Pulp (Paperback)

by Charles Bukowski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Always the iconoclast striving for a kind of literary raunch, the internationally acclaimed Bukowski ( Ham on Rye ), who died recently, leaves us with this spoof of the hardboiled detective genre, featuring an L.A.-based private investigator named Nick Belane. As the title makes clear, this novel is dedicated to bad writing, and readers who choose to ignore this warning and plunge ahead will soon know why. A spoof should be funnier and sharper than what it is spoofing but, compared to Hammett and Chandler, Pulp is quite simply trash. In the opening pages, Belane is paid a visit by a lady in red named Lady Death, who turns out to be death itself looking for the French author Celine, who should have died a long time ago but hasn't. Belane's search for Celine leads him to some space aliens who have assumed human shape, and to some juvenile encounters with an unhappily married couple. Along the way, every woman he meets is a dish, and every man is a dumb thug. In every bar he visits, Belane is mistaken for somebody else, a mistake which invariably erupts in a murderous brawl. The prose is practically nonexistent, and you can forget character. All that's left is humor and philosophy, but Belane's humor is all bathroom and his philosophy can be summed up in the lines, "I wasn't dead yet, just in a state of rapid decay. Who wasn't?" Bukowski has taken the worst of the PI genre, stripped it bare, and added nothing but a dose of adolescent posturing. It's sad thatBukowski has left as his parting gesture a book so weak and thin.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This is a darkly humorous takeoff of private eye novels, replete with the recently deceased Bukowski's usual scatalogical unpleasantries. Nick Belane, a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Los Angeles detective who charges $6 per hour, is swatting flies in his office when in walks a "glorious dizziness of flesh" who introduces herself as Lady Death. She wants Belane to verify that a man she spotted in a bookstore is the long-dead writer Celine. The "real Celine," she says, "not just some half-assed wannabe. There are too many of those." He accepts the job, which, of course, takes him to every gin mill in the city. He's also hired to locate something called the Red Sparrow, to tail a cheating wife, and to investigate a voluptuous space alien named Jeannie Nitro who's been harassing a wimpy mortician and occupying his customers. All four cases, of course, dovetail into an existential nightmare. There are some truly funny moments, but many will find Bukowski's raw, ugly side repulsive and his negativity unbearable. Recommended for large literature collections.
Ron Antonucci, Hudson Lib. & Historical Society, Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1st Ecco Ed edition (May 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876859260
• ISBN-13: 978-0876859261
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,204 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bukowski's final farewell, March 11, 1998

By A Customer

What do you want for a man who has toiled for half a century with words and phrases? Do you want a marching band parade? A shotgun in the mouth? Or how about a novel, a novel that realizes this is the end. "Pulp" does this. It is Buk's goodbye. Fante is in there, John Martin his publisher is there, Lady Death, other characters from his life of writing. You can find him. But, you gotta look carefully. You have to have read Buk before. This is not for first time readers. Dont read this book until you have read alot of Bukowski. Only then will you enjoy it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars allegory of death, January 12, 2005

By	Nicola Terrenato (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Written as he was fighting the illness that would kill him, this is Bukowski's farewell to his readers. As he said elsewhere of his hero Céline, "they ripped his guts out and he made them laugh". And this is what he proceeds to to in Pulp. Portraying himself as a blundering, idiotic detective, he pokes the ultimate fun at his own work as a writer. He hasn't even begun to solve any of the mysteries of life and yet he is about to die a meaningless death (in the allegory, the lease on his office is expiring), surrounded by even worse clowns and failures than he is. Personifications of his earlier selves are also there (the gambling addict mailman, see Post Office) and he resolutely thrashes them in the most poignant self-critique you'll ever find anywhere. Believe it or not, this book is a sublime act of bravery in the face of insurmountable odds.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bukowski lives up to the hype, December 18, 2002

By	F. C. Skabla "Chris Skabla" (bensalem, pa USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first heard of Charles Bukowski when i was reading a news update on the band Shiner's website and it made me curious. Then i was at a Dismemberment Plan concert and someone in one of the opening acts had a Charles Bukowski T-shirt on. If an author has people wearing T-shirts with his likeness on them he must be good. Right?
Pulp is a funny and vulgar parody of Pulp mystery novels, and revolves around Nick Belane a Private Detective in Hollywood. The book follows his misadventures that include working for Lady Death, a space alien called jeannie nitro, hunting for the famous French author Celine (who is suppose to be dead), looking for a red sparrow, and lots of drinking. In Pulp Bukowski mixes the pulp novel, hopelessness, lonelyness, and extreme vulgarity and somehow makes it funny. His writing style is very character centered and is very dialog oriented. The story and even plot seemed to take a backseat. However Pulp is not for everyone. It's funny, but it's humor is dark, and it is very very vulgar. I can't stress that last part enough. This book is vulgar, so if you get easily offended don't buy it. Otherwise this book is very easy and funny read.