I am not quit sure why it took me so long to pick up Hollywood by Charles Bukowski. The book was just sitting around the shelf for years. Like most others, I read Ham on Rye, Women and Post Office on several occasions. Any of us Bukowski fans recognize Hank for the genius that he was.
No, this old drunk is nothing like the great authors of the 20th Century. His writing style is flat compared to the great ones that they make you read in your Introduction to the American Classic course at collgate university, Dartmouth or Amherst College. But New England universities never hired the kind of professors who had the balls (or tenure) to teach old Hank Bukowski to their students.
By I digress.
So let’s go back to Hollywood. The novel not the city.
As always Hank provides us readers with thoughts about the breakdown of society, the colorful characters that he encountered and just how lame he thinks the world can be.
And he may be correct at times.
As always he is drinking. Beer, wine, vodka. As long as it is cheap. As long as it is free. As long as it is there. Henry Chinaski never asked twice.
Hank never tries to be anything that he is not. And that is exactly why his fiction works. Honesty above style.
The entire book tells the tale of the screenplay that he had to write for Hollywood producers. For what may have been the movie Barfly staring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.
Of course, he did not use their names.
Hollywood works. Bukowski’s work usually did ever when he did not.
For the early Bukowski readers, do not start here.
Women or Post Office is the place to begin.
For those of you who read all that Hank could write (which I doubt), pick up Ask The Dust or Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Arturo Bandini was Hank’s influnence. That is, John Fante.
I am too tired to run spell check. If I messed up, please don’t call the cops.
As long as you are reading you are living. What you read does not matter just as much.
Guy
*Guy Jacobs is the Author of Hard Boiled Men