The book was a amazing! It was my first Bukowski read. I will purchase from amazon again. shipping was quick and inexpensive.

I'm not sure exactly what to say about Hollywood. I certainly enjoyed it and always appreciate Bukowski at some level. In terms of his novels, I'd place this one behind Factotum, Post Office, and Women. Ham and Rye I have not yet read but will...unlike Pulp (whose subject matter does not appeal to me). I think that Hollywood's lack of edge--in comparison with his past achievements--reflects his newfound personal domesticity at the time it was penned. He was living with Linda (Sarah), and moving out of the low rent digs that formed the infrastructure of his life so it's a more sober work than the rest. Indeed, he was an older and more sober man in the eighties and conscious of his own mortality. The narrator mentions that Linda's presence gave him an extra 10 years and he may have been right about that. There's still some of the old joy in these pages though. Several scenes will make you smile and laugh aloud such as the name of his initial screenplay "The Dance of Jim Beam." The bottom line is that Bukowski is always worth the effort.

The act of writing is often a good way for people to consider and relfect on Life, on Ideas, or anything else. Hollywood comes shortly after Bukowski was involved in the making of a film -- barfly: he wrote the script.

Hollywood comes across as a writer trying to comes to terms and reach some sort of conclusion about his exerience in the movie industry.

Bukowski experiences both the good and the bad while he is involved with making the film. He meets fellow artists, gamblers, genius' to whom he feels sympathetic; while he also meets pre-madonnas, buisiness-minded suits. Part of the film business he genuinly seems to like.

The reader shares with Bukowski his enjoyment and pride in seeing something he wrote come alive as actors reinact memorable scenes from his past.

Ultimately, Bukowski decides that he will not write another movie script He is unwilling to compromise his art. And he is disgusted by the business mindedness of so many of the people who have the final say in what movies are going to be made.

One quirk I enjoyed about this book is that it is the first book in which Buk has achieved some success. Bukowski is determined not to let sucess and money change him as an artist. Only, he wonders if that is possible. He's now driving a black BMW instead of an old Jetta; and he has a jewish accountant.

Like any Bukoski novel, this isn't a bad read. The dialogue is a strength, and it's easy to see how Bukowski's dialoge and prose would translate well into film script.

If you haven't read Bukowski, I suggest you start elsewhere. Ham on Rye: A Novel would be a good place to start. Read The Post-Office Girl (New York Review Books Classics) and Women: A Novel I suggest reading before this also. The exception would be if you are less interested in Bukowski's literature and more interested into looking inside indipendent flim making. However, if you haven;t read Bukowski before, it is a sure thing that much of the humor and subtle remarks will not catch on with the reader.

Hollywood serves as a memoir for the creation of Barfly, a film for which Bukowski wrote the script. Let me say - I'm a huge fan of Bukowski, Ham on Rye and Women being my favorite of his Novels. I've read all of them though. Pulp was better than this, so was Factotum.

Bukowski rips the film industry pretty bad. There are artists and geniun people (his film direct is portrayed in a sympathetic light). Actors and execs are flogged mercilessly. Actors come across like Pre-madonnas and Execs come across like businessmen who know squat about art and film. Movies one could only call ignoramus are produced, while brilliant ideas are left in boxes on desks.

One quirk I enjoyed about this book is that it is the first book in which Buk has achieved some success. Well, Women I guess too, but then he still drove the old Volks; here, he has a Jewish accountant and drives a Beemer. Money hasn't changed him it would seem. And it's interesting to read his take on success.

Still, this isn't a bad read. Bukowski on average is better than most. The prose shine, especially the dialoge. Bukowski would certainly have writen one hell of a script.

So says Chinaski (pp. 202-03), Bukowski's alter-ego protagonist in Hollywood. In all honesty, the writing of Hollywood seems to have been one of those exercises to fill up empty and long hours. There's a difference between being prolific and good, and Bukowski's Hollywood--like his earlier novel Women--falls on the prolific side.

Autobiographical like all of Bukowski's novels except for his final one (Pulp), the book is the story of the writing of the script for the 1987 film "Barfly," running from the commission to write to the release of the movie. The narrative is filled with Hollywood types--producers, directors, actors, camera men, hangers-on--who Chinaski/Bukowski encounter along the way. Some of his sketches of them are genuinely witty and entertaining. Others--not so much. His depiction of Francois Racine, the fictional counterpart of Truffault--is way overdone, an increasingly tedious caricature of the tormented Gallic existentialist. Moreover, the character just disappears halfway through the novel, as if Bukowski either got tired of him or simply forgot about him.

In fact, the entire novel lacks cohesion--even more so than a typical Bukowski novel. Bukowski seems to come into his stride in the last 50 or so pages, which are genuinely solid. But the 200-page lead-up is embarrassingly bad. Admittedly, its fun to read Bukowski's savaging of Tinseltown, but one-liners do not a good novel make.

One theme in the novel--again, a characteristically Bukowskian theme--is Chinaski's/Bukowski's insistence that he only really feels alive when he's working at his "typer." He drinks so much, he tells the reader, because he can't otherwise face the tedium and "nothingness" of existence. Drink and frantic writing: two ways of filling up the hours. Fair enough. But not everything written to fill up the hours is necessarily worth reading. And the urge to fill each and every novel with nonstop drinking just wears thin after awhile.

for some stupid reason this book is in Spanish & I assumed that since everything else on this page including the reviews that book would be as well

One of Bukowski's bucket full of virtues is that he tells the truth, and he pulls no punches here in talking about the phenomenon known as "Hollywood". I did find some of the person to person interaction to be thin, but that could be that human to human interaction in Hollywood tends to be thin. Bukowski lets it be known that he questioned his motives in going Hollywood and becoming something that he used to look down on only a short time before - for this alone I respect him immensely as not a lot of them who do this care to make a public introspection afterwards. Bukowski was a real man. Read this book

If you never heard of the crude, hard drinking American author, this is where to start and/or end. This is Bukowski at his finest. Good reading around "Oscar" time.................

If you never heard of the crude, hard drinking American author, this is where to start and/or end. This is Bukowski at his finest. Good reading around "Oscar" time.................

publishers weekly sure has it in for bukowski. personally, i think of that publication as a sort of cemetery where a lifeless staff of dullards pronounce useless verdicts from there dreary coffins. ignore publishers weekly on this and all books. please do. anyway, this is a very enjoyable book which gives an insiders/outsiders look from within hollywood that almost all of us will never see. bukowski is light and comedic here, but still as biting as ever. "ham and rye," might be his best novel; this one is just so much more fun. highly recommended.

"I drove north up the Harbor freeway toward Hollywood Park. I'd been playing the horses over 30 years. It started after my near fatal hemorrhage at the L.A. County Hospital. They told me that if I took another drink that I was dead.
`What'll I do?' I asked Jane.
`About What?'
`What'll I use as a substitute for drink?'
`Well, there are the horses.'
`Horses? What do you do?'
`Bet on them? Sounds stupid.'
We went and I won handsomely. I began to go on a daily basis. Then, slowly, I began to drink a little again. Then I drank more. And I didn't die. So then I had drinking and the horses. I was hooked all around" (176).

Bukowksi's prose, much like his persona is strong, dead-pan, and often touching and funny. This novel however, is weaker than much of his other works of fiction because the narrator, Henry Chianski, is constantly surrounded by his colleagues. Bukowski doesn't allow for any breathing room in this often redundant portraiture of the world of making film, a field Bukowski has nothing but contempt for. After 100 pages of endless negotiations and back-stabbings one wonders why Bukowski wasn't able to conjure any better scenarios than he was in `The Post-Office,' a far less interesting subject and setting. This novel is not without its moments and the prose is never embarrassing, but it removes the grit and loneliness of his earlier work, necessarily at that, as he composes it onto the screen. A minor effort from an otherwise effective and provocative author.

This is Bukowskis humorous account of the making of the movie Barfly. Its funny to see the subtle name changes of people like Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Tom Jones, Madonna (he referred to her as Ramona) and Bukowskis humorous and not always very complimentry recollections and opinions of them.

Hollywood isn't as good as Ham on Rye, Post Office or Women but its still very good and worth reading.

Man could Buk write. But could he write. I suppose we are all just posers and pretenders and wanna-bes in his shadow, but Buk is essential reading for anyone interested in studying the craft and art and technique of writing, of, as Buk would say 'laying down the word,' and when it came to it, Buk could do it better than anyone. I've tried to write a passage with as much simplicity and elegance and attitude as he had and failed completely. His sparse prose and mastery of the obvious and attitude all contribute to a unique style in American letters that exemplify the beauty of our language when wielded by a master. Post Office, Hollywood, Factotum and Ham On Rye are MUST reads for any serious student of modern writing. And damned entertaining stories to boot.