melissa

First poetry book I read by Bukowski, and i love him in this format. He writes beautifully, could be sweet, raw and always poignant. I could've very easily given him 5* if it weren't for the way he talks about women, they're mostly another thing to be addicted to, like booze and cigaretts. There's a couple of poems with him belittling the claims of misoginy about him, and a few about his domestic life with his wife, which are lovely. But really sexism is about the faceless women who pass by, and obviously never register to him as other humans, not the few he loves.

I guess he feels that it's part of his misanthropy, like he dislikes them the way he dislikes everybody, even himself, but however horrid the man he describes is, he at least feels like a complete human.

It's a five star book for the main reason that Dubois' witness account of post-abolition America is priceless, however, if I had to study that book in college and be told to agree with him I would've been quite incensed. According to Dubois, the ex-slave must work to be respected by the white man, he should be educated and “civilized” is the word used, and the main idea being, having been a main part in the construction of “America”, the black folk are as equally deserving of the stolen land as the white men. Of course Dubois never refers to America as stolen land, he never even mentions the presence of the natives who like the kidnapped people of Africa have experienced unbelievable sorrow on the hands of the pilgrims and white colonizers, and that to me makes his whole analysis baseless.

Something i think about whenever i'm reading an american teen novel, are america's kids' problems so big or are they dramatized and exaggerated for the sake of fiction. And if so, won't at some point life imitate art, and have teens juggling life's biggest challenges cz they believe they're supposed to. Seeing how many teens are driven to suicide or shootings, i guess many do believe the highschool experience is that important to perfect, when i have no idea how the social life in school as a concept started (might be another thing started in movies that life decided to imitate). Like couldn't all these films be made about college kids instead of highschool kids? Isn't worrying about getting good grades and accepted in colleges enough?
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I had started writing that review not knowing where the book is going, but it did give me that feeling of anxiety and suffocation, and not to spoil anything but it makes sense.
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It's a good book, the mystery part is intriguing, u can build ur own theories while reading the book, there's nothing the protagonists know that u don't, which is always more fun when reading a mystery. The reveal was good, made sense, and the book gave us enough time to say goodbye to the characters, also an important thing for me. Also it really made me hate cops, the book gets an extra point for that.

This book felt like the ever present little hum of depression.

It did not really end, nor did it really begin. It was more like a visit through a time machine even if i believe 50s Naples to have been severely exaggerated and made more mean than reality. Still a good visit.