Pulp by Charles Bukowski (PDF)

Description

Opening with the exotic Lady Death entering the gumshoe-writer’s seedy office in pursuit of a writer named Celine, this novel demonstrates Bukowski’s own brand of humour and realism, opening up a landscape of seamy Los Angeles.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I like Bukowski, I’ve read a number of his novels. This one is just meh. If you are starting out read something else first

⭐Pulp stands as an artful example of an authors work. At 74 Bukowski pieces together a brilliant narrative wrapped around the protagonists clear perspective on 55 years of watching the world around him evolve. Both the narrative and the theme are riveting in the same way a multicar accident on the freeway grabs your attention in spite of the desire to look away.

⭐The ending of Pulp reminds me of the conclusion of “A Simple Heart” by Flaubert: “…as she breathed her final breath she thought she saw, as the heavens opened for her, a gigantic parrot hovering over her head.” Perhaps it was an intentional allusion. However, nothing else about the book reminds me of Flaubert. Pursuing such parallels is like reading the fatuous object labels of insufficiently compelling art at the MoMA. Nick Belane (a play on Mickey Spillane) is a detective with no ideas, a man whose first–and last–instinct is to head to the nearest bar instead of heading to the archives. This is a detective with no feeling for research, who waits for thugs to show up at his office to offer him leads on cases that go nowhere, and who somehow manages to cross paths with unattainable beautiful women while pretending to be a detective. The writing is circular, repetitive, faithful to its maudlin, self-pitying subject. Fun nevertheless.

⭐As this was Bukowski’s last work, I am left wondering whether he was at his best, or his worst. Either way, the dialogue is very fast and has wide open gaps which the reader will either enjoy or hate. I personally loved it because Bukowski is testing the reader at every turn. You gotta work for this one. And isn’t that so much like talking to an old guy with experience? You gotta fill in the gaps because they don’t have the time or energy to spoon feed ya, kid. This is Bukowski having fun with you at the bar. The ending was a bit odd for his style however. I am wondering if he died before he could finish. In any case, it doesn’t detract as long as the reader is aware. I highly recommend this book as a fun and loose ride.

⭐The book is dedicated to bad writing…seriously?Yep, and one of the most important literary proponents of not giving a s*** about anything is behind it.This review doesn’t require much, and reading of the book requires little to no mental faculties. It’s a poorly written detective novel, and it’s as usual a beautiful print. Black Sparrow knew how to handle things in that regard.If you haven’t read Bukowski, I wouldn’t start here, but like a badass he ended his career here. In my opinion, his best book is Ham on Rye, but it takes balls to intentionally write something this horrible; thus, this beautiful. Read HOR, and then give this a try, and don’t take it seriously…otherwise you’ve missed the point and missed out on an otherwise entertaining and hilarious read.Happy reading!

⭐I’m a huge Bukowski fan, and there isn’t enough of him for me. This was his last novel, and is not related to the Henry Chinaski series. That said, this character certainly shares some of Hank’s personality and outlook. I think there is a little more bare philosophical rumination in this book than in any of the others, which isn’t saying all that much, as the others tend to eschew that type of thing. Bukowski’s famous plain and explicit writing style is on full display here. Great book! Too bad there aren’t more of them.

⭐not one of my favorites but still enjoyed it because it’s Charles Bukowski. He’s not for everyone but for me he brings a little bit of enjoyment to my life

⭐I love Bukowski’s raw prose. It’s inspiring to me because I love the direct and apparent simplicity of his work. I say “apparent” simplicity because it takes talent and work to boil down a sentence to it’s shortest and most efficient point. In itself, it’s an artistic form that is slowly making way for less precious and elitist work.

⭐Really confused about this and though I give it five stars it could have been one, two, three or four. I had downloaded a biography of Bukowski along with this novel but half way through the novel I returned the Biography unread for a refund. The novel was good, very readable, entertaining, very funny at times ( the chapter where the main character, a private eye, pays good money for a telephone chat on a sex-line is hilarious ) But just how funny can Bukowski’s world be? A one dimensional bleak world where everyone else is purely there to screw, hate or be screwed by. Where any problem is met by taking a hit of booze. Where in between every move you make you enter a bar, pick a fight, or make a bet on a horse that always loses? Yet, strangely, the Dick thinks he must keep a canary ( painted red – read the book ) else if he let it out “it would starve”. Now, is that compassion peeping into Bukowski’s twilight world? His world is close to nihilism and I have read that one redeeming feature of it is “honesty”. Is honesty the same as realism? Really, getting back to the beginning, I remain unable to truly rate this book. But five stars, to perhaps encourage others to read it. Meanwhile, I will continue with biographies of others. Maybe Hesse, Huxley, Keats – who is fooling who, and who is wasting their time? No, I don’t live in Bukowski’s world but I think I remain honest.

⭐Pulp: A Novel by Charles Bukowski is one of the most interesting and enjoyable books I have read.It’s irreverent, witty, hilarious and sad. It’s sad because the author knew he was dying from leukemia at the time of writing. The book reflects his own life. The setting is LA, the city he knew intimately, and some of the characters are based on real people he knew. And, possibly some of the imaginary way-out characters were based on people he knew. I have the delightfully named Jennie Nitro in mind as one such character. As for Lady Death, that one speaks for itself.It parodies a style and an age of LA-noir private detectives or “dicks” as he refers to them in a reelection of that era. He has an office. What dick wouldn’t? He writes. There is a gun in the top drawer and he tips a brown derby over his left eyebrow as he leaves the office often to find himself a bar stool, a scotch and water, and invariably picking a fight with some character or another in the bar.Some of the characters are outlandish such as the heavy who wears a pink suit. His two “gorillas” also wear suits of the same hue. A bit like Tweedledum and Tweedledee in triplicate. The surreal nature of parts of the book reminded me of ‘Alice In Wonderland.’ It was like reading a book and tripping on acid, not that I have done that.There are way too many hilarious or poignant parts of this book for me to quote here. It would probably breach copyright if I reproduced the score or so wonderful lines from the book. I will restrict myself to a one of favourites, and that’s not easy:“I was gifted, am gifted. Sometimes I looked at my hands and realized that I could have been a great pianist or something. But what have my hands done? Scratched my balls, written checks, tied shoes, pushed toilet levers, etc. I have wasted my hands. And my mind.”Wonderful! I wish he was still alive. I’d love to meet him, get drunk with him. Wonderful book. Wonderful writer!

⭐This ones’s my favourite Bukowski novel – above Post Office and Factotum even. It’s got that easy, tough talking fluidity, edgy and world-weary, what you’d expect. Only this one’s got self-deprecating humour too, plus surreal red herrings/sparrows etc… Let’s face it, if you could cast a modern day noir gumshoe who else would you have?And if you listen real close with your ear to the gutter, you can make out a deep rumbling of profundities. That or a passing subway train.

⭐Noir with a heavy dose of the surreal and the metaphorical PULP is Bukowski’s finally gift to the world before his passing. Nick Belane is old school, old Hollywood and hot on the straight of a French writer presumed dead and the Red Sparrow, amongst other things. Most interesting Hank penned this having made BARFLY and written HOLLYWOOD. What do you think that says?

⭐It’s like watching a gritty movie. Takes you away for a few hours. It’s an easy interesting read, definitely 5*

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