I
just finished reading Charles Bukowski's 'Women'. Like, just finished
it. Just now. For most of the book I had no idea where he was going
with the whole thing... it just seemed like one graphic,
semi-pornographic sexual encounter after another. I mean, obviously I
knew he was going somewhere, because I've read 'Ham on Rye', and
'Post Office', but I had no idea where,
or whether it would be anywhere truly interesting, and I had
absolutely no inclination whatsoever to begin guessing.
I
think 'Women' is by far the best of the three Bukowski books that
I've read though, and it definitely resonated with me much more than
the other two... the language, he is so detached. Every sexual
encounter starts with his eyes roaming up some girl's legs –
they're not even girls though, really, just bodies with names on
them. Then she undresses and submits to him completely; “I mounted,
stuck it in, and then...” is a fair summation of the end of every
other chapter in this book, and there are one-hundred and four of
them. He jumps from woman to woman to woman to woman, never growing
attached to them, or even seeming to care when they walk out on him.
At one point around the halfway mark he muses that all of his women
leave him, but it is clear that this is only the case because he will
take sex wherever he can get it. Only on his terms
though. Only ever the way he wants it... he knows how he is, and for
most of the book he is aware that he is selfish, and a bastard, and
he understands why they all leave. He is seemingly at peace.
The
morning hangovers and physical sickness barely seem to drain him, and
the paid poetry readings that sustain his lifestyle somehow keep
popping up out of nowhere, along with groupies, and fan-mail from
easy women. He dismisses the men. But he hardly talks of love – he
was married once, but had been in love four times. Now a dirty old
man of around sixty, he dreams of the day when he is “an eighty
year old fucking an eighteen year old.” Life-long dreams of a
professional pervert.
This chauvinistic, evil womaniser has
his run of the town for most of the book, and the thing is... and I
don't know whether this thing
is scary, or sobering, or humbling, or maybe just deliciously
tempting in its realism... the thing is, it speaks to me. I don't
stand for all men, and I'm sure there are saints out there somewhere
among us, but the way Henry Chinaski (Bukowski's literary alter-ego)
laps up woman after eager, fawning woman should have most straight
men salivating. It's not pretty, and it's not nice, and it sure is
pretty fucking uncomfortable, but he gets right to the core of it, at
least for me. No wonder there is no mention of his mother... no
family, no moral compass or ties to a possibly innocent past. Just a
dirty old man, “sucking beer”, puking up blood through
three-hundred hangovers a year.
Towards the end though, maybe
the last seventy or so pages (out of three-hundred) things start to
get a little clouded for Henry Chinaski. The sex is still good – in
fact the whores and sluts that he so adores only become more and more
sumptuous, their young flesh more and more tempting... but he has
also met a girl, Sara, who touches something else in him. He doesn't
say he loves her, and I trust him, he is a very honest narrator, and
is frank and blunt about his feelings, both to his women, and to the
reader. He doesn't love Sara, but he knows that she is 'a good
woman', and this is a phrase he uses sparingly only once before. But
the difference with Sara as well, is that she won't fuck him. She
knows about his continuing conquests, and she suffers through his
ongoing selfishness, but she always comes back, and there is
something in that that strikes a chord with old, dirty Henry
Chinaski. His last few sexual encounters span the whole range of
women possibly conceivable: a young, nubile belly-dancer from Canada
who gives him the time of his life, and gives it to him again and
again; an old, haggard, sagging woman whom he loathes even before she
is between his sheets, and infinitely more afterwards; a black hooker
who sucks his dick terribly five minutes after meeting him in the car
park of a liquor store; a ninety-pound, eighteen year old – at
last. He has seen everything. Fondled every part, fucked every
crevice. Still Sara waits, over Thanksgiving, Christmas, then she
gives herself to him, without his asking and says, “Happy New Years
Henry”; they fall asleep together.
After he accepts terrible
head from the black hooker for twenty dollars, and then drives her to
an intersection where she continues to hitchhike and no doubt solicit
more of the same, he makes one last attempt – and there have been
many beforehand – to steel his mind against any more fucking
around.
“Sara was a good woman. I had to get myself
straightened out. The only time a man needed a lot of women was when
none of them were any good. A man could lose his identity fucking
around too much. Sara deserved much better than I was giving her. It
was up to me now.”
This is his final challenge to
himself... three-hundred and four pages in and barely one more to go,
he convinces himself that he needs to give this good woman a proper
chance, because if he lets her slip away, then he will be doomed.
Then another girl calls, another admirer, and this is where I was
scared. Charles Bukowski was about to offer his opinion, in this last
page, in one last conversation between a dirty old man and a juicy,
delicious, groaning and spread-legged nineteen-year-old temptress. In
the final lines of 'Woman' Charles Bukowski would decree whether, in
his humble opinion, it was at all possible for a flawed man to accept
the love of a good woman.
Anyone who says that Bukowski is a
sexist, chauvinistic pig is probably right... but anyone who says
that this is all he is is a single-minded, blind fucking moron.
'Women' is a book that is not afraid to delve past the scared facades
that we put in front of ourselves to mask our true desires in our
attempts to play the role of the good guy. I'm still not sure if
Henry Chinaski is a good guy or not, but I am sure that he is a real
guy, about as real a guy as there could possibly ever be in my eyes,
and when his time came to decide whether he could be loved in the
final pages of this book, my heart was in my mouth, as I felt my fate
too, rested in his decision.
He sent her back. And still,
there is hope yet.
Peace, Taco.