Similar to Notes of a Dirty Old Man, this is a series of vignettes from Bukowski that follow a pretty straightforward timeline, jumping occasionally. The book follows him in the familiar character of Chinaski as Chinaski rolls his way through women, occasionally finding love, occasionally finding good sex, occasionally encountering Crazy, and always drinking.

Fans of Bukowski or those who enjoyed Dirty Old Man will enjoy this book.

Difficile de laisser un petit mot post-lecture de Women de Bukowski sans mentionner la misogynie ? Mais il y tellement plus dans cette succession d'épisodes tragi-comiques de la vie de l'alter ego de Bukowski !

Ces femmes qui semblent sortir de nulle part et faire irruption dans la routine d'écrivain et poète alcoolique partisan du moindre effort, éternellement surpris de ces apparitions et émerveillé de sa chance. La rencontre occasionnelle et explosive de deux ou plusieurs de ces femmes. Chinaski toujours en bon vieux dégueulasse, mais ça, on le savait, et l'autre côté, la scène est tenue par un bon lot d'allumées toutes aussi divertissantes que lui. Une logique hilarante. Des excursions à l'hippodrome ou à l'aéroport comme vous n'en avez jamais lues. Des personnages secondaires récurrents ou des potes organisant ses lectures de poèmes particulièrement loufoques... et une écriture accessible, sans excès ni exercices de style inutiles et drôle !

Chaque "vignette" se clôture d'un haussement d'épaule presque fataliste, parfois accompagné d'une réflexion plus profonde, teintée de solitude et de tristesse. Mais voilà Hank qui se retourne aussitôt sur une autre paire de jambes qui le mènera encore et toujours dans une nouvelle aventure dont il est le héros ridicule et attachant, imprévisible malgré tout, sans jamais se prendre au sérieux.

Is this how men think of us??

I never thought I'd say it, but Bukowski gets kind of boring with this one. He draws you right in as always, but there's not much to look at while you're there.

"Glendoline presumed that the reader was as fascinated by her life as she was--which was a deadly mistake," writes Bukowski--and I can't help but laugh at the irony.

Having read a 600 page collection of his poems and seen the film based on his novel Factotum, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that once again, in his novels we have the same old Bukowski:

Drinking, gambling, racetracks, crazy women, all-caps screaming crazy women, poor treatment (read: damn near rape) of women, and explicit descriptions of various sexual acts with an abundance of the word "cunt." Plenty of quotidian dialogue, repetition of the same story (old guy beds younger woman and it doesn't lasts more than a few days) to the point where I could no longer remember the difference between all the characters...and then, just like his poems, suddenly a shining, sliver of an example of truth and honesty that would pop up and grab my attention just when I was about to give up on all his boozing womanizing.

I don't know what to do with him anymore. I gave it a go with all his types of writing--there's always 10% absolute brilliance and 90% blah. Not worth the effort. I tried the poems ("Bluebird" and "For Jane" will always rock, but the rest...forgettable), I tried the novels, but it's time to say goodbye Hank Chinaski. Goodbye Bukowski.

Yeah, well...

What can you say ...it's Bukowski?

Sure, it's a little crass. But it's also hilarious and there's little gems of beauty hidden among all this depravity.

There's a lot of bullshit in the world and this is definitely not bullshit.

I mean everything is technically filtered through the words filtered through the eyes and the mind.

But I think that's the reason why people keep reading Bukowski. It at least doesn't feel like bullshit.


Generally speaking, I think his poetry is better than the novels I've read.

Better to take it as the sum rather than the parts.

And even a self-described ogre himself has a bit of transformation towards the end.

He finds a good woman.
Who among all the women who you've read about obviously has a soul about her.

And it's not that he's not self-aware.

" I had to get myself straightened out. The only time a man needed a lot of women was when none of them were any good. A man could lose his identity fucking around too much. Sara deserved much better than I was giving her. It was up to me now. I stretched out on the bed and was soon asleep."


" The sex had been fine; there had been laughter. I could hardly remember a more civilized time, neither of us making any demands, yet there had been warmth, it had not been without feeling, dead meat coupled with dead meat. I detested that type of swing game, the Los Angeles, Hollywood, Bel Air, Malibu, Laguna Beach kind of sex. Strangers when you meet, strangers when you part- a gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other. People with no morals often consider themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was no gamble or humor in their game- it was corpse fucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience down through the centuries. Some morals tended to keep people, slaves in factories, in churches and true to the state. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like a garden filled with poison fruit and good fruit. You had to know which one to pick and eat, which to leave alone. "