Book Review: Charles Bukowski seemed able to turn everything that happened in his life into writing, and never seemed to leave leftovers. Hollywood is the story of Henry Chinaski writing a screenplay and watching the movie get made, and not made, and made again. If you know Charles Bukowski wrote the script for the movie Barfly, you know the rest. There's lots of drinking, not as much sex (Bukowski was married at the time), phonies, egos, money, famous people. Chinaski is a little more mellow here, but he's also little older. The novel is a roman a clef (keys are easily found on Google), but many names aren't too difficult to decipher: an American director named Frances Ford Lopalla, a French director named Jon-Luc Modard, a German director named Wenner Zergog, you get the drift. At times it seemed that Bukowski was writing on autopilot, reporting the events as they happened. Only, just like talking with a friend of yours out on the stoop, you suspect that maybe he's embellishing the stories to make them just a little bit better. Except given this is the fantasy land that is Hollywood, maybe it all is just straight-up reportage. And every page is written with that wide-eyed Bukowski charm, not quite believing what's happening even as he barrels along. One of the more interesting twists of the book is to see Bukowski, with his disdain for the pretensions and gaudy trappings of the rich, learn to accept and even expect his special treatment as a big shot and his newly wealthy lifestyle, even buying a house and a BMW. All that is a far cry, tho well-deserved, from the days of Post Office. Hollywood isn't the best of Charles Bukowski, but if you've liked his other books you'll certainly like this one too, especially if you like picking out the real-life characters. And it's a quick read. And you'll like the last page. [3 Stars]
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