The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship – Charles Bukowski

Well, it’s a pleasure to welcome you back to my Wednesday literature segment. Today I bring you an extract from a book I recently finished called, wait for it…. (deep breath) – The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship. You’ve got to hand it to Charles Bukowski for originality. Only he could come up with something as verbose and amplified as that. He even rambles about what it takes to write a title that grabs the book browser by the short and curlies, and means what it says.

He’s got a point too, since the title captures the nonsensical, ad-lib and direct nature of Bukowski’s diary content here. I doubt for most readers, even the speedy ones, the Captain is out for ‘just’ lunch – you’d have to be some bloody genius to finish it in that brief space.

For most of us mere mortal readers, the Captain is most likely shacked up for a couple of days with some woman he dressed up in sailor’s clothes to make the journey incognito, and kept down in the hold so she won’t be thrown overboard by the raging ship’s company.

By the time I finished The Captain…, I realised I hadn’t had this much fun reading a book since, umm… I don’t know… as long as I can remember? And Bukowski turns everything on its head and inside-out, like his reasoning about ‘titles’ above. He discusses in the book itself how his primary aim in writing is to ENTERTAIN the reader and get to the point. Well, he has certainly accomplished that here, and in his blunt unveiling of his approach he gets stuck into some pretty big-name authors.

Bukowski has featured a lot on my blog with regards to his poetry, novels etc., but what’s distinct about The Captain…, and what I really found so gratifying, was that it didn’t have a theme. His diary is pure anarchy in writing form – it’s whatever goes, whatever’s cooking, baby!

It’s just so refreshing to read someone who doesn’t give a sh/t. Sure, Bukowski’s full of sh/t, but there’s an honesty in the lunacy and mania that you have to respect. Also, his manner of wording is spectacular and wildly evocative.

The Captain… was compiled from his personal diary entries and published after his death in 1994, and there’s a feeling of melancholy and circumspection when you are reading them. By the end of it, I felt glum and sad that I wouldn’t be hearing his voice in my mind again.

Kind of like losing a mad Uncle or something, where despite the absurdity of his character, you realise you will never cross paths with someone even remotely like him. But here’s the big catch and paradox: despite his awkwardness and mania, I doubt I’ll find someone whose views are so relatable. And as I grow older, the more relatable he seems.

To use the analogy of a car, Bukowski removes the gloss and lustre – by golly, the entire coat of paint and then the exterior body panels – all the superficiality and façade trapping writers commonly fall into – and just leaves you with the chassis, engine and interior. And that is why, in large part, he is such a revelation in his art form.

Without further ado, I present to you below a seven-page extract from The Captain…. It contains two illustrations from the American comic book artist and illustrator Robert Crumb, whose drawings, along with quotes from the book, are prominent throughout and lend it a witty and humorous visual edge.

For those who are unfamiliar with the German-American poet, novelist and short story writer Charles Bukowski, I point you to one of my favourite biographical documentaries about his life called Born Into This, which can be viewed in full here.

Content Warning: The extract below contains explicit language and delicate themes which may offend some readers.

References:
1. Charles Bukowski – Wikipedia