Siddhartha
One of the best poems ever written in any style and my personal favorite is "Nirvana", by Charles Bukowski. It can be read here.
Nirvana, at its base, describes a young man finding utopia and leaving it. The utopia happens to be a diner in the mountains where everything seems to be magical yet real, no one has much to worry about and everyone is clean and calm and content.
When looked into a bit though, it becomes much more. Bukowski was a west coast poet for much of his life, and a city one at that. He thrived in cities, he became who he was living on skid row. North Carolina, rural and on the east coast, is a complete contrast to his normal setting. So, since the bus is mentioned which is normally a metaphor for travel and movement since, you know, it travels and moves, we can assume the young man is an outsider. It may be Bukowski himself, but without his normal self-referential style, it seems unlikely. He was never afraid to include himself or peers in his works by name, so I would wager that the namelessness of the young man makes it more of a representation of man as a whole.
So, the young man gets to this diner in the hills. Let's draw in a bit more outside reference now. The hills could represent two things, or possibly both at once. For one, they could be the ascendence of man to a higher plane. The young man moves up this mountain as he travels and reaches a place wherein he finds a sort of enlightenment. He becomes one with the people there, he witnesses the magic of ordinary life and the simplicity of everything. From here, we go into the second reference: Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. Siddhartha rejects the teachings of Gautama Buddha in the book under the idea that teachings cannot provide true knowledge of the world and only experience can. The growth of Buddhism in the hills of India and Tibet factors into this; this diner could very well be the idea of enlightenment as a teaching and not as a learning experience. The diner offers no chance for growth as everything is already perfect. What can the young man learn in Nirvana if he never reaches it on his own.
So to recap to this point, the young man travels to Nirvana on a machine not of his own creation, goes to hills and finds the enlightened people there, and will now travel down the hill. The young man rejects the men in the hills as Siddhartha rejected Gautama; they're lifestyle is great and it works for some, but it doesn't work for him. But at least he notices, unlike every other person on the bus. This shows he was looking for some kind of enlightenment, his nirvana, his travels mean something more than just rejection of his parents or society, they are a personal quest to find a real meaning in life.
So he descends from the hill and enters once again into society to learn and experience, and Bukowski goes back to writing about whores and drinking as Siddhartha became a merchant and learned worldly pleasure.
Gogo cross textual analysis.
Nirvana, at its base, describes a young man finding utopia and leaving it. The utopia happens to be a diner in the mountains where everything seems to be magical yet real, no one has much to worry about and everyone is clean and calm and content.
When looked into a bit though, it becomes much more. Bukowski was a west coast poet for much of his life, and a city one at that. He thrived in cities, he became who he was living on skid row. North Carolina, rural and on the east coast, is a complete contrast to his normal setting. So, since the bus is mentioned which is normally a metaphor for travel and movement since, you know, it travels and moves, we can assume the young man is an outsider. It may be Bukowski himself, but without his normal self-referential style, it seems unlikely. He was never afraid to include himself or peers in his works by name, so I would wager that the namelessness of the young man makes it more of a representation of man as a whole.
So, the young man gets to this diner in the hills. Let's draw in a bit more outside reference now. The hills could represent two things, or possibly both at once. For one, they could be the ascendence of man to a higher plane. The young man moves up this mountain as he travels and reaches a place wherein he finds a sort of enlightenment. He becomes one with the people there, he witnesses the magic of ordinary life and the simplicity of everything. From here, we go into the second reference: Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. Siddhartha rejects the teachings of Gautama Buddha in the book under the idea that teachings cannot provide true knowledge of the world and only experience can. The growth of Buddhism in the hills of India and Tibet factors into this; this diner could very well be the idea of enlightenment as a teaching and not as a learning experience. The diner offers no chance for growth as everything is already perfect. What can the young man learn in Nirvana if he never reaches it on his own.
So to recap to this point, the young man travels to Nirvana on a machine not of his own creation, goes to hills and finds the enlightened people there, and will now travel down the hill. The young man rejects the men in the hills as Siddhartha rejected Gautama; they're lifestyle is great and it works for some, but it doesn't work for him. But at least he notices, unlike every other person on the bus. This shows he was looking for some kind of enlightenment, his nirvana, his travels mean something more than just rejection of his parents or society, they are a personal quest to find a real meaning in life.
So he descends from the hill and enters once again into society to learn and experience, and Bukowski goes back to writing about whores and drinking as Siddhartha became a merchant and learned worldly pleasure.
Gogo cross textual analysis.