I have just finished reading Pulp by Charles Bukowski. For those of you who don’t know, it is about a private detective in Hollywood who goes around solving some petty mysteries–which are not petty at all.
Charles Bukowski is one of the most inspiring authors I’ve ever come across. This might be just a personal thing for me since I happened to read his work early in my own writing career. His work inspired a lot of my own work, and the way he’s talked about writing has affected the way I look at writing and poetry in a lot of ways. I’ve only read *Factotum* and His book of poems *the last night on earth poems.* Both of which I have thoroughly enjoyed, with the latter being my favorite. However I haven’t read anything by him in a long time, and some of my beliefs have changed since then. More relevantly, I’m more of a feminist now. So I’ve got to say, almost as soon as I started reading Pulp, I had a moment where I was asking myself “damn, was I a misogynist the last time I read Charles Bukowski?”. Mainly because the way he talks about women really threw me off at first and I was wondering why I hadn’t felt that way about him when I first read Factotum. To answer my own question, I probably wasn’t, I’m just more aware of these things now. Moreover, although I do not particularly like the way he talks about or depicts women, I can say that my feelings about him stay the same, because A. He lived in a different time. I know that’s not a great excuse but, his work is an accurate depiction of his community, and I can’t be mad at him for that. B. He hates everyone. that’s the charm, Bukowski hates everyone, and he makes that very known in all of his work–that I’ve read.
Anyways, I think he’s an amazing writer. Can’t change my mind about that much. His styles really scratches something in my brain, it just clicks for me.
About Pulp though, I really felt like I wasn’t understanding the full scope of what he was trying to convey. The whole thing seemed very metaphorical but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I’ve ended up with a lot of questions. Most importantly, what did the red sparrow represent?
I have to say, the whole thing was very entertaining. Easy read–short and sweet. I kept thinking “this should be a movie”, Like a Quentin Tarantino type of movie. The characters were weird and nonsensical, it was perfect.
>!P.s. I never expected to se space aliens in a Charles Bukowski book, but I can’t say I was disappointed.!<
by Piazytiabet