Women by Charles Bukowski

[beerbelly666]

finished this today. easily the weakest bukowski among the novels about the life of the chinaski character. chinaski has resigned from the postal service and is now a full time poet and writer. he goes for sold out readings of his work where he gets full houses. and finally his sex life is looking up. the book is mostly about the sexual encounters of the chinaski (now a writer with a cult following) character with a variety of women. the sex scenes were pretty boring and bukowski didnt get the humor right during those parts. though some of the conversations are hilarious. but there is a lot of social commentary between all the sex which is as good as anything in FACTOTUM, POST OFFICE or HAM ON RYE. the structure of the novel is a lot like FACTOTUM. in FACTOTUM, every chapter finds chinaski in a new job. in WOMEN, every chapter finds chinaski wooing or getting wooed by a new woman. like i said, it is not the best bukowski but it is very very readable. bukowski is audacious. here is man who really doesnt give a fuck

(6/10)

 

[Ponder]

10/10

 

[mjp]

bukowski didnt get the humor right...

If you missed the absurdity underlying the entire book then you kind of missed the point. But you're not the first or the last to do so, so don't cry. And don't try.

 

[beerbelly666]

what exactly is great about it? i'm not going to cry. after a point the book became monotonous with bukowski's purposely unimaginative descriptions of his sexual escapades.

 

[mjp]

I'm not here to spoon feed it to you, brother. If you don't get it, you don't get it. A lot of people don't get it, so don't worry about it.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Wow, it must be pretty cool to be so far ahead of it all up there looking down your nose at us peons. I'm so glad I'm down here where I can get it and enjoy the full spectrum of his writing. You best not waste your precious time with Pulp.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

You should read the first edition with John Martin's edits. You'll probably like it better.

 

[beerbelly666]

mjp, i'm not worried. i wanted to discuss the book. obviously, you're not interested.

gerard, stop talking nonsense. you're the one who's looking down on me.

 

[mjp]

obviously, you're not interested.

I am not interested in trying to convince you that you're wrong. It doesn't matter. You were bored, that's fine.

 

[beerbelly666]

mjp, my intention while posting my thoughts on the book was to discuss it with other posters and hear their thoughts. if you did not want to put forward your thoughts on the book (which you think of as trying to convince me that i am wrong), why the hell did you post on this thread in the first place?

if you just wanted to say that i'm wrong without telling me why, then you're just a prick.

and thats ok, you have every right to be a prick. you're a prick and thats fine.

 

[Ponder]

You don't achieve nothing by telling long time posters
they're talking nonsense or calling them pricks.

(That is if you want to become a a long time poster as well.
If you don't care, well, then your Buknet life will be very short-
from now on.)

My advise to you: have a little faith in Gerard & mjp.

Good luck!

 

[mjp]

if you did not want to put forward your thoughts on the book...

I did. You ignored it. So I'm not wasting any more time on you.

 

[james]

Harvard did a 2 year study and concluded, without a doubt, that Women is, in fact, a masterful work of "fiction" and, will indeed, in years to come, be considered a classic 20th century novel, up there with Dianetics and The Hunt For Red October. 9.2/10

 

[BudaTheStone]

I'd love to see/read how the academics over at Harvard got their acts together that resulted such a superior judgement. Currently I'm writing my MA thesis on Buk and don't expect an A at all, though I've been working on it for months now and the aim is intentionally that.

Before I hijack this thread gotta tell, Woman is my last novel which I keep pushing over from reading as no others will be left if I consume that one as well. :(

 

[beerbelly666]

when i spoke what i really felt about one of bukowski's novels, all his fans gang up on me like school bullies. i'm sure he would have been proud of his 21st century fans :)

Harvard did a 2 year study and concluded, without a doubt, that Women is, in fact, a masterful work of "fiction" and, will indeed, in years to come, be considered a classic 20th century novel, up there with Dianetics and The Hunt For Red October. 9.2/10

since when did bukowski fans start giving a shit about harvard? sheesh.

 

[BudaTheStone]

It is nevertheless good, when he gradually gets into the mainstream. Like some fresh blood pumped into a hundred years old of bad literature tradition. And somewhere Buk expressed his feelings similarly about this question.

 

[beerbelly666]

even i liked WOMEN, but i just didnt think it came anywhere close to the masterpiece that was FACTOTUM. and the humor was nowhere as good as HAM ON RYE.

 

[mjp]

I won't say anymore, because frankly, the 666 in your username really scares me. I don't like you guys who are in league with SATAN. You are up to no good, I'm sure of it, and I have it on good authority that you will burn in HELL for ETERNITY. That's your business, but I wish you would find CHRIST and get on a path of good. Wash yourself in the blood of the lamb. I want you to be around for eternity. The world needs you.

I might be able to help you interpret this dream you had though, Jayakrishnan:

I had a dream yesterday night where I was travelling in a bus. There was a huge slope in front of us and when the bus started up the slope we suddenly ran into a huge flood. But I remember somehow I was not scared by the flood. The flood water did not hit my face but only came up to my shoulder inside the bus. The bus driver was doing a good job of driving the bus through the flood. But at one point the bus started sliding back down the slope due to the force of the water. However, the driver once again managed to get the bus started and we managed to navigate the flood safely. A couple of my friends were in the back seat and they looked scared of the flood. I remember feeling both serene and slightly excited during this dream.​

What could it mean? Can anyone help?​

The bus represents your soul, you see, and the flood water is your anger at your mother for abandoning you at the bus station when you were a newborn. The bus driver is Jesus Christ Himself. The fact that you were excited by the dream means you are sexually attracted to Jesus. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but you should speak to a therapist, rather than posting on Yahoo Questions.

Glad to be of service, and welcome to bukowski.net.

 

[bospress.net]

I like WOMEN a lot.

Oh, and I like the book WOMEN a lot too. I thought that it was better than Hollywood and Pulp, but remember liking PO and Factotum better. I think that I need to read it again. It has been a while.

Bill

 

[roni]

I've read 'Women' pretty late in my 'Bukowski-career' and am thankful for this.
I don't consider it a MAJOR novel (like I do with 'Ham On Rye' and 'Post Office'), but it IS great. Well written. Full of humor, laughter, despair, self-doubt, suffering ...

I would definitely suggest to read it AFTER one has read about Hanks Real life in the early 70s (biographicalwise).

Only under that perspective, the book makes real sense, I think. Because otherwise, one may take it as pure fiction in order to fulfill the needs of the same audience for which he wrote some sex-stories in the girlie-mags.
But IN FACT: it is the document of a fundamental CRISIS. (And STILL full of humor!)

I don't have my Bukowskis at hand now, as I'm moving and live between two appartments, but am willing to soon look up a couple of episodes in the novel, that may support this view on the book.

 

[informal]

Woman is my last novel which I keep pushing over from reading as no others will be left if I consume that one as well. :(

I find it funny how many (if not all?) of us have that feeling when we're closing in on bukowski's novels and/or short stories. As for the poetry there are volumes that most of us have yet to digest and I can only imagine how it feels when you begin closing in on that!

 

[d gray]

never fear, there seems to be a bottomless pit of posthumous stuff...:rollfool:

 

[beerbelly666]

personal message sent by me to mjp:

hello,​

i shouldnt have called you a prick on your forum. i agree, it was bad manners. but then you shouldnt have used your privileges as a moderator to access my personal information and post it on a public forum. we disagreed on the book called WOMEN. its pretty petty to settle personal scores like this.​

i'll apologize for calling you a prick, but you ought to remove my personal information.​

and thats a pretty ridiculous interpretation of my dream. it wasnt funny at all. please try harder. i guess you wrote it in 2 minutes, in a rage :)

 

[hoochmonkey9]

I just googled your username and found that dream question. hardly a tricky thing. if you're not trying to leave tracks on the interwebs, a good place to start is by not using beerbelly666 for every forum.

I always use the same username, but I'm a bit dim.

 

[mjp]

i guess you wrote it in 2 minutes, in a rage :)

Former, yes. Latter, hardly.

 

[beerbelly666]

but i did not post that question using the username beerbelly666. so how come you found that out by googling my username? what the hell buddy?

 

[mjp]

Are you undercover? Some sort of spy? I didn't realize, you should have told me. Dang.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

sure looks like you did.

 

[beerbelly666]

Are you undercover? Some sort of spy? I didn't realize, you should have told me. Dang.

lol. but you cant just post somebody's information like that man. the internet is full of psychos :)

 

[mjp]

Anyone who can type google.com into a web browser and has 90 seconds to spare looking at the results can find everything I posted about you. It's not as if there are directions to your hovel and instructions to kidnap your pet monkey. You need to relax. There's not really going to be a flood and a bus and sexy Jesus. Take it easy, man. You're beginning to sound like a kook.