Women

Charles Bukowski is one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, the author of more than forty books, including novels, poetry, essays, and short stories. Despite occasionally shocking naturalism, his texts are full of lyricism, even a peculiar... sentimentality. The novel "Women" was written during his wave of popularity and contains a number of Bukowski's signature "tricks": self-irony, an abundance of sexual scenes, and plot energy. The main character is 50 years old, named Henry Chinaski, and is Bukowski's unchanging alter ego. The novel presents a series of more than frank sexual scenes, united by one theme — the hero's endless love for his women, admiration for them, and a rough yet sincere delight. A rebel and a romantic, unwilling to fit into any framework, despising any kind of rules — this is the image that arises in anyone who reads the books of Charles Bukowski. Those who hear music in his deliberately brutal prose and poetry, who can discern poetry behind the mask of a cynic and a foul-mouthed person, will love him forever. Bukowski, it seems, did not care whether he would be heard. He walked his own path, despising refined people and refined, hollowed-out art. "While men watch football, or drink beer, or wander around bowling alleys, these women think of us, concentrate, study, decide — to accept us, throw us away, exchange us, kill us or simply leave us."