, very similar:
"Grimy poverty, amoral and nefarious adventures and a lot of filthy sex in Cuba. Probably best read on your gap year on a Thailand beach. Well written and entertaining."
Baronage-Phase
Well-Known Member
I suspect from the previous posts that it means writers who drank heavily...like Brendan Behan
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Found this thread from a search for John Fante.
I shall add another addition to the boozy canon - Patrick DeWitt. I think he was only drunk when he wrote his first, Ablutions, but has since dried out and all for the better - I’ve read two other books of his written much later and there are incorrigible boozers in both of them. They are also better books.
Not that Ablutions isn’t. I found it spot on in its depiction of perpetual sloshedness. Relatable wherever you’re from. Grim LA Cheers.
Good Christmas present to give to anyone thinking of doing Dry January!
www.theguardian.com
I shall add another addition to the boozy canon - Patrick DeWitt. I think he was only drunk when he wrote his first, Ablutions, but has since dried out and all for the better - I’ve read two other books of his written much later and there are incorrigible boozers in both of them. They are also better books.
Not that Ablutions isn’t. I found it spot on in its depiction of perpetual sloshedness. Relatable wherever you’re from. Grim LA Cheers.
Good Christmas present to give to anyone thinking of doing Dry January!
Ablutions by Patrick deWitt – review
The first novel from the author of The Sisters Brothers is a booze-soaked extravaganza set in a Hollywood bar, says Anthony Cummins
hitmouse
entreprenulsoip critical thinking
I remember Olivia Laing's The Trip to Echo Spring being really good:
www.olivialaing.com
Covers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever and Raymond Carver.
The Trip to Echo Spring — Olivia Laing
www.olivialaing.com
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
Patrick Hamilton?
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