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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was worth neither the paper it was printed on, nor the time I spent on reading it ... if I wanted to listen to a horny, misogynistic douchebag talk about the women he screwed and the number of shits he has taken in a day (speaking of, why so many? Please see a doctor), I would go on 4chan. But then again, probably not.
an almost made up poem
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’s all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’m not jealous
because we’ve never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame—not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ve told
us, but listening to you I wasn’t sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “print her, print her, she’s mad but she’s
magic. there’s no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’t happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’t help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.
Excerpt From
Love is a Dog From Hell
Bukowski, Charles
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’s all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’m not jealous
because we’ve never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame—not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ve told
us, but listening to you I wasn’t sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “print her, print her, she’s mad but she’s
magic. there’s no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’t happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’t help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.
Excerpt From
Love is a Dog From Hell
Bukowski, Charles
challenging
dark
funny
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment
I don’t understand people’s infatuation with him. I genuinely gave him a chance and ended up disliking him even more. Maybe because I can’t stand his derogatory attitude towards women. Most of his poetry appears to be about falling for prostitutes or “whores” as he calls them, being drunk and wallowing in the misery that he created for himself (regardless of his childhood and the economy in the 70s). I was told I just don’t “get it” and I’m sure there’s aspects of it that I don’t get but in my defence its hard to see beneath the self-victimization and ignorance, particularly as a poetic “masterpiece”.
Oh he is a pig. Hes the epitome of filth in men. Selfish disgusting cruel and useless. I find it amusing when he compares himself to dostoevsky or hemmingway in a book filled with female objectification and meaningless affairs. He has an ego of a god. He thinks he is better than everyone but he hates himself, there is no worse type of man. He does not view women as people nor does he respect them at all. The word oaf was invented to describe him. I refuse to sympathize with men and their self inflicted depression and misery. What an embarrassingly meaningless life he had.
عنصري، كاره للنساء، متحيّز، متحرش بالقواصر وكل مايفكر فيه هو الجنس! عنوان جاذب لشيء فج مقزز وغير مقبول، هناك حد واضح بين إضافة عيوب بشرية في الأدب لإعطاء انطباع واقعي وبين أن يكون الكاتب نفسه فاسدًا تمامًا. ومن ناحية أدبية، لا يكفي أن تكتب سطرًا يليه أخر ليكون ذلك شعرًا، إن هذا ليس إلّا شعرٌ خاوٍ من اللغة، اللحن، والمعنى. طبعًا لم أكمل قراءته، كيف أفعل!
The most unhinged, disturbing, real poetry i've ever read