Bukowski, Charles. Women. Black Sparrow, Boston, 1978. F;12/23.

This is one of several novels by a writer of a particular niche character that in the later 20^th century included others like Henry Miller (this reference not typical) and (later) Jim Harrison. Post-beatnik bad boys. Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical narrator Henry Chinaski develops something resembling self-criticism and reflection on an inner life while drinking like a thirsty fish and diving almost daily into sex with dozens of women. I read a poem by Bukowski in a blog I get and was impressed with its raw realism so decided to try one of the novels. It’s not in the same league. Both Miller and Bukowski are humorous, outrageous, and emblematic of the beat and later hippie idea, flaunting their degeneracy as a fuck you to convention.

Chinaski I understand represents Bukowski in his later life, a well-known poet living on paid readings around the US and Canada. His drinking is wildly excessive but completely unapologetic:

That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.

If I had to choose between drinking and fucking I think I’d have to stop fucking.

He is self-critical and cynical:

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard.

I was glad I wasn’t in love, that I wasn’t happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.

… and funny:

The flies and mosquitoes swarmed all over me. The flies were large and angry and hungry, much larger than city flies, and they knew a meal when they saw one.

Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren’t sure of was if we had any.

This sex is described in hard graphic terms, the women characterized by their seductiveness, and personality only secondarily. Through it all Chinaski intersperses introspection which accelerates toward the end of story:

How could I call myself a man? How could I write poems? What did I consist of? I was a bush-league de Sade, without his intellect. A murderer was more straightforward and honest than I was. Or a rapist. I didn’t want my soul played with, mocked, pissed on; I knew that much at any rate. I was truly no good. I could feel it as I walked up and down on the rug. No good. The worst part of it was that I passed myself off for exactly what I wasn’t—a good man. I was able to enter people’s lives because of their trust in me. I was doing my dirty work the easy way.

We don’t see much of this kind of thing these days. Once out of the 20^th century the demise of Victorianism and mid-century over-reaction against its restrictions has given way to less intense content and style at the level of fictional commentary on the culture of the moment. Political correctness and railing against racism and male chauvinism now sell best. It’s comforting that there still is now as there was in Charles Bukowski’s time also really great fiction around.

I think Bukowski’s poetry is probably a lot better than his fiction.

7.4/7.6

(On the topic of reviewing this book you might be interested to take a look at my recent post on my “Off the Fence” section entitled Artificial Intelligence.)