Colleen's review
Women: A Novel by Charles Bukowski
<SPOILERS included, beware!>
If Pulp is Bukowski's intellectual candy, then Women is a main course. His prose is still wonderfully simple and quirky as seen in the last few lines of the novel:
"... I opened the door and walked out on the porch. There was a strange cat out there. He was a huge creature, a tom, with a shining black coat and luminous yellow eyes...
I opened him up a can of Star-Kist solid white tuna. Packed in spring water. Net wt. 7 oz."
As with Pulp, I relished that his prose relished and even mocked the mundane details of our lives.
Unlike Pulp, I never fell in love with the main character Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski. The private dick in Pulp was easier to love, since the setting and plot of the novel was ridiculous. He seemed like the sanest one in town. Chinaski also lives an unusual life. A long-time night-shift worker in a post office, he became a poet at the age of fifty. He pumps phenomenal amounts of a...more
If Pulp is Bukowski's intellectual candy, then Women is a main course. His prose is still wonderfully simple and quirky as seen in the last few lines of the novel:
"... I opened the door and walked out on the porch. There was a strange cat out there. He was a huge creature, a tom, with a shining black coat and luminous yellow eyes...
I opened him up a can of Star-Kist solid white tuna. Packed in spring water. Net wt. 7 oz."
As with Pulp, I relished that his prose relished and even mocked the mundane details of our lives.
Unlike Pulp, I never fell in love with the main character Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski. The private dick in Pulp was easier to love, since the setting and plot of the novel was ridiculous. He seemed like the sanest one in town. Chinaski also lives an unusual life. A long-time night-shift worker in a post office, he became a poet at the age of fifty. He pumps phenomenal amounts of a...more
jj said to you:good review. funny how all the bukowski fans i know are women. hey read "breaking open the head" by daniel pinchbeck. bye.
Can't believe you posted the last lines of the book. You should really indicate that as a spoiler.
Sorry if it bothered you, I assumed that since my review included a warning phrase ("...last few lines,"), people would figure out that the ending of the novel was coming. Also, it's not like it explains anything about or spoils the plot.Still, I see how it's annoying to post the last few lines-- after all, if you want to savor each word with a completely fresh mind, you should be able to easily avoid reviews. So, I'll add the spoiler alert right now.
