288 pages
2005
ISBN: 0-9767153-5-X
LitVision Press

A Warning

Before I begin this article I should point out that I am friends with the publisher (who was instrumental in copy-editing my book, Game Quest). I also know the author, Jack Saunders, as he, the publisher mentioned above and I are all members of the controversial upstart lit group, the Underground Literary Alliance. What follows is my honest opinion, but just so's you know...

I'll also be honest and say that, when I ordered this book and offered to review it, I had a high expectation that I wouldn't like it and was prepared to say that here. But, it turns out, I was very pleasantly surprised by Bukowski Never Did This.

A Bit About Saunders' Work

It's really hard to review a book like Bukowski Never Did This (hereafter referred to as BUK). Hard to even explain it. The work is transgressive. Essentially, BUK is a blog in print form, covering one year in the life of the author, Jack Saunders. BUK is not one book, but three books written around the same time on the same subject, but from slightly varying viewpoints, that mesh together.

Jack Saunders, who refers to himself as Art Brew (like Art Brut, get it?) throughout the novel, has written over 260 books. Bukowski Never Did This is numbers 248, 249, and 250 (I think, it's kind of hard to follow, since they all overlap). As far as I can tell, all of Saunders' books are on the same subject: his life and inability to get published. In fact, I'd venture to say that Saunders isn't writing books, but chapters in one BIG life book instead, with Bukowski Never Did This being a small part of that grand work. Throughout the book Saunders refers to Balzac's 90 part Human Comedy and constantly references Hemmingway's famous quote, "my own private hell." What Saunders seems to be doing is combining the two, creating an epic life work about his own private hell – that is, having written over 250 books without ever selling anything to New York or Hollywood while raising a family, working (and constantly getting fired). BUK is probably a particularly important part of this life work by nature of the fact that, at over 60 years old, he is unlikely to find fame and fortune from his writing in his own time, if at all ever.

It sounds like a 250 page whine-fest, a self-indulgent author-writes-about-himself books that independent books always get accused of being. And, to a degree it is. But it's a poignant, funny and interesting whine-fest! I'll cover that more in the review below.

It's a bit unfair to call BUK a ‘blog' because Saunders has been writing like this for over thirty years, before there even was an Internet to blog upon. But essentially, that's what it is. I haven't read any of his other work, except a few glances at his website, www.dailybulletin.com, so I'm going to have to generalize about the 247 of his other books. Saunders' books are novels based on real life interspersed with diary entries about real life. In this way, you are reading the pseudo fictionalized account and, at the same time, reading about the writer writing and thinking about the pseudo fictionalized account. I told you it was transgressiv. But part of the books appeal is that you're reading something you've probably never read before…and quite likely won't be done ever again. At least not by anyone other than Jack Saunders.

Bukowski Never Did This – the part where I actually review the book

The book's title is in reference to the title of a documentary that followed Charles Bukowski around Europe after he'd achieved success. Bukowski spent 30 years working as a postman, drinking and writing in obscurity before achieving wide success and becoming the poster boy for unacceptable art finding acceptance. The smiling image of "you can make it if you just stick it out and really believe." Saunders' point is that he's been writing for that long and never had any success with his book, nor is he likely to. In fact, he's written much more stuff that Bukowski ever did. Jack Saunders is a even more of a ‘failed writer' than Bukowski. So BUK is about how do you survive and continue writing when nobody wants your stuff.

Despite the fact that it sounds like a book you should never, ever read, BUK is, for the most part, fairly interesting. Jack calls his work Daily Typewriting. People say write what you know. Jack basically writes what he is. Typing up his life as it happens.

In the beginning we join Saunders as he gets a much needed job at a company he once worked for 30 years ago. It's the same company, but the name has changed. It's the same job, but this time he's working for the daughter of the boss who fired him previously for writing about work while at work. Jack even pioneered the whole ‘Fired for Blogging' shtick before it was even popular.

Saunders' work history is not good. He's been fired and rehired from jobs more times than there are pages in the book, usually for writing on company time. Saunders' philosophical take on things is more interesting, usually, than what happens in the book. People talking at the water cooler isn't interesting, but Saunders talking about people talking at the water cooler is. Whereas the right wing military nuts who dominate the office spend a lot of time at the water cooler, discussing right wing things, left wing Jack spends it at his computer, writing left wing things. Yet, for putting his downtime to productive personal use, instead of warmongering at the water cooler, he is frequently accused of ‘stealing from the company'. It's a double standard to be sure, though one never really knows how much time Saunders spends writing when he should be doing other things. It's unclear and maybe his transgressions are a lot worse than he makes them out to be. Either way, it's interesting to learn about the quirky world of military contracting, and follow through a sort of Dilbert-esque series of office politics.

It comes as little surprise that Jack fairly quickly gets fired from this job too. He messes up a bit, which he admits, but whether he is actually fired because his boss' retired father (who fired him previously under specious circumstances) told his daughter to fire him, or because he was the expendable left-wing scapegoat is never clear.

Next he gets hired on as a grant writer, which is not as interesting, although it brings up some interesting discussion of the current US political climate. Saunders talks about the dire-straights of ‘faith based' granting – ie, worthy, science based projects (education, environmental cleanup, etc…) finding it impossible to get support from a diminishing supply of grants (the funding all going towards the invasion of Iraq, etc…) unless they tie themselves to religious programs.

Saunders' poetry, interspersed throughout the book, is refreshingly off-hand and quite good. One of my favourite moments is when Brew is driving down to see the 50th anniversary showing of Creature from the Black Lagoon and writing poetry while driving. What follows is so much poetry it's amazing that he didn't crash. Some of the poetry is about his car failing as he's driving. The guy can't stop writing. It's a funny moment and fairly telling.

The tenet of Daily Typewriting is that the first instinct is best. I'd say sometimes this is correct, but sometimes it is not and the writing bogs down a bit. While I wouldn't say Saunders doesn't edit – clearly there is a focus and direction to the work here – it's not editing in the sense we usually consider it: cutting down to the just the best stuff, focussing on a narrative or theme. The conversations Jack has with himself in the diary are interesting. The frequent entries about picnics and cookouts with friends and family are not. It's like reading someone's laundry list. Also, certain catch phrases or ideas tend to repeat throughout the book. He constantly lists his ‘stack,' which is the 250+ books he's written. It's not interesting the first time, let alone the third and fourth time he's talked about realizing these three books are actually one bigger book in three parts and then renaming them. By the end of BUK I was getting a bit tired, particularly as it focused more on family stuff than work or insight. It was never boring, but the third ‘book' loses some of the motion the first two thirds.

Is the book worth reading?

But I have to admit I did find the book quite entertaining. It's an easy read and usually Saunders reflections are poignant and interesting. I think if you could pull one of Saunder's books out from every four or five years of his life, you'd have a series of books worth reading. 250 books on the same topic would be hard to keep anyone's interest and sometimes the three books with BUK overlap with irritating effect. But then, BUK is just one representative sample of that stack. It's crazy, it's transgressive, it's funny and poignant. Yes, it's also boring and repeats itself, much like life, but somehow those don't hurt the book too much. You can just skim over parts you don't like.

Overall, if you're interested in non-fiction, or writing about stuff that would never be covered in the mainstream because it's a) maybe a bit too radical and b) far off the beaten path of literature or c) non-topical I think you'll get a kick out of the book. All we hear about in the media and modern world is success stories. People who've made it who are clearly great because they've made it. Even Bukowski eventually made it. If he hadn't made it, we would have never heard of him. But we don't hear about the others, the failures, because they don't make it. Bukowski never did that. But they still have interesting stories to tell and sometimes those stories are the most interesting. BUK is probably never going to be a million copy bestseller. Perhaps not even a thousand copy poor seller. But it's an interesting book and I would recommend it to people with an open mind.