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Olivera's Reviews > Women
Women
by
by
Well, this is one of the instances where I'm not sure how I should start my review. It's not because I don't have anything to say, because trust me, I have sooo many opinions, I just have no idea where my rant should begin.
First of all, how the fuck is Bukowski this popular? Please someone explain this to me, because I can't wrap my mind around the fact that people actually love and worship him as an author. And how did he not have like a thousand children and didn't die of liver cirosis or STDs?
Now that I got this out of the way, I can actually focus on the rest.
So, Henry Chinaski...wow, just wow. Shittiest excuse for a man I've ever seen. There are two things that make his character even worse than he is:
1. he is based on the author
2. he is aware of his flaws and what he's doing wrong, yet he just accepts it like he can't influence it
I wanted to yell 'OTHER PEOPLE HAVE A HARD LIFE TOO' into his face like all the freakin' time.
He is so unlikable, he's so vulgar and rude and acts like he's the only goddamn creature in this world that's worth anything. He doesn't have one single human interaction with anyone and is so misogynystic that it hurt. Speaking as a woman, I was offended by this on every possible level. My guesses are that you can only enjoy this if you are a really oblivious person (and probably a male).
*not trying to be offensive here, just giving my opinion*
The plot didn't exist. It was a repetitive cycle of drinking, having sex and going to horse races, with the occasional poetry reading here and there.
There was a scene right at the beginning where Lydia tells him that he doesn't understand women, and this is pretty much the summary of this book. He doesn't understand them, yet he likes to pretend like he does and like he is dominant over them in every way. He sees them as a sum of their body parts and gets rid of them as soon as they serve their purpose. This book would have gotten 2 stars had there not been several occasions on which he rapes some of the girls. This was definitely it for me.
Somewhere near the end he has an encounter with a petit woman and he says something along the lines of 'it will be like raping a child' while thinking about the possible intercourse with her.
How on earth can you like a character who says stuff like this?
We get some 300 pages of text, all focusing on someone who lives an emtpy life. There is no moral to this, no story, no profound reveal at the end. We just witness someone not knowing how to properly live and make something that's actually pleasant. It's a bunch of self pitty mixed with extremely bad decisions.
Chinaski (and persumably Bukowski) was a swine with no respect towards anything, and I truly believe he shouldn't be half as popular as he is.
I will end this now, because I don't want to get even more angry.
First of all, how the fuck is Bukowski this popular? Please someone explain this to me, because I can't wrap my mind around the fact that people actually love and worship him as an author. And how did he not have like a thousand children and didn't die of liver cirosis or STDs?
Now that I got this out of the way, I can actually focus on the rest.
So, Henry Chinaski...wow, just wow. Shittiest excuse for a man I've ever seen. There are two things that make his character even worse than he is:
1. he is based on the author
2. he is aware of his flaws and what he's doing wrong, yet he just accepts it like he can't influence it
I wanted to yell 'OTHER PEOPLE HAVE A HARD LIFE TOO' into his face like all the freakin' time.
He is so unlikable, he's so vulgar and rude and acts like he's the only goddamn creature in this world that's worth anything. He doesn't have one single human interaction with anyone and is so misogynystic that it hurt. Speaking as a woman, I was offended by this on every possible level. My guesses are that you can only enjoy this if you are a really oblivious person (and probably a male).
*not trying to be offensive here, just giving my opinion*
The plot didn't exist. It was a repetitive cycle of drinking, having sex and going to horse races, with the occasional poetry reading here and there.
There was a scene right at the beginning where Lydia tells him that he doesn't understand women, and this is pretty much the summary of this book. He doesn't understand them, yet he likes to pretend like he does and like he is dominant over them in every way. He sees them as a sum of their body parts and gets rid of them as soon as they serve their purpose. This book would have gotten 2 stars had there not been several occasions on which he rapes some of the girls. This was definitely it for me.
Somewhere near the end he has an encounter with a petit woman and he says something along the lines of 'it will be like raping a child' while thinking about the possible intercourse with her.
How on earth can you like a character who says stuff like this?
We get some 300 pages of text, all focusing on someone who lives an emtpy life. There is no moral to this, no story, no profound reveal at the end. We just witness someone not knowing how to properly live and make something that's actually pleasant. It's a bunch of self pitty mixed with extremely bad decisions.
Chinaski (and persumably Bukowski) was a swine with no respect towards anything, and I truly believe he shouldn't be half as popular as he is.
I will end this now, because I don't want to get even more angry.
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Quotes Olivera Liked
“I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, 'I’m going to pee.' hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carring on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together”
― Women
― Women
Reading Progress
March 11, 2017
– Shelved as:
maybe
March 11, 2017
– Shelved
March 22, 2017
–
Started Reading
March 28, 2017
–
80.41%
"I honestly can't wait to finish this, only so I can write a really ranty review about it."
page
234
March 29, 2017
– Shelved as:
2017
March 29, 2017
–
Finished Reading
August 22, 2020
– Shelved as:
library
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Someone needs to tell Olivera that not all characters were made to be “liked�.
PS—I think he does have at least one daughter and AIDS wasn’t around yet, but he probably did contract other STDs regularly�!