Charles Bukowski’s “Women”, follows Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry Chinaski, along drunkenly blurred encounters with the females in his life. Chinaski has quit his job at the post office and is being paid to write. While he is still a relatively unknown writer, Chinaski has an underground following, stirred up from beer soaked poetry readings at book stores and on college campuses. Chinaski attempts to balance women with writing and his love for the track. He stumbles through shallow surface encounters with women half his age, while searching for meaning with each one. Each woman is analyzed in and out. Up and down. And sometimes up the ass. Henry Chinaski’s work as a writer has women offering themselves to him, sometimes sight unseen. Just a, “Dear Hank, I’m young and hot” type of letter in the mail, and an arrival flight number. Getting women is not a problem for him. Keeping women is another thing.
Bukowski’s romantic prose is at times amazing, while at the same time you dislike him. He is an asshole, but he is honest. He praises the qualities of the women he loves, and tears apart the faults of the women he doesn’t.
This is an entertaining book that made me laugh, sigh, cringe, and dry heave. Sometimes all on the same page. Women may not enjoy this book much, but men will. It appeals to the hopeless romantic AND the asshole in all of us.
