Book 8: Bad Buk Bio

Why am I still reading this book?


The Hunchback of East Hollywood
by Aubrey Malone


After reading in the NYT Book Review that Beckett’s letters had been released into a new edition, I’ve been desperate for a good biography on a writer I enjoy. It’s a topic I’m rather obsessed with, the life behind the work. The living part of the creation process, a peek into the moment and time that the word was placed on the page.

I’m not sure why I ended up starting with this book. I was seduced into the Biography B section of the library and couldn't find anything suitable on Beckett. Behind me was ol' Bukowski, my lousy old love. I should never have taken it home, like a homeless cat wrapped around my ankle. It was a harmless flip-through at best, and I'm suddenly 10 pages in that night. Then 25 pages later. Constantly, I was questioning myself: Why am I still reading this book? 200 pages later I'm pissed I finished.

If I could slap the gal who wrote it, I would. If I had her in front of me speaking the way she writes, I’d have to inflict some sort of bodily injury. It makes my eyes throb in pain. My brain is offended. It takes everything in me not to hurl the book across the room when I hit another one of her contrived descriptions, horrid metaphors, terrible similes or abominable analogies.

Bukowski himself would have taken this and laughed. Such effort for something so incredibly pseudo-hip and falsely academic. It reads like a pretentious thesis, rambly and verbose. The tiny arial font and thick pages make it even that much more incredulous. I could include 15-million quotations that I found worth ridiculing, but it’s just a waste of my time.

I learned some things, I forgot some things. In all, I should have stuck with the original book 8: Wilde. No wonder Bukowski drank, he had to listen to people like this mangle his life.

Book 7: Post Office

Post Office
Charles Bukowski

Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love (155).

Anyone who knows me even in the slightest knows my adoration for Bukowski. However, I've never been a fan of his novels, for various reasons, in the way I am of his poetry. Ham on Rye fell short, Women was a disappointment, but Post Office found me at the right point. On point. Disenchanted and bored.

It was well paced, well described and had good humor to it. Bukowski's soft side came out more than it had in any of his other novel projects--part pathetic, part heart, part drunk. That's what I love about him so much.

I found the situation with Fay was a bit out of the ordinary, especially since she has "the girl," of whom Buk is apparently the father. It was sentimental and poorly paced comparatively. Interesting, however, that his job spiraled afterward--perhaps the point of Fay and her pregnancy was merely a cooked-up catalyst to expose that descent. Maybe he's trying to expose that he's just a big softy afterall.

Regardless, it was one of the best books (certainly the easiest book) I've read this year. It is nice to read something familiar and comforting. Sometimes I feel I can just curl up inside of Buk's words and pass out.


Next Book: An Ideal Husband, because I'm merely weeks away from having my own.