Q: Reading over Bukowski Never Did This, is there anything you would take out?
A: There are some things I might leave out, next book.
Nicolas
Freeling says, "Dickens he loved greatly, after he learned to skip."
Some of the long catalogues of series of books could go.
Q: Why did you put them in?
A: I was taking stock. Looking at where I had been. Figuring out where
to go next.
A list of books would be helpful to a biographer. Also a description
of what I thought a book was about, as my conception of that changed, over time.
Partly as a result of writing the book. As the context changed, my appreciation of
what I was doing changed, and that changed the context yet again. It's dialectical,
almost.
Only a technical specialist might be interested in this book, for
example. A general reader for the next book, which I had not identified when I started
writing this book. The straight memoir.
But the general reader might want
to read the memoir and the journal of a memoir together. Might want to go back and
read this one after reading those two books.
Q: What are you going to write after you finish the series Underground: Three Months in the Life of America's Greatest Writer?
A: I will either take some time to think about it or discover what I'll write after that series in the last two books of that series. This one will be done next week, you know.
Q: Yes, I know.
A: It might take me a couple of days to type it up.
Q: You've given yourself two months to write the two books, instead of one month.
A: There's no deadline, and no restriction on the content.
I am
discovering the form, as I go. Not imposing the form on the books in advance.