WOMEN

Written in first-person, Women by Charles Bukowski starts off interest, but soon you realise that that the protagonist's life consists of two main things: drinking and women. After that, it is noticeable that the entire novel is based on those two things. The beginning is interesting, but about more than two-thirds of the novel is uninteresting, and I was hoping that the story would end.

If you have read Post Office before reading Women, then you will not find the humour greatly amusing. You will find the protagonist unchanging, and the story repetitive because of the many women that the protagonist deals with.

The protagonist, Henry Chinaski, a recluse, drinks all day long and somehow or another, even though he is his fifties, he ends up with a lot of women, most of which admire his writing. Henry has a problem, however, that he cannot settle for just one woman. Thus, you will notice that there are many different women involved throughout the novel, some of which make one appearance, while others make a few. Henry cannot stay sober, so he drinks all day long. He cannot stay faithful to one woman at a time, so he sleeps with many different women, and causes himself problems.

Women is written as though it was an autobiography, which I believe it is. The protagonist, Henry Chinaski, was born in 1920 and is German, which is the same as the author. Henry used to work at the post office, and now is a writer of poetry, novels, and short stories, which is exactly what the author did. Of course, when you are reading such works that are based on real life, you should not expect a proper plot or very much character development. There is just a trace of some development in Henry on the last few pages.

All in all, I recommend reading either Post Office or Women, but not both. I greatly enjoyed Post Office better, and it was shorter too.

2/5

Women was my first introduction to Charles Bukowski and remains my favourite of all Buk's books. I absolutely love it and highly recommend it. It is a perfect example of the crudeness, vulgarity and honesty that we love about Bukowski.

If you can overlook the fact that the main character is a misogynist then you might enjoy this book. To sum everything into a couple words: drinking and sex. Henry Chinaski details his sexual exploits with women in a raw, uncoloured manner. Although I was entertained at first, by the middle of the book there was still no hint of character growth. Chinaski's attitude and actions became too predictable, which in a sense put out the fire.

Henry Chinaski has two problems: a) he doesn't understand women at all, and b) he's almost oblivious to problem a). Chinaski, the main character of this and other Bukowski novels, meets and beds scores of women throughout this disjointed and very funny tale. Just as the many characters start to blur into one another, and reappearances have you flipping back a hundred pages to establish some kind of context, Bukowski brings the sexual rhythm of the book into focus. Buk at his best.