Charles Bukowski- Pulp

Pulp

Virgin Publishing

Charles Bukowski

1994

Other Bukowski Reviews; Post Office - South of No North - Factotum - Women - Ham on Rye - Hollywood - Tales of Ordinary Madness - Notes of a Dirty Old Man

"It was a hellish hot day and the air conditioner was broken. A fly crawled across the top of my desk. I reached out with the open palm of my hand and sent him out of the game."

Apologies to anyone sick of the constant Bukowski (and Auster) reviews going up on this blog recently, but I'm on a kick to complete their bibliographies and nothing will stop me. Well, plenty of things might stop me, but I hope they don't, okay? My accelerated race through the German-born author's bibliography led to the mild disappointment of his final, thinly-veiled autobiographical piece Hollywood, which itself upon completion left only one final mysterious novel for me to look at; the enigmatic, satirical, frustrated and unresolved Pulp. Before I received my copy through the mail I really had no idea what to expect (I tend to avoid book summations of works by authors I already respect, just to keep things as a surprise), and now, coming out of the novel, I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the strange combination of thoughts it left me with. It's not a good book, but it's a very interesting one.

I don't want to go into too much detail regarding the plot, for reasons that shall hopefully seem apparant, but let me start by saying that Pulp is both completely and undeniably unoriginal, and yet something totally unique. I think I might have to explain that one; the unoriginality is rather more obvious; Pulp is a satirical pastiche of hard-boiled detective fiction that includes all of the obvious stereotypes of the genre, ramped up to a Spinal Tap-like eleven with a notable ferocity. Bukowski's lead private dick is Nick Belane, a run-down no-good scumbag who, as these things go, is unexpectedly called upon by the most fatal of femme fatale's  to investigate a case. Her name is Lady Death, and her existence leads into the more self-referential, metaphysical side to this novel, which we'll get to in a second.

“I was feeling unfulfilled and, frankly, rather crappy about everything. I wasn't going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of us weren't even doing little things.”

As these often go, Belane quickly finds himself picking up a couple of other cases, all of which seem to confusingly entwine with Lady Death. As he investigates, Belane pushes himself further and further into trouble- more trouble than Bukowski himself had expected, and so Belane finds himself having to viciously fight his way out of these desperate situations. Bukowski dedicates the book 'to bad writing', and all reports regarding Bukowski's thoughts on the writing process suggest the corners he found himself putting Belane in were as a result of his own lack of planning. This continues throughout the whole book, and so at no point does the reader get a solid grip on what's actual going on. Bukowski might have eventually sorted these problems out, but inconveniently died before he could, and as a result the plot is very poorly structured. 

Love this cover.

I think that the trouble Bukowski had writing Pulp stems from his ambitious attempts to make it stand out as a notable piece of postmodernism, in trying to represent on the page the thoughts of an author struggling with mortality. Belane regularly struggles for his life in brutal fights with lowlife thugs, as well as also witnessing the amazing immortality of the beings he finds himself tangled up with, since Belane quickly discovers that some of the people he's been investigating are really immortal aliens from outer space. It's a plot development that feels very in debt to Kurt Vonnegut, and Bukowski's prose has the same unwavering straight-faced style, where the narrator swings from straight forward descriptions of surreal concepts to brief introspective comments that suggest he might just be insane. Another author who I couldn't help thinking of is the late great Douglas Adams, and his two Dirk Gently detective novels, since there's a certain tone of dry humour about the supernatural intrusion into the detective genre that quickly reminded me of the Dirk Gently series. 

Upon finishing the last of Bukowski's novels, and the first to be truly fiction, I was mostly left with 'what if?' questions, about just what the author might have done in his career had he written more pure fiction. It's a moot point at the end of the day, but though I wouldn't undo any of the Henry Chinaski novels (well, maybe Hollywood if I absolutely had to) if I could, I think the evidence of Pulp suggests he would've come up with some very imaginative stuff. Unfortunately for Pulp itself, it's too handicapped by the circumstances of its writing and publication to be a really good novel by itself, but I did find it to be mostly fun from start to finish thanks to Bukowski's unwilting wit, and its explosive deconstruction of the detective fiction genre. It's a really strange way for Bukowski to bow out, but it somehow kind of fits.

James M. Cain- Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity

Orion

James M. Cain

1943

“I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman.”

I knew within less than a page of James M. Cain's seminal crime noir novella Double Indemnity that this guy was good; real good. The power of Walter Huff's unrepentant narration jumped off the page within seconds, managing to be both dark and murky and yet as clear as day. There's only been one other time where I'd felt so totally in the thrall of such a voice, and that was Dashiel Hammett's classic The Maltese Falcon. Maybe we've been spoiled by decades of sharp genre parodies, but it's so easy to read this book and hear the narration speak out in your head, in a deep, cynical male voice. It's absolutely spot-on definitive hardboiled crime fiction in style and substance, dramatic, intense and cool from start to finish. 

The key to the whole piece is the awesome character of the aforementioned Walter Huff, an intelligent and  cynical insurance salesman in California who is inspired to instigate events that will change his life for ever when one day, during a simple visit to chase-up a car insurance renewal he meets a woman he finds irresistible. Phyllis Nirdlinger is a femme fatale from head to toe, and Huff smells it from the get-go. When she subtly asks him about procuring her husband life insurance without his knowledge, Huff knows exactly what her game is, and spells it out for her. Then he shocks her by telling her it'll never work and she'll be easily caught... unless she sticks with him. Using his in-depth knowledge of his company and insurance law, Walter Huff plots the perfect murder.

All of this happens within barely ten pages, as Cain sets a breakneck pace. Somehow he manages to make Walter's prior innocence seem realistic, while self-justifying the reasons for comitting murder for profit. There's a partly procedural tone to the proceedings as Walter and Phyllis set-up and then carry out their plan, making Mr. Nirdlinger's broken neck look like an accident following a fall from a moving train. It's tense, enthralling stuff, as Huff bitterly describes the act of murder and then the fallout of paranoia and seeds of hatred between the co-conspiritors. To make matters worse, Huff develops a freindship and then romantic feelings for Nirdlinger's 19-year-old innocent daughter. It's one glorious mess.

There's a sense of critical moralising towards the end of this short read, as the walls begin to close in around poor Walter, perhaps to a very slightly overbearing extent, but that's really all I have to criticise about it. Cain encapsulates the spirit of noir crime within every sentence, and gives all of his characters distinctive, strong personalities. In only a short space of time he develops a compact, enthralling plot that blurs the lines between typical assertions of morally good and bad characters. Walter Huff is a complex, ambiguous man who embodies the style of a whole genre effortlessly, and I found him so likable that I couldn't help but hope he'd get away with it even though he was as guilty as sin. Double Indemnity is a damn-near perfect slice of luxorious genre fiction, as good as you're going to get and as cool as anything I've read.

Dashiell Hammett- The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon

Alfred A. Knopf

Dashiel Hammett
1930

"Cairo, speaking with difficulty because of the fingers on his throat, said: "This is the second time you've put your hands on me." His eyes, though the throttling pressure on his throat made them bulge, were cold and menacing.
 

"Yes," Spade growled. "And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it."."
 

My experience with classic crime noir literature is fairly limited; prior to reading this only to a selection of Raymond Chandler novels and Roger Simon's The Big Fix. I've read/watched a far greater number of parodies of the genre than I have the genre itself, which is somewhat silly considering the whole style is massively appealing to me. After watching and greatly enjoying the 1941 Bogart film, I happened to randomly find a copy of this book in an Oxfam charity bookshop (a place that has become my spiritual home recently) and had to pick it up. It was short, absorbing, and massively entertaining read and I'm very glad I did.

The phrase 'hard-boiled dialogue' is perhaps somewhat cliche, but Dashiel Hammett's quite brilliantly striking back and forth dialogue between his fantastic protagonist Sam Spade and the unfortunate characters who have to deal with him is surely the phrase's defining representation. Hammett crafts an intriguing tale of mystery, as private dick Spade is suddenly caught up in the middle of the proverbial storm; his partner shot dead, shady criminals and police trying to both bargain and threaten him, and an untrustworthy femme fatale of the highest caliber trying to use him to her advantage. It's fantastic stuff, genre fiction at its very best crafted and presented at a break-neck pace.

The Maltese Falcon is likely to appeal to anyone who's enjoyed any classic film noir, anyone who appreciates and enjoys incredibly sharp and witty dialogue, and anyone who isn't interested in a happily-ever-after ending. It's certainly a cynical novel, with a downbeat tone towards humanity in general, but this is offset by the sheer magnetism of Sam Spade and a healthy dose of intrigue and drama. It doesn't pretend to be high-literature, but revels in its own dirty pulp styling, and is all the better for it.