South of No North is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, originally published in 1973 as South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. [1] South of No North also is a play that debuted off-Broadway in 2000 based on nine stories from the book. [2]
The book is autobiographical, a collection of anecdotes and sketches with the central protagonist Chinaski often appearing. Some stories deal directly while others indirectly with Bukowski's life as a poet, writer, and beer drinking citizen. [3]
Among the short stories collected in the book are "Love for $17.50", about a man named Robert whose infatuation with a mannequin in a junk shop leads him first to buy it, then make love to it, and then eventually fall in love with "her," much to the consternation of his real-life girlfriend; "Maja Thurup", about a South American tribesman with an enormous penis who is brought to Los Angeles by the woman anthropologist who has "discovered" him and become his lover; and "The Devil is Hot", about an encounter with Old Nick at an amusement pier in Santa Monica, where Scratch himself is caged and on display, fed only peanut butter and dogfood, exploited by a cynical carnie.
The collection also features two of Bukowski's most famous short stories: "All the Assholes in the World Plus Mine", an autobiographical rumination on the treatment of his hemorrhoids, and "Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With Beasts". (The latter story originally was published as a chapbook of 500 copies by Bensenville Mimeo Press in 1965.)
The short stories collected in the volume are evocative of Bukowski at his most successful, [4] when he was one of the premier short story writers still at the top of his talent. The oddness of the subject matter can be explained by the fact that Bukowski's early lack of popularity in the U.S. meant that he wasn't being published in mainstream magazines. Instead, he was part of the "mimeograph revolution" in letters of the 1960s, appearing in mimeographed poetry magazines or chapbooks during the decade, including a magazine he himself published with Neeli Cherry, Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns from 1969 to 1971. To support himself, he contributed to men's magazines that were in the market for "dirty stories". The latter situation explains the presence of the soft-core pornographic story "Stop Staring at My Tits, Mister", an outrageous burlesque of cowboy fiction featuring a sex-mad wagon master named "Big Bart" obsessed with "Honeydew", the amply endowed wife of "The Kid". Big Bart's obsession with Honeydew leads to the inevitable show down with The Kid, with highly unpredictable results reflecting both Bukowski's misanthropic, cynical appreciation of the absurdities of real life. Like fellow 1970s cult artist-favorite Robert Altman in the media of film, Bukowski in fiction was able to subvert genre fiction with his acerbic world view.
South of No North was followed nearly a decade later by Bukowski's last collection solely devoted to short stories, Hot Water Music, but by then his power as a short story writer was waning.[ citation needed ] He later admitted that "the short story had deserted me", though he was able to occasionally generate a gem like No Wing High (collected in the 1990 poetry and short story collection Septuagenarian Stew ) in his later years.
South of No North (Stories of the Buried Life) is a play adapted from nine of Bukowski's short stories by Leo Farley and Jonathan Powers, who also co-directed the play for New York, New York 29th Street Rep theatrical company. [2] The individual stories are held together by the framing device of the character of Charles Bukowski (played by actor Stephen Payne) in the act of writing. Bukowski (Payne) comments on the stories, serves as narrator, and occasionally (as in the adaptation of Love for $17.50, which The New York Times review of September 25, 2000 called the "most notable" of the stories), enters the action. [6]
The Times reviewer wrote that:
When he and his stories intersect, the results can be revealing, funny and surprisingly theatrical.... This Bukowski is no simple hero of the disenfranchised, and South of No North is most involving when it unfurls this rare psyche through such complex moments, when Bukowski keys into his pathetic characters with frightened identification and amused sympathy. Mr. Payne finds humor and pathos in the role.... Even his narration, with its languorous hold on words even as his sentences round to a close, suggests the writer's intoxication with the life of his mind. It is a rich performance. [6]
Payne also played Bukowski's literary alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, a character of some of the story adaptations, which were more like vignettes. The Times reviewer notes that, "The appeal of these vignettes is spotty, and neither they nor the episodic structure offers much narrative and emotional drive". [6]
Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city of Los Angeles. Bukowski's work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City.
John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) about the life of Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel, and is one in a series of four, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet." Ask the Dust was adapted into a 2006 film starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Fante's published works while he lived included five novels, one novella, and a short story collection. Additional works, including two novels, two novellas, and two short story collections, were published posthumously. His screenwriting credits include, most notably, Full of Life, Jeanne Eagels (1957), and the 1962 films Walk on the Wild Side and The Reluctant Saint.
William Larry Brown was an American novelist, non-fiction, and short story writer. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. Brown was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction.
Henry Charles "Hank" Chinaski is the literary alter ego of the American writer Charles Bukowski, appearing in five of Bukowski's novels, a number of his short stories and poems, and the films Barfly and Factotum. Although much of Chinaski's biography is based on Bukowski's own life story, the Chinaski character is still a literary creation that is constructed with the veneer of what the writer Adam Kirsch calls "a pulp fiction hero." Works of fiction that feature the character include Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With the Beasts (1965), Post Office (1971), South of No North (1973), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), Hot Water Music (1983), Hollywood (1989), and Septuagenarian Stew (1990). He is also mentioned briefly in the beginning of Bukowski's last novel, Pulp (1994).
Barfly is a 1987 American black comedy film directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. The film is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles, and it presents Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski. The screenplay, written by Bukowski, was commissioned by the Iranian-born Swiss film director Barbet Schroeder, and it was published in 1984, when film production was still pending.
Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years. Written in Bukowski's characteristically straightforward prose, the novel tells of his coming-of-age in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
Post Office is the first novel written by American writer Charles Bukowski, published in 1971. The book is an autobiographical memoir of Bukowski's years working at the United States Postal Service. The film rights to the novel were sold in the early 1970s, but a film has not been made thus far.
Factotum is a 2005 French-Norwegian dark comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Bent Hamer, adapted from the 1975 novel of the same name by Charles Bukowski. It stars Matt Dillon as Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Although events in the book take place in Los Angeles in the 1940s, the film has a contemporary setting.
Women is a 1978 novel written by Charles Bukowski, starring his semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. In contrast to Factotum, Post Office and Ham on Rye, Women is centered on Chinaski's later life, as a celebrated poet and writer, not as a dead-end lowlife. It does, however, feature the same constant carousel of women with whom Chinaski only finds temporary fulfillment.
Hollywood is a 1989 novel by Charles Bukowski which fictionalizes his experiences writing the screenplay for the film Barfly and taking part in its tumultuous journey to the silver screen. It is narrated in the first person.
Jack Micheline, born Harvey Martin Silver, was an American painter and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. One of San Francisco's original Beat poets, he was an innovative artist who was active in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s.
Ask the Dust is the most popular novel of American author John Fante, first published in 1939 and set during the Great Depression era in Los Angeles. It is one of a series of novels featuring the character Arturo Bandini as Fante's alter ego, a young Italian-American from Colorado struggling to make it as a writer in Los Angeles.
Tales of Ordinary Madness is a 1981 film by Italian director Marco Ferreri. It was shot in English in the United States, featuring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti in the leading roles. The film's title and subject matter are based on the works and the person of US poet Charles Bukowski, including the short story The Most Beautiful Woman in Town.
Pulp is the last completed novel by Los Angeles poet and writer Charles Bukowski. It was published in 1994, shortly before Bukowski's death. He began writing it in 1991 and encountered several problems during its creation. He fell ill during the spring of 1993, only three-quarters of the way through Pulp.
Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969) is a collection of underground newspaper columns written by Charles Bukowski for the Open City newspaper that were collated and published by Essex House in 1969. His short articles were marked by his trademark crude humor, as well as his attempts to present a "truthful" or objective viewpoint of various events in his life and his own subjective responses to those events. The series is published by City Lights Publishing Company but can also be found in Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook, which is a collection of some of Bukowski's rare and obscure works.
Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns was a mimeographed literary magazine published between 1969 and 1971 in Los Angeles, California by Charles Bukowski and Neeli Cherkovski. The original title was to be "Laugh Literary and Man the Fucking Guns," but Cherkovski convinced Bukowski to substitute a less graphic word due to censorship concerns. In the late 1960s, the U.S. Post Office was actively prosecuting publishers for sending "obscene" publications through the mail. At the time of its publication, Bukowski was working as a clerk at the Post Office, having not yet made the transition to full-time writer.
"The Killers" is a short story by Charles Bukowski collected in his 1973 collection South of No North, originally published by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. The story elucidates Bukowski's publicly acknowledged artistic debt to Ernest Hemingway, the writer who had the most influence on American writers of Bukowksi's generation. Like Hemingway's "The Killers", Bukowski's story of the same name has as its thematic trope murder in a nihilistic universe. Unlike Hemingway, the killers actually accomplish their act in the time-frame of the story.
Basil Payne was an Irish poet and lecturer.
Charles Bukowski's work has influenced popular culture many times over in many forms, and his work has been referenced in film, television, music and theater.
"Loneliness" is a short-story by Charles Bukowski collected in his 1973 collection South of No North, originally published by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. It's the first short-story of the book.