Women
Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling in his sudden rock-star life, running three hundred hangovers a year, and maintaining a sex life that would cripple Casanova. With all of Bukowski's trademark humor and gritty, dark honesty, this 1978 follow-up to Post Office and Factotum is an uncompromising account of life on the edge.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
6mentions
5people
2010–2025years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Women, by Charles Bukowski, I should add
- Thanks for boosting this book parent. I didn't read it in 2022, but it's my favorite Vonnegut book.
(Slaughterhouse Five is overrated, most folks just saw the movie and the same folks who listed it on their profiles back during the G20 used to yell at me for listing "Post Office" because apparently Bukowski is problematic -- like, Jesus lady I know, that's why I didn't list Women or Factotum... then they'd cry me a (usually figurative) river when I'd shoot back why do you claim to stan Emma Goldman if you won't date someone who owns a firearm since it's not propaganda of the deed if you get your ass tackled like Squeaky Fromm, and why don't you list literally any Nabokov novel than "Lolita" as your favorite piece of Russian literature?)
- Kundera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughable_Loves
Nietzsche: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24702467-aphorisms-on-lo...
Houellebecq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomised
Bukowski: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38500.Women
Kundera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_Be...
- I appreciate the reading list, but wouldn't mind more clarity. Why do you suggest these readings in particular?
Anyhow, I've only read Women from the list. The book seemed to be a male perspective about women. Bukowski doesn't know why they prefer what they do, or why he would be attractive to them. He doesn't know how to get involved with them without some degree of harm or drama either. A great book, but how do you feel it relates to the conversation at hand?
- I think that's cynical and incorrect. Charles Bukowski's Women is not an example of a normal relationship.
By a vague enough definition, all relationships are "transactional." Both parties can intellectualize their feelings and point to what they get out of it, and both parties can point to a theoretical breaking point, where the transaction no longer has any benefit.
But, when most people say "transactional" they mean something a bit different: that the relationship is devoid of genuine emotion, and instead based on some selfish benefit, such as money or shelter. I think you're equivocating the two here. Real, genuine affection does exist. The fact that both people are "getting something out of it" doesn't mean that it's transactional.
- IIRC, if you read Women, you'll see a passage where Bukowski essentially clarifies this piece. He'd get so many wannabe writers asking him for advice that he'd tell them to just give it up. If they didn't, they were real writers. If they gave up just because some old prick told them to, well ...
