Beach & Bukowski : Feminism in Unexpected Places

Today I went to a beautiful beach -- Rye, in NH. Four about three hours I baked with my friend Kelly -- literally, baked. I also caught up with some reading. I am reading an anthology of the works of Charles Bukowski, primarily excerpts from Ham and Rye and Septuagenarian Stew, here, Bukowski, in his dirty realist way, talks about his childhood during the depression, his confrontations with poverty, his inner desire to understand death, and the violent emotions towards his father, many of them justifued. When it comes to issues of feminism, Bukowski is probably not the academy's first choice, especially his late work where he talks about, " fucking women, eating their cunts etc." Ironically enough, the deeper you look, the more you will find important material for feminist scholarship, and you will also find striking similarities to today's way of life -- our stigmas, our homophobia, our obsession with capital, and most of all, our blind trust in Americanisms. Bukowski narrates as if he was the child he once was, that child we have all been. In one of his stories, Son of Satan, he talks about a boy, Simpson, that had spread rumors about "fucking a girl" under his house (Henry Chinski). A group of boys (all elven and twelve) take Simpson in what I hope was an allegory, and put him up for "trail," they find him guilty of lying, as apparently he did not "fuck the girl." At the end, they almost kill Simpson by hanging him from the back of Henry's porch. Henry's father finds out, after pleading with Simpson's parents about not reporting the sinister act, he beats him. Henry hides under the bed and ends with, " I could hear my father breathing, and I moved to exactly the center of the bed and waited for the next thing" (Septuagenarian Stew, 1990)

Let us unpack this. 

This state of nature, irrational display of masculinity, demand for sexual encounter verification, homophobic taunt, and allegorical crucification of manhood and pride is an explicit example of the building blocks of sexism, and even more important, Bukowski leaves us with a warning, that although ambiguous, is a self-reflection of what violence and the objectification of women can lead to -- societal failure. The two boys that assist Henry in the "hanging" of Simpson are symbolic; they represent the social demands of men to seek "truth" and to defend the pride of masculinity, that is to say, have an honest count of how many women they have fucked, how many times they have solidified their heterosexuality, and how many times have they celebrated their Rousseauian victory of having a women as a trophy of the "nature" olympics. Bukowski is a good read. Very good.  He is dark and certainly real. As a feminist, it is difficult to navigate the essentialist, male-universal language of certain authors, Bukowski being one of them, but we can find that they too have profound messages of self-reflection and substance. There are many other stories from this anthology that I want to share with you. Looking at some of this brilliant work through a "bent" lens is helping me, and it will help you, to challenge and see feminism in everything.