Women: A Novel (Paperback)

by Charles Bukowski (Author) "I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years..." (more)
Key Phrases: bee secretion, about your women, old fuck, Dee Dee, Henry Chinaski, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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.

About the Author

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (February 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061177598
• ISBN-13: 978-0061177590
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,312 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enter mr. bukowski..., May 2, 2000

By	Charles R Gigante (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women (Paperback)

as the first book of charles bukowski's that i ever read, "Women" holds a special place in my heart. it is an insane story of henry chinaski and his misunderstandings and communications with women. autobiographical to an extent, this book, and all of bukowski's, are special because they are so graphically and emotionally honest. no one else paints such candid portraits of the human psyche in its most degenerate and politically incorrect situations. no other author can put so much vulgarity into a work and make it sound as natural as bukowski does. everything and every word in his novels have a place and a meaning, making his writing style so refreshingly satisfying, that you can't help but to live vicariously through his beautiful insanity. "women" introduced me to this great american poet/novelist, and it is my belief that this book definitely makes for a proper introduction to his works.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint of heart, July 23, 2001

By	Saxon Kane "Sax" (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Women (Paperback)

First off, this book will offend people. It will probably offend you. You need to be offended. You need to be shaken out of your complacency. You need to be smacked upside the head with the crude and vulgar beauty of Bukowski's life and prose. You should get an injection of his drunken, debauched lifestyle. You should read this book.

This is the first Bukowski novel that I have read, on a recommendation from a friend. The man has a way with words. A true Hemingway in the way he gives insightful and penetrating descriptions of people, but never actually tells you what they are thinking. He is able to paint a deep character profile of all the many women in his life with a little dialogue and some crazy actions. Some may find it degrading towards women, but I don't feel that it is. Sure, he is sometimes crude, sometimes angry, sometimes insulting towards women, but he is equally so towards himself. If anything, I feel he shows the tragic sexual immaturity of both women and men. While his lifestyle may be on the extreme, and something that most of us have never even gotten close to, he demonstrates things that anyone who has been in a relationship can identify with.

All in all, I don't think Bukowski was writing a book about relationships that people would identify with. That is far too cheesy and mid '90s flaky for him. I think this was more just a painful self-evisceration. I think he was tearing himself open, and laughing about it, and proudly showing off his darkest, and also his most beautiful, thoughts, actions, and emotions.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars human, all too human, May 1, 2006

By	N. goodey "Nick" (new york, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Women (Paperback)

for a long time i've resisted reading bukowski becuase i sort of thought it might be a bit adolescent . How wrong can you be .This was superb honest and moving .A real account of real relationships and real existence. It's also very funny at points . The narrator chinski is unfailingly honest about himself and the live he leads which stops the book becoming a series of macho conquests .The women give as good as they get in the main and chinski comes across as less of an aggressor and more of a victim of his own desires (as men in real life generally are ) He also allows himself to be very vulnerable, which is what is missing from almost all literary novels .The authors have the technique down....but not the desire to show themselves in all their disgusting, faded ,glorious, human detail . After reading this i went on to read 'Factotum' , 'Love is a dog from hell and other poems' and 'Ham on rye'. All were quite superb ...particularly ' Ham on rye '. It's been a very long time since i've discovered a writer who makes me want to read book after book ..... and also effects the way you see life . You begin to understand through bukowski that the pain we all feel at times in life, is not some terrible thing fate has singled us out to suffer.... but is a part of life to be accepted. In cocnclusion, I'd give it 6 stars if i could.....