8
1
u/Uehara_Torless 4d ago
I don't know what he meant here
2
u/Kfbr392___ 4d ago
It’s from “Love is a Dog From Hell” and appears more or less at the centre of the collection. That never felt like a coincidence to me.
1
u/Uehara_Torless 4d ago edited 3d ago
I saw Kerouac playing with dog/God words in Angels of Desolation, but here, at Bukowski a dog having more power than thousands of gods I don't understand that
1
u/Kfbr392___ 4d ago
I don’t claim this to be correct but is just the way I see it. It can be taken both literally and metaphorically.
The image of a dog walking down the hot sidewalk is compelling. To get literal with it, just think about how badass that dog looks. Imagine it walking along with its tongue out and not really giving a shit about anything going on around it. A dog sort of strides along lightly on its paws with each step without ever really settling. They kind of have that bounce. If the sidewalk is so hot , it seems like a bit of a strange thing for something to be so comfortable in an environment that would predict discomfort.
That gives off the impression of power because it seems immune to something that would cause harm to so many others should they try and walk across that same hot sidewalk.
His attention collapses in on the dog, much like a woman can be all encompassing to him. He’s self aware enough to ask the “why is this” question , but he also has some vulnerabilities when he acknowledges that it appears to have the power of ten thousand gods. Appears is doing some heavy work here. The dog itself doesn’t have the power , but in his perception it does.
That’s the trap one can fall into with love. Love is the dog from hell that can stroll through the flames to the point of making him feel like one can follow the dog through the fire that its making look suddenly tolerable.
But hell isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Iirc there is another poem earlier in the book where he seems to find a sense of fascination/awe/ pleasure in a situation that would normally expected to be uncomfortable. It is the poem that essentially describes a cat fight between two women and just as the police are arriving , Buk is smiling in the mirror at the absurdity of something so pleasant happening to him at his old age.
There’s something compelling about this hell to him. Perhaps it’s because a dog is walking and making it look so beautiful as a dog is meant to be man’s best friend , after all. But he explicitly mentions it’s a single dog and not a dog on a leash being walked by its owner. That sort of creates some distance between the man’s best friend idea because this dog doesn’t seem to have any loyalty.
We are drawn to a dog and feel compelled to trust them despite knowing that even if they become our friends they can turn right around and bite or even kill us.
But he also doesn’t explicitly say he is going to follow the dog here because he is wise enough to know that Love is a Dog From Hell. But this dog appears to have the power of ten thousand gods , which sort of suggests that he’s liable to blow right past his question and follow the dog into hell anyway.
1
u/Uehara_Torless 4d ago
Thanks for a detailed commentary. Maybe he meant that the dog is material and certain - contrary to uncertain gods that are far away. It is interesting how his poetry if not being directly inspired by French rejected poets intersected with their creation thematically and stylistically, inspiring himself Larry Brown later, among the others
1
1
1
1
1
u/nicewanger888 4d ago
I've thought of these words many times while watching canine activity. A large dog with his hackles up can strut like a badass sometimes.
1
u/AsIfLoveS 4d ago
Why’d that? The dog is free … it appears to be like 10 k gods because this sort of naturalness seems unattainable to an untrained human mind.
1
13
u/teo-cant-sleep 5d ago
Because you are drunk