Review: On Cats gathers Charles Bukowski's reflections on the creatures he loved most
The laureate of liquor reveals a seldom-seen softer side when he writes about his feline friends
American lowlife laureate Charles Bukowski is back from the dead. This new book by the boozy seer, who died in 1994, gathers some of his most telling reflections on the creature he loved - the cat.
"One of the finest things about cats is/ That when you're feeling bad, very bad/ If you just look at a cat cooling it/ The way they do/ It's a lesson in persevering against/ The odds, and/ If you can look at 5 cats, that's 5/ times better," Bukowski writes in Exactly Fine, which shows his rarely seen soft side.
Like him, the cats that grace the expletive-rich mash-up have many dents - the femur of one survivor, profiled in a poem titled Another Casualty, is held together by a silver screw.
Despite the brutality, the casualties who grace the pages of On Cats ooze tenacity, which Bukowski respects. "A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won't let go," he writes.
In comparison, the people he analyses look shabby. Take the airhead veterinary receptionist featured in the poem Terminology, who goofs by asking if his admittedly frazzled cat is to be euthanised - the cultured grouch who worships cats is appalled.