Charles Bukowski Was a Wage Slave And So Are You
“They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they?” That’s Bukowski in a letter to John Martin, his publisher. Martin had encouraged Bukowski to quit his post office job to write fulltime; Bukowski was able to do it, but only because of a promised stipend from Martin. He was 49 when he quit working. He wrote this letter at 64, reflecting on the “jolly joy of the miracle” of getting out.
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Previously on The Billfold
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Where is the tag “writers quitting their jobs at the postal service”? This is your second such article!
“They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they?”
They could see it. What they COULDN’T see was a way out, such as the one so generously provided by John Martin for Bukowski.