Women
by Charles Bukowski · first published 1978
6mentions
0recommended by
5HN commenters
2010–2025first – last mentioned
100% neutral
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.
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IIRC, if you read Women, you'll see a passage where Bukowski essentially clarifies this piece. He'd get so many wannabe writers asking him for advice that he'd tell them to just give it up. If they didn't, they were real writers.…
on “Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?” ↗…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughable_Loves Nietzsche: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24702467-aphorisms-on-lo... Houellebecq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomised Bukowski: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38500.Women Kundera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_Be...
on “The Percentage of American Adults Not Having Sex Has Reached a Record High” ↗I appreciate the reading list, but wouldn't mind more clarity. Why do you suggest these readings in particular? Anyhow, I've only read Women from the list. The book seemed to be a male perspective about women. Bukowski doesn't know why they prefer what they do, or why he would be attractive to them. He doesn't know how to get involved with…
on “The Percentage of American Adults Not Having Sex Has Reached a Record High” ↗I think that's cynical and incorrect. Charles Bukowski's Women is not an example of a normal relationship. By a vague enough definition, all relationships are "transactional." Both parties can intellectualize their feelings and point to what they get out of it,…
on “The Percentage of American Adults Not Having Sex Has Reached a Record High” ↗…same folks who listed it on their profiles back during the G20 used to yell at me for listing "Post Office" because apparently Bukowski is problematic -- like, Jesus lady I know, that's why I didn't list Women or Factotum... then they'd cry me a (usually figurative) river when I'd shoot back why do you claim to stan Emma Goldman if you won't date someone who owns a firearm since it's not propaganda of the deed…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2022?” ↗Women, by Charles Bukowski, I should add
on “How “The Great Gatsby” took over high school” ↗