Pulp

by Charles Bukowski

Book Overview

"The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles."--Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author

"He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels."--Leonard Cohen, songwriter

Opening with the exotic Lady Death entering the gumshoe-writer's seedy office in pursuit of a writer named Celine, this novel demonstrates Charles Bukowski's own brand of humor and realism, opening up a landscape of seamy Los Angeles. Pulp is essential fiction from Buk himself.

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0876859260
• ISBN13: 9780876859261
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

double check hardcover vs. softcover status

I had thought that the edition I purchased was the hardcover edition and was sent a softcover. Confused.

Worth a Second Look...

I first picked this up a year ago and didn't like it. I think that's because I'd just read his powerful autobiographical novels Post Office and Ham on Rye and wanted more of the same. Pulp, Bukowski's last novel, was completed shortly before his death in 1994 and is more a work of fantasy--an absurd detective tale written in classic hardboiled private eye style. It's a pageturner, and I'd love to see it turned into a movie. It starts when Lady Death hires private dick Nick Belane to ascertain the identity of someone she thinks is Celine, who has somehow escaped her grasp. Bukowski's Celine is hilarious, a master of the put-down. More clients follow, in the best film noir tradition, but with bizarre and humorous twists. Belane's association with Lady Death proves beneficial a number of times, but it is not without its price. I couldn't put this down and the ending is a gutwrencher. Running gags like Belane's "high" fee ($6 an hour) and his inability to get served in bars without a hassle prove Buk's masterful comic touch, while slice of life digressions take the reader places few writers go. For instance, a space alien laments: "The earth. Smog, murder, the poisoned air, the poisoned water, the poisoned food, the hatred, the hopelessness, everything. The only beautiful thing about the earth is the animals and now they are being killed off, soon they will be gone except for pet rats and race horses. It's so sad, no wonder you drink so much." Dedicated to "bad writing," Pulp is anything but.

allegory of death

Written as he was fighting the illness that would kill him, this is Bukowski's farewell to his readers. As he said elsewhere of his hero Céline, "they ripped his guts out and he made them laugh". And this is what he proceeds to to in Pulp. Portraying himself as a blundering, idiotic detective, he pokes the ultimate fun at his own work as a writer. He hasn't even begun to solve any of the mysteries of life and yet he is about to die a meaningless death (in the allegory, the lease on his office is expiring), surrounded by even worse clowns and failures than he is. Personifications of his earlier selves are also there (the gambling addict mailman, see Post Office) and he resolutely thrashes them in the most poignant self-critique you'll ever find anywhere. Believe it or not, this book is a sublime act of bravery in the face of insurmountable odds.

They never pinned you down

Just as the gaping maw that is our culture at large was hard at work trying to define, capture, and devour Bukowski. His final book and final act of rebellion is Pulp. Surely this book leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of all the people who needed to pin Bukowski down, who thought they had the drunken underworld dweller Bukowski's literary soul dissected on the slab. They'll try to ignore this book but its here. You cant understand Bukowski without understanding this book so get cracking boys.

Classic

I'm surprised this book has not achieved more notoriety in literary circles. Simply put, it's a wonderful and often amusing piece of fiction that is a wonderful read, time and time again. The bare-bones Bukowski style of writing, the booze, the mayhem that Belane stumbles into: it's just great entertainment, laced with the biting dialogue that, for me, is the trademark of his work.

Bukowski's final farewell

What do you want for a man who has toiled for half a century with words and phrases? Do you want a marching band parade? A shotgun in the mouth? Or how about a novel, a novel that realizes this is the end. "Pulp" does this. It is Buk's goodbye. Fante is in there, John Martin his publisher is there, Lady Death, other characters from his life of writing. You can find him. But, you gotta look carefully. You have to have read Buk before. This is not for first time readers. Dont read this book until you have read alot of Bukowski. Only then will you enjoy it.