Academic literature on the topic 'Henry Chinaski'

Il saggio che proponiamo prende avvio da alcune esperienze autobiografiche, contenute nel romanzo americano postmoderno. Quella di Holden Caulfield e quella di Henry Chinasky, alter ego di Charles Bukowski in Panino al prosciutto. Entrambi i romanzi sembrano quasi una forma larvata di autobiografia, dove i protagonisti dipingono una sorta di ‘ritratto dell’artista da giovane’. Tanto Holden, quanto Henry, sembrano, infatti, rappresentare la metafora o, meglio, l’archetipo dell’artista. Alla maniera di Jakov ed Holden, anche sulla scomparsa dello scienziato catanese Ettore Majorana, sembrerebbe allungarsi l’ombra di Ulisse e dell’Ebreo Errante Assuero. In essa i confini tra il reale e l’immaginario, rimarrebbero evanescenti, indeterminati come l’esistenza delle particelle quantistiche. Il mistero della scomparsa andrebbe pertanto ricercato nella realtà paradossale del mito e degli archetipi, piuttosto che in quella lineare e razionale della storia. A sintetizzare la figura dell’artista e quella dello scienziato è - in una straordinaria autobiografia - Edgar Morin.

Till min uppsats valde jag att koncentrera mig på två verk, Post Office och Factotum, av författaren Charles Bukowski (1920-1994). Huvudpersonen i båda romanerna kallas Henry Chinaski och är en mycket komplicerad karaktär. För att kunna analysera dennes självdestruktivitet samt syn på kvinnor och arbete anlade jag ett mansforskningsperspektiv, något som jag också utförligt beskriver.

Informe de Seminario de Grado para optar al grado de Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa
Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades
"Factotum‟, published in 1975, tells the daily life of Henry Chinaski, writer's own transcript, a writer who lives with resignation and weariness after being saved from going to war, and accepts all kinds of rubbish jobs to survive, and to clear his conscience while focused on pursuing what really fulfils him: writing. His self-destructive behavior seems to respond viscerally to a sort of instinctive urge in a universe declining and lacking self-pity. Chinaski is too conscious of his curse, he is destined to live a difficult existence in which he finds people predictable or he simply "do not like" them. For the purpose of the analysis of his writing style, „Factotum‟ and several poems from the anthology „The Pleasures of the Damned‟ will be necessary. It has been said that Bukowski with his terse, brusque and forceful prose, is the atrocious novelist of the great urban jungle: the destitute, prostitutes, drunks, in other words, he is the novelist of the human waste of the American Dream.

Charles Bukowski devoted his writing career to turning his own life into poetry and prose. In poems and stories about his experiences as one of the working poor in post war America, and in those depicting his experiences as a writer of the American underground, Bukowski represents himself as both a literary and social outsider. Bukowski expresses an alternative literary aesthetic through his fictional persona, Henry Chinaski, who struggles to overcome his suffering in a world he finds absurd, and who embarks on a quest for freedom in his youth to which he remains committed all his life. This thesis examines Charles Bukowski's autobiographical fiction with a specific emphasis on five novels and one collection of short stories. In the novels, Post Office (1970), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982) and Hollywood (1989), and in a number of short stories in the collection Hot Water Music (1983), Bukowski explores different periods of Chinaski???s life with a dark humour, revealing links between Chinaski???s struggle with the absurd and those aspects comprising Bukowski???s alternative aesthetic. The thesis focuses on such aspects of Bukowski???s art as the uncommercial nature of his publishing history, his strong emphasis on literary simplicity, the appearance of the grotesque and Bukowski???s obsession with nonconformity, drinking and sex. These aspects illuminate the distinctive nature of Bukowski???s art and its purpose, which is the transformation of an ordinary life into literature. This thesis argues that Bukowski illuminates possibilities that exist for individuals to create an identity for themselves through aesthetic self-expression. The thesis traces the development of Chinaski's non-conformist personality from Ham on Rye, based on Bukowski's youth in Los Angeles during the Depression, to Hollywood, Bukowski's ironic portrayal of Chinaski's brush with the commercial film industry. Through meeting the many challenges he faced throughout his life with defiance, honesty and an irreverent sense of humour, Bukowski invites readers to identify with his alternative world view. The thesis argues this particular aspect of his writing constitutes his most valuable contribution to twentieth century American fiction.