I resisted buying this book for a very long time.
I was afraid that it would be a poorly-written cash-grab, the kind of book we've seen published by virtually every person who appears to have known Bukowski in even the most tangential of ways. I really didn't want that kind of tripe littering my bookshelves.
Everybody who has read Bukowski knows that his works are of the roman à clef variety, with the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, being a *barely* veiled substitute for Bukowski himself. Bukowski's novels (and to a slightly lesser degree, his poetry) essentially reveal the life of Bukowski, with (for example)
Ham on Rye: A Novel
being the tale of his youth,
Women: A Novel
being the recounting of Bukowski's amorous engagements during the seventies, etc, etc.
As Bukowski tended to write in such a biographical fashion, it leaves very little uncovered territory for a biographer to explore. Case in point: Howard Sounes' biography of Bukowski,
Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
. As I read that book, I couldn't help thinking "Yes, I already know this, yes, I already know that." To some extent, it seems as though Sounes (who never met Bukowski) simply read Bukowski's novels and summarized them in biographical form. I feel I learned very little about Bukowski from Sounes' book that I didn't know before.
So you can see why I resisted purchasing
Charles Bukowski's Scarlet
for such a long time. On the one hand, I felt like I would already know anything it would try to tell me about Bukowski's life, while on the other hand, I didn't wish to purchase a book that turned out to be little more than a barely readable cash-in.
Well, I am very pleased to tell you that Pamela Wood's memoir about her time with Bukowski is nothing of the sort. This book is a very engaging, revealing, and yes, well-written account of the time that Wood spent with Bukowski. It's entertaining to read, affectionate without being hagiographic, and shines the kind of light on its subject that could only be gleaned through a close personal relationship with Bukowski.
Wood's depiction of Bukowski humanizes him (without degrading him) and lets you see a side of Bukowski that has never been properly revealed before. What emerges is a portrait of a very complex, at times painfully shy man, and at the same time, a man who dispels many of the myths that have been told (and re-told) about him.
In spite of the many written instances where Bukowski virtually disavows writing (and writers), dismissing writing as an occupation for "sissies", we find a man who is intensely devoted to his writing. Through Wood's recounting of their relationship, we see a Bukowski who is tremendously romantic at times, but also painfully jealous and insecure at other times. These instances serve to humanize Bukowski, not diminish him. He emerges more developed, a man of many virtues and many flaws.
A final note about the book: at times, Wood veers off into telling her own tale, in passages that don't directly involve Bukowski. In books of this kind, one is often compelled to skip these passages, as they are often boring, and frankly, of little interest due to the fact that we are reading to learn about the SUBJECT of the book, not the writer.
This is not the case here; if anything, Wood's recollections of her own life inform you on what Bukowski found attractive about Wood (other than her red haired charms and the attributes which garnered her the nickname of "Cupcakes") in the first place; a pill-popping, literate though not bookish, sexually appealing creature - one who hasn't really found herself yet, and frankly, isn't even sure that she's even looking. And additionally, some of Wood's recollections about her friends and family are just damned funny.
If, like myself, you have exhausted all the books that Bukowski wrote himself, but still yearn to know more about the man, then this book comes with the highest recommendation.
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