Well, I finished Bukowski's Women. There really wasn't a plot... More like a string of vignettes. One weird, twisted, sex-fueled relationship after another, with random and frequent asides with strangers and friends, both single and married.
In the novel, Chinaski (Bukowski) rationalizes his behavior as research... he was "studying" women. But the type of women he analyzed... I've never met any quite like that. Well... maybe one, or two... but none were really that weird or insane. Although there was this one girl, we'll call her Laura, who answered her door once wearing her white debutante's gown. She shashayed around in that dress all night long. When I asked her why she was wearing it she said, "Because it's a really expensive dress, and I think I look sexy in it, and I never get to wear it. So I thought I'd wear it tonight." She didn't know I was coming over.
But anyway... Bukowski's writing is brutally honest. Here's what a typical paragraph from Women sounds like: "I woke up and wandered into the kitchen. The light from the windows hurt my eyes. There was a warm beer still on the counter. I opened the cap and took a drink. I vomited into the sink. I went upstairs and took a shit, shaved, and brushed my teeth. I picked up the phone to call Sara."
So imagine you're "Sara", right, and you've got this image in your head of a famous writer and poet, and he promises to write about you and make you live forever. Then you read the book, recognize yourself in it, and in the scene, right before he calls you, he takes a dump. In his dirty bathroom. Gross. But honest.
In real life, Bukowski was an alcoholic misanthrope with gambling and sex addictions. He enjoyed a certain level of poverty, maybe a form of personal asceticism, I'm not sure. He accepted a lower standard of living as his own. He liked booze. And sex. His said his girlfriends always boiled their arguments down to that: either it's the bottle or it's the sex. You can't have both. Problem was, he wanted both. Chinaski finally sees the horror of his existence and comes to grips with it. In the second to last chapter he turns down a fan offering sex. The first time in the entire book. "Finally, I did it--this time."
I liked it. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
In the novel, Chinaski (Bukowski) rationalizes his behavior as research... he was "studying" women. But the type of women he analyzed... I've never met any quite like that. Well... maybe one, or two... but none were really that weird or insane. Although there was this one girl, we'll call her Laura, who answered her door once wearing her white debutante's gown. She shashayed around in that dress all night long. When I asked her why she was wearing it she said, "Because it's a really expensive dress, and I think I look sexy in it, and I never get to wear it. So I thought I'd wear it tonight." She didn't know I was coming over.
But anyway... Bukowski's writing is brutally honest. Here's what a typical paragraph from Women sounds like: "I woke up and wandered into the kitchen. The light from the windows hurt my eyes. There was a warm beer still on the counter. I opened the cap and took a drink. I vomited into the sink. I went upstairs and took a shit, shaved, and brushed my teeth. I picked up the phone to call Sara."
So imagine you're "Sara", right, and you've got this image in your head of a famous writer and poet, and he promises to write about you and make you live forever. Then you read the book, recognize yourself in it, and in the scene, right before he calls you, he takes a dump. In his dirty bathroom. Gross. But honest.
In real life, Bukowski was an alcoholic misanthrope with gambling and sex addictions. He enjoyed a certain level of poverty, maybe a form of personal asceticism, I'm not sure. He accepted a lower standard of living as his own. He liked booze. And sex. His said his girlfriends always boiled their arguments down to that: either it's the bottle or it's the sex. You can't have both. Problem was, he wanted both. Chinaski finally sees the horror of his existence and comes to grips with it. In the second to last chapter he turns down a fan offering sex. The first time in the entire book. "Finally, I did it--this time."
I liked it. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
posted by Billy at 9:24 PM
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