the absolute LAST buk book
- Thread starter lumberdung
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Rekrab
Usually wrong.
PULP really isn't a crime novel -- the noir detective schtick is just window dressing Buk uses to hang the story on. You quickly realize he isn't bothering to convince you that he knows or cares anything about the standard mystery conventions. It could just as easily be set at a circus or roller rink. Earlier in his career, Bukowski used a western theme in a few poems (and stories too? -- I forget), and again it wasn't really genre work, he was just using that genre as a leaping off point into a story that was pure Bukowski.
mjp
Founding member
Maybe that's why it stinks. Because it's half-assed at two things rather than being good at one.
I re-read Pulp a couple of months ago for the first time since 1994, and I tried to approach it with an open mind, but if anything, after 16 or 17 years of digging more deeply into his work, I disliked it even more this time.
I think if he had written it 20 years earlier it would have sat on the shelf unpublished, and rightfully so.
Rekrab
Usually wrong.
True, true. It's not even second rate Bukowski. You get the impression he was writing out of habit, more to prove he could still put words on paper, than because he had much to say. Probably the best thing about it is the humor, although being based on unreal situations, not the horrors of real life, it isn't as effective as the humor in his other novels.
mjp
Founding member
I get the impression that he started it, and maybe if it had been a decade earlier he wouldn't have finished it, but by the end of his life there he must have known that it would be his last long work, so he was reluctant to kill it himself.
At least that's what I'd like to believe. It's difficult for me to accept the possibility that he thought it was good. But maybe he did.
At least that's what I'd like to believe. It's difficult for me to accept the possibility that he thought it was good. But maybe he did.
I strongly disagree.
It actually IS a nice genre-novel in the style of the Sam-Spade/Marlowe-tradition.
It also has a science-fiction-touch, which would be completely nuts and useless if not for the funny conclusion of the aliens to not colonize this planet, since it's so damn shitty.
But most of all:
even though it's not an autobiographical story, the main character is pure Bukowski/Chinaski.
Don't you see the total tristesse through the whole book? (it's not only the rain.)
And that humor all around, like when he thinks about, what he has to do next and always ends up drinking, or when he gets into arguments with barkeeps all the time ("Sorry, baby, but I seem to get into these negative dialogues with almost every bartender I meet.").
And how he handles Lady Death, knowing Hank himself would be her next victim, is just genius. ("But you always seem to be hanging around me, Lady." - "I hang around everybody, Nick, you are just more aware of me.")
I'm sorry, kids: I love that novel!
It actually IS a nice genre-novel in the style of the Sam-Spade/Marlowe-tradition.
It also has a science-fiction-touch, which would be completely nuts and useless if not for the funny conclusion of the aliens to not colonize this planet, since it's so damn shitty.
But most of all:
even though it's not an autobiographical story, the main character is pure Bukowski/Chinaski.
Don't you see the total tristesse through the whole book? (it's not only the rain.)
And that humor all around, like when he thinks about, what he has to do next and always ends up drinking, or when he gets into arguments with barkeeps all the time ("Sorry, baby, but I seem to get into these negative dialogues with almost every bartender I meet.").
And how he handles Lady Death, knowing Hank himself would be her next victim, is just genius. ("But you always seem to be hanging around me, Lady." - "I hang around everybody, Nick, you are just more aware of me.")
I'm sorry, kids: I love that novel!
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Rekrab
Usually wrong.
Aliens? I don't remember aliens. Guess I need to reread it. I do remember Lady Death.
I felt like Bukowski was more or less pissing on the standard genre style novel, while winking, as if to say "you and I know this is crap baby, but hell, I'm a real writer, not a genre hack, so lets call it literature." It is not a homage to the Sam Spade/Marlow thing. He even calls it "Pulp", i.e., cheap trash.
Maybe he did think it was good. He apparently changed a lot of his ideas/values towards the end, even buying into the guru thing. Maybe his literary judgment changed as well?
I felt like Bukowski was more or less pissing on the standard genre style novel, while winking, as if to say "you and I know this is crap baby, but hell, I'm a real writer, not a genre hack, so lets call it literature." It is not a homage to the Sam Spade/Marlow thing. He even calls it "Pulp", i.e., cheap trash.
Maybe he did think it was good. He apparently changed a lot of his ideas/values towards the end, even buying into the guru thing. Maybe his literary judgment changed as well?
mjp
Founding member
I just typed a long response and lost it when I spilled some water on my keyboard (it was extremely funny and insightful, real Nobel Prize shit, I'm telling you!). The gist of it was; he certainly did not buy into any guru before he died. At least not according to his letters.
People do a lot of uncharacteristic things when they know they're dying. But he was pretty much the same person he always was up to the end. We all are, despite what those we leave behind need to believe to make themselves feel better.
People do a lot of uncharacteristic things when they know they're dying. But he was pretty much the same person he always was up to the end. We all are, despite what those we leave behind need to believe to make themselves feel better.
Rekrab
Usually wrong.
My mistake. I based that guru comment on something I saw in a film or read, maybe something Linda Lee said, about how he was cozying up to the Buddha towards the end, or was it Meher Baba? But maybe that was just her wishful thinking, and he really wasn't into it any more than he'd ever been? The short home movie video on his last birthday or whatever it was comes to mind. I'm going off half cocked here, as usual.
Haven't you ever agreed with your wife on something just so she would shut her yap? You've been married long enough that that something may be everything. Heh.
mjp
Founding member
I don't know the cause of her pain. But it seems that, despite how she may have looked to the outside world in comparison to someone whose madness was right on the surface for all to see, like Linda King, you can say with some confidence that Bukowski was always attracted to damaged women and a steady stream of relationship drama.
I would say that you might hear more about it after a certain Widow® shuffles off this mortal coil, but I don't know. The way things go these days they'll probably nominate her for sainthood, or whatever the Buddhists have, when she dies. Since dying seems to negate everything negative that ever happened in your life."Richard Nixon? Sure, great guy! Let's put him on a postage stamp!"
HenryChinaski
Founding member
I don't understand why people dislike Pulp so much. I've read it countless times and its one book that I will continue to enjoy every time I read it. I think most of its appeal comes from the imagination used in creating such a wonderful story, even if it is pure fiction. It represents the end of a life spent in tiny rooms and an even bigger mind. It only seems plausible. Its dream-like qualities touched on how Hank actually felt in his old age, a seasoned veteran trying to tie it all together. If it seems completely absurd, then so does life, and I think that if any of Buk's work should be adapted for the screen, it should be Pulp. It reads like a bad movie and that's what makes it amazing and I believe, completely what he was aiming at.
Black Swan
Abord the Yorikke!
Time to read it again.
It took me round about six hours to read Pulp and while reading it I kept thinking what a bunch of crap. But shortly after finishing the novel and leaving it at a bus station for someone to discover I realized how much I enjoyed all it's ridiculousness. It might have been a bit frustrating to read, being a fan of Bukowski and not expecting such an absurb plot, but it is pure Bukowski at the core. I can imagine a great cult movie being made based on this novel. We'll miss you Buk.