Love is a Dog From Hell

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Love is a Dog From Hell reads like an acid trip … or what I imagine one might be as I’ve never dropped acid. His works were very popular in the era mentioned above (okay, I know Bukowski wasn’t writing then, but this has transcended Bukowski’s works into a discussion about getting over problems), because they were a gripe against social forces.

But every once in a while I get a hankering for poetry, for the streamlined and condensed collection of ideas, words or imagery they provide. I think the initial printings of the later books was 5000 (can be verified through Krumhansl), and I would expect a reprint to be less than that - 1000? He is, at best, a rude misogynist, but under the layers of dysphemism, we see a heart drowning in sorrow (and booze). His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. Of course, the title itself fits the mood of the times (i think) and Love is always a popular subject.Bukowski is that drunk asshole always diving to the bottom of a glass, keeping shallow relationships and never trusting women.

Honestly, I'm not really sure why I picked this book up - somewhere hidden away in the back of my mind was the voice telling me I wouldn't like it. Two sticker shadows on front endpaper, the clear acetate dust jacket has some rubbing as usual otherwise fine. If that is really the best selling book, that means for a lot of people, that's their only Bukowski book. Most of these occur later in the collection, where Bukowski turns an eye to self-reflection and his eventual death.

I don't know about you guys, but when I see pictures like this, (especially elephants in particular) I can't help but feel that love really does exist. It was like having a conversation across 3 years time with an old friend, the type of friend that is more like a brother. I haven't double-checked the printings since then, but back in 2001 Love is Dog from Hell was Bukowski's bestseller poetry book with 27 printings. Near Fine with a faint lean to the binding, light tanning to contents with a faint stain to the fore edge and slight darkening to the inner front hinge at the top. Love him or hate him, Charles Bukowski was a bitter, drunken asshole with a gift for putting onto paper all the ugliness and baseness hiding in the human heart.

He ended a relationship with a beautiful woman because he knew that staying committed would mean nullifying the passion that had drawn him to her. Bukowski fits this bill, as his life and works are painful to watch, but there is some beauty in there. The book is bound in the publisher's original cloth with pictorial boards and is in excellent condition. First published in 1977, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a collection of Bukowski's poetry from the mid-seventies. Those jittery early feelings that obscure everything probably help us to make one of the most important choices of our lives.

Much of the crassness feels reactionary to this loss of love as Bukowski documents a spiral into dirty, drunken debauchery and madness as a method of hardening the heart against such pains.