Women: A Novel by Charles Bukowski
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Book Reviews of Women: A Novel
Book Review: Entertaining Read
Summary: 4 Stars
A friend of mine introduced me to Bukowski's literature. I find his crude style of writing to be very entertaining. This book is not for the politically correct or feminist. Bukowski has a way of keeping the reader interested, I couldn't put the book down! A fun, easy read but it's probably not for everyone.Book Review: Good
Summary: 4 Stars
the book held my attention. it had some really funny and kind of sad parts too. he writes like i would guess he speaks. the c word was used a lot - hope you're not offended easily.Book Review: "I had to taste women in order to really know them, to get inside of them..."
Summary: 3 Stars
So claims (p. 227) Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter-ego protagonist of Women. "I could invent men in my mind," Chinaski continues, "because I was one, but women, for me, were almost impossible to fictionalize without first knowing them."
One of the many perplexities about reading Bukowski is that one never quite knows where Chinaski the alter-ego ends and Chinaski the fictional character begins. But regardless of where the truth lies, these two sentences seem to provide the ironic keystone of Women. In it, Chinaski the author, middle-aged, gap-toothed, bloated belly, pasty white skin, usually drunk and rarely pleasant, beds woman after woman in improbable numbers and kinds. Yet for all his womanizing, Chinaski never seems to be able to write about women with any insight or depth. There's no interiority to them. But then, there's no interiority to Chinaski either. He writes about himself with the same objective distance with which he writes about his bed partners (I almost slipped up and wrote "lovers"). At best, all he can muster up is a juvenile sentimentality when writing about Lydia, the manic woman whose antics open the novel.
If Chinaski is primarily a fictional character, then Bukowski is poking some deliciously ironic fun at his protagonist's blindness. If Chinaski is primarily autobiographical, then Bukowski is either poking fun at his own blindness or is too myopic to notice it. In either case, though, the novel's plotless and tedious description of Chinaski's multiple conquests wears thin after the first 100 or so pages.
There are times when Bukowski's philosophy of writing (voiced through Chinaski on page 194)--"I just exist. Then later I try to remember and write some of it down"--works. But for the most part, his best prose (for example, in Ham on Rye) happens when he drops this weary pretense and shows some sympathetic connection with his characters. Otherwise, his stories are merely one-damn-thing-after-another chronicles. This, I suspect, reflects Bukowski's take on life. But it makes for dull reading after the initial novelty wears off.
Book Review: SAME OLE' BUKOWSKI
Summary: 3 Stars
I've concluded that most people who discovered Charles Bukowski in their teenage years eventually grow out of the old crank. The few readers who don't go the other way and come to idolize Bukowski even more. When I was 17 or 18, I went on a Bukowski binge, reading "Post Office," "South of No North" and "Factotum" in about a week. This was around the same time that the movie "Barfly" came out. (The picture stars Mickey Rourke in what remains his best performance as Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski.) Bukowski then wrote a novel about the moviemaking experience in "Hollywood," which I also read a few years after the initial Bukowski binge. (For the record, I haven't been exposed to any of Bukowski's poetry.) Well, now twenty years have passed, and I decided to revisit a writer who played a role in my formative years and picked up "Women," which, like many of Bukowski's novels features his stand-in, Chinaski, the former postal worker turned poet and novelist. I can't say I was disappointed by "Women," because I knew what to expect going in. That said, the semi-autobiographical work just didn't connect with me on the same level as the books that I remember from decades ago. This could be for a number of reasons. First, Bukowski works better in short doses. "Post Office" was a breezy, hilarious read. "Women" comes in at almost 300 pages, and quickly turns repetitive. It's basically the same story told 20 times: Chinaski meets a much younger woman, beds her, they argue, break up, get back together, break up again, with lots of drinking and gambling in between. Second, Bukowski/Chinaski was a better read when he was a struggling writer. In "Women," Chinaski has achieved a small amount of fame, so the reader has to put up with endless poetry readings in the narrative. Third, and perhaps most important of all, Bukowski's ranting and raving might strike a chord with younger readers, but to more mature readers, he just comes across as a really mean old man. In short, Bukowski is the same, but I've changed.Book Review: Hilarious
Summary: 3 Stars
This is one of Bukowski's more accomplished novels; it is more layered and truly felt than 'Post-Office,' yet at the same time is does not achieve the ugly splendor of his poetry.
In this little book, Henry Chinaski is chasing women of all things, that is, while he's not chasing booze and notoriety. Having achieved a small amount of fame, he is now able to woo the ladies on command, and the result is extremely sexually graphic and candid.
Many will find Buck's ramblings a tad repetitive (I did at least), though one cannot help feeling that these experiences are real. 'Women' is both funny and tragic; Buck is America's answer to the French Existentialists, albeit without the abstruse meanderings. This novel is a fine accomplishment, though not a classic.