Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski

Published in 1977, Love is a Dog from Hell is an anthology of poetry written in the 1970s by the German-American poet, Charles Bukowski. This reviewer was that person in the back of her college class who believed that the author simply decided to write one day while high or bored, and that a comprehensive analysis of their work is not necessary.

The wonderful thing about Bukowski is that he is one of those folks who will admit to writing while intoxicated or high. I can tell if this is good poetry or poor acid, to paraphrase a line from Love is a Dog From Hell. Love is a Dog From Hell reads like an acid trip, at least that’s how I see one since I’ve never used the drug.

Bukowski is a poet with a clear position in fiction. The sexual insurrection of the 1960s moved from joyful to sinister corners in 1970s fiction. Wide collars, snap-up shirts, and people drinking and having sex in the restroom at the bowling alley were all brought out by the song “Free to be you and me” rather than renting shoes and making strikes. Bukowski is the strange uncle who always made your friends uncomfortable.

Sex, intoxication, and the calibre of said sex are the central themes of Love is a Dog from Hell. Bukowski enjoys the beauty of women, but his misogyny is very much a product of his time. He believes that women are deceitful and deceptive. Men drink because women are irate. Women want to emasculate and isolate men because loneliness is a cancer that kills. Some of the sentences could be categorised as “raging against the machine,” but they actually read like they were written by someone who desperately needs a hug and a nap. Bukowski is their Archie Bunker if he fulfils the definition of a beat poet.

Bukowski writes in a narrative style. He speaks in a very blunt manner. Readers gain a clear understanding of Bukowski’s persona during the time. He enjoys his booze, he enjoys the drugs, and he enjoys older ladies with bottoms that appear to be younger. If there are junk yards in hell, love is the dog who guards the gates, according to Bukowski.

He is the man you first met in the 1980s who was constantly boasting about all the women he had and how nothing but sorrow they had caused him. Love is a Dog From Hell contains many poems that read remarkably similarly to one another. The problem is that people who are angry and intoxicated frequently express their anger over the same issues.

About The Book

A book that captures the Dirty Old Man of American letters at his fiercest and most vulnerable, on a subject that hits home with all of us. Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.”

Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty, Bukowski lays bare the myriad facets of love—its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance, and redemptive power.

“there is a loneliness in this world so great

that you can see it in the slow movement of

the hands of a clock.”