Charles Bukowski
Pulp

"Teachers are meant to be eaten," proclaimed Pier Paolo Pasolini. In this aphorism, which also sounds like an epitaph, I have always seen a beautiful linguistic game. Eaten in the sense of ingested and digested. Brought inside oneself with love as part of oneself and eaten in the sense of ignored, snubbed, hated. It would be better to combine the two ways. Eat them, love them, and then release them. Start from where they have reached to ride the weight of their genius... after all, an artist is always a person standing on the shoulders of a giant. I think I realized what kind of person I am while watching some random program on a random night. I remember that in response to the question "Who are your political models?" D'Alema's face replied with the arrogance and presumptuousness of someone who has understood nothing about life. In a smirk that reeked of unconsciousness... "None," he blurted out, beaming and puffed up with the strength he believed he possessed.

"Do you read Céline?" a female voice asked. It was quite sexy. I had been alone for a while. Centuries.

"Céline," I replied, "uhmm... "Such a sexy voice turned me on, truly. "Céline?" I repeated. "Give me some more information. Talk to me, ma'am. Keep talking..." "Zip up," she ordered. I looked down. "How did she know?" I asked. "Never mind. I want Céline," "Maybe I could find his bones." "No, fool, he's alive."

"And where is he?" "In Hollywood. They told me he frequents Red Koldowsky's bookstore," "Then why don't you find him yourself?" "Because first of all, I need to know if it's the real Céline. I need to be sure, completely sure." "But why did you turn to me? There are at least a hundred private investigators in this city as straightforward as me."

"John Barton recommended you." "Ah, Barton, yes. Well, listen. I need an advance. And I have to see you in person."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," she said. She lowered the receiver. I zipped up. And waited.

Nick Belane is an overweight private detective who carries his age poorly. Fifty-five years piled on his back. Head down, bowler hat, solitude, and alcohol to settle himself. A kind of social lubricant. Nick Belane is a filthy stereotype riding the streets of Hollywood in a Beetle, arguing with every bartender he encounters, and will end up masturbating on a veranda in Arkansas. Nick Belane is like a taxi, the last taxi taken by Charles Bukowski. Destination? To assassinate his own myths and fathers shortly before assassinating himself. Time passes and is misused. Everyone waits for something, lined up for nonsense, when we know from the start that we won't enjoy that time forever, that we have to move before we can no longer move. Bukowski gathers all the rags and patches of his life and writing and focuses them in this great mess (Pulp). A kind of "From one castle to another" un-damned, trying also to make you laugh, to dispel ghosts, to sum up, on one's life and life in general, with a smile, maybe even a bitter one, but with a smile on the face.

Bukowski gets lost in Nick Belane for the last journey at the end of the night, and Belane gets lost in the world. There are things, facts, events, writings, that do not have the taste of chance. Everything in Pulp tastes of last time, everything has the taste of the last bite, the last anthem to loserdom. Pulp, like all of Bukowski's work, as admitted in the initial dedication, is entirely devoted to recklessness, to ennoble bad writing... and it's no surprise that Bukowski puts in Céline's mouth, here a character, a there is one problem... they can't write. None of them.

Pulp, the last novel, published posthumously in Italy, is a farewell to himself, to his life, to his habits, to his obsessions, and to his myths.

So here I am, depressed again. I returned home, entered, and opened the bottle of scotch. Again with my old friend, scotch with water. Scotch is not a liquor one immediately becomes attached to. But after you've been drinking it for a while it works its magic on you, so to speak. I find it has a special warmth that whiskey doesn't have. Anyway, I had the blues and I sat in my armchair with the bottle nearby. I didn't turn on the TV, I've discovered that when you feel bad, that bitch only makes you feel worse. An endless string of vacuous faces. An endless procession of idiots, some of them famous. The comic actors aren't funny, and the dramas are fourth-rate. There wasn't much I could turn to, except the scotch.

The rain had increased in intensity, and I stayed to listen to it batter against the roof.