Letters of Note: Bukowski on Censorship

Letters of Note -- a real epistolary treasure chest -- has unearthed a 1985 letter from Charles Bukowski to the Public Library in Nijmegen, after they removed Tales of Ordinary Madness from their shelves, declaring the book "very sadistic, occasionally fascist, and discriminatory against certain groups (including homosexuals)." Not surprisingly, Bukowski has some choice words for the library:

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see. If I write of "sadism" it is because it exists, I didn't invent it, and if some terrible act occurs in my work it is because such things happen in our lives. I am not on the side of evil, if such a thing as evil abounds. In my writing I do not always agree with what occurs, nor do I linger in the mud for the sheer sake of it. Also, it is curious that the people who rail against my work seem to overlook the sections of it which entail joy and love and hope, and there are such sections. My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the "light" and never mentioned the other, then as an artist I would be a liar.

Bukowski signs off, "may we all get better together," which is how we may conclude our correspondence from now on.

Read the whole letter here. And, while we're on the subject of letters, we also recommend this one, not composed by a famous poet, but by a "dejobbed, bewifed, and much childrenised" disgruntled ex-employee with a Jabberwocky-ish flair for language.