{"id":4472,"date":"2017-12-05T12:31:01","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T12:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/what-reading-bukowskis-women-taught-me-about-men\/"},"modified":"2019-08-29T00:48:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T04:48:05","slug":"what-reading-bukowskis-women-taught-me-about-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/what-reading-bukowskis-women-taught-me-about-men\/","title":{"rendered":"What Reading Bukowski\u2019s \u2018Women\u2019 Taught Me About Men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Late to the Party, we ask writers to read a seminal author who has somehow passed them by. You can read <\/em>previous entries here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I began working as a bookseller almost two and a half years ago, I frequently said to no one in particular as I shelved books in the poetry and fiction sections, \u201cI have a thousand and one reasons I\u2019ll never read Bukowski, and they\u2019re all named Trevor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I avoided Bukowski in high school without even trying, simply because I had no male authority guiding me to his work. I focused instead on the Daves\u200a\u2014\u200aDave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, and David Sedaris\u200a\u2014\u200aall because my favorite teacher, a quirky and energetic man, mentioned those writers were among his favorites. Nor did I ever reach for Bukowski in college. None of my syllabi included him, as I focused my coursework on Indian and South Asian writers, and later ultra-contemporary short stories. But the real reason I never touched his work at that age? No man I wanted to sleep with thought I should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until I left school, and really until I met my current partner a year and a half after that, I aligned my taste (in literature, in music, in whatever I could) with the sensitive young men who caught my (always looking) eye. I spent my first year in New York City going on a lot of dates. I scoured dating profiles, and the same name kept popping up\u200a\u2014\u200aCharles Bukowski. But Trevor left an especially bad taste in my mouth. We didn\u2019t date for long, and things didn\u2019t end well. Thanks to him, I associated Bukowski with condescension, infidelity, and a sheer unwillingness to sexually satisfy a woman. I saw Trevor\u2019s smug face every time I put a copy of Ham on Rye<\/em> back on the shelf, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise that someone who calls herself a writer has never read Bukowski\u2019s seminal novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, back then, my taste in literature\u200a\u2014\u200aboth what I sought out and what I avoided\u200a\u2014\u200awas formed by infatuation more than my own preferences. I was not confident in my own personality or opinions to hold the interest of my latest crush, so I read his favorite authors so he could tell me about them\u200a\u2014\u200aor, in the case of Trevor and Bukowski, spurned them out of spite. In the time since then, I\u2019ve grown up. I read for only myself now, focusing exclusively on young female writers with a powerful story to tell. I\u2019ve become an advocate for these emerging voices, and haven\u2019t read a book published before 1980 in about two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then, my taste in literature\u200a\u2014\u200aboth what I sought out and what I avoided\u200a\u2014\u200awas formed by infatuation more than my own preferences.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But I somehow cannot escape Bukowski\u2019s pull. My current partner has Bukowski cover art tattooed on his left bicep. He has a tattered copy of Women<\/em> he read after a terrible breakup six years ago. The moment I learned that, I knew I would have to read it too. The bad dates with Trevor (and others) aside, Bukowski-reading men aren\u2019t all bad. They can be clever, sensitive, and creative. They\u2019re also, unquestionably, messed up\u200a\u2014\u200ajust like the protagonist of Women, <\/em>Henry Chinaski, who pinballs from fling to fling, unable to be satisfied. But the truth is, as problematic as it is to admit this, I am drawn to \u201cdamaged\u201d men, in much the same way way damaged men are drawn to \u201cdamaged\u201d women in the Manic Pixie Dream Girl books and films I criticize for stripping women of their agency. Would finally reading Bukowski help me comprehend exactly what their damage was?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I borrowed my partner\u2019s tattered copy of Women<\/em>, curious to stand in his shoes and read what he did to mend his broken heart. I hoped it would help me better understand him, or at least the \u201chim\u201d of a time before we had even met. I hoped that in reading this novel, I would also understand the men behind those bad dates, the great men in my life now, and possibly why I tried so hard to impress them.<\/p>\n\n\n