Bukowski, Charles - Norman Weinstein (essay date 1985)
Norman Weinstein (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: “South of No North: Bukowski in Deadly Earnest,” in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall, 1985, pp. 52-5.
[In the following essay, Weinstein examines the similarities in South of No North to the fiction of Ernest Hemingway.]
In no other collection of Bukowski's fiction does Ernest Hemingway's ghost play such a major role. Even the book title, with that flatly articulated oxymoron reminiscent of Men without Women and Winner Take Nothing, alerts the reader to the Hemingway presence. The Bukowski/Hemingway connection is one riddled with complex ambivalences. I trust this brief reading of South of No North might indicate a few dimensions of that knot.
A first reading of Bukowski's collection evoked thoughts of his consciously creating a parody of the Hemingway style. Consider this excerpt from Bukowski's “Loneliness”:
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