Tales of Ordinary Madness
3 journalers for this copy...
Collection of Bukowski short fiction. Good reading for lonely nights.
Reserved for harmaja. I'll mail it Monday.
Release planned for Tuesday, April 20, 2004 at Another bookcrosser in unknown, n/a Finland.
Mailed to harmaja in Finland.
Mailed to harmaja in Finland.
Yay! Thanks! I got the book already on Friday, but as I was on my way to my grandmother's for the weekend, I couldn't journal it right away. I already read a few stories on the train, and I'll continue reading soon. I'll write more when I'm done.
"but jesus christ, I've got to go with my neuroses and prejudices because that's all I've got to go by."
"if you don't have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul."
"one man's pussy is another man's handjob."
I find it difficult to review this book. I have too mixed feelings about it. Bukowski writes about Bukowski, and although according to just about every literary theory ever created it is a major mistake to confuse the writer and the narrator, I can't help thinking that Bukowski writes about Bukowski. If I try to think otherwise, I can almost hear Bukowski's drunken voice insulting most literary theories created.
While reading these stories I got quickly irritated with Bukowski, something that didn't happen to me - at least to this extent - while reading his poems a few years ago. At a few points I almost stopped reading this book for good, most notoriously after the story called "Rape! Rape!" in which Bukowski the narrator rapes a woman that afterwards admits having enjoyed the rape. (I just loved the comment "yeah right" scribbled in the margin right beside the woman's declaration!) Afterwards the raped woman calls the police to haul away Bukowski the narrator. At the police station Bukowski the narrator claims his act was not really a rape, and a symphatetic officer replies, few of them are. Argh!
I'm a die-hard feminist, but I believe it doesn't take one to be infuriated by Bukowski's misogynism. Less-than-die-hard feminist could argue that Bukowski seems to dislike all human kind equally much, himself included - but at least he doesn't make it sound as though the men in his stories enjoy the violence being done to them. And speaking of violence, there was one story besides "Rape! Rape!" that made me especially disgusted. I'm not appalled by violence in the writing in general, but there has got to be a point there, and if I don't see one, I get either disgusted or just plain bored.
All that being said, I'd be happy to declare that I feel no sympathy whatsoever for Bukowski the narrator, and yet there's no denying that I do. There's something about his way of writing that appeals to me, although I was about to discard the book a few times.
It's probably been said a thousand times over that Bukowski's writing is honest. Normally I get suspicious when someone's writing is called honest, because often it means only that the writer being praised for her honesty writes about sad and ugly things rather than happy and beautiful things. This definition of honesty is way too simplistic for me: a description of someone's cute little pet hamster can be as honest as, or even more honest than, a description of a steaming pot of shit - provided that the pet hamster doesn't wear clothes or talk in a human voice.
Bukowski gets his material from race tracks, boxing matches, rapes, drugs, booze, mad people inside madhouses, mad people outside madhouses, criminals in prison, criminals out of prison, and a load of other sad, ugly and scary stuff. This is not the reason why I choose to call him honest as well. I think the honesty lies in the way he writes about himself: when Bukowski the writer describes Bukowski the narrator as being a mad, lonely old drunkard that doesn't even like poetry, I get the feeling he doesn't write it because of the shock value, he actually means it. (Remarking upon the writer's intent is also considered blasphemy in context of most literary theories... but just for a moment, screw the literary theories.) And in the end, somehow, despite being a die-hard feminist, I can't help thinking that it was good for me to read this book and think about the stuff he wrote.
On a side note, I almost couldn't believe this collection would contain a story such as "Animal Crackers in My Soup". I won't give away any of it. All I will say is that it's a horrible sci-fi novel, but you'll rarely find such a well-written horrible sci-fi novel! I wonder if Bukowski was poking fun of the genre?
I wouldn't want to see this book in the hands of kids, so wild releasing might be a tad problematic. Arguably most small Finnish kids don't read English well enough to be corrupted into little misogynists even in case of finding the book, but there are always some that do. Luckily I know just the person to pass this book along to! He likes Bukowski's poems, and I hope he'll enjoy the stories as well. He's a non-bookcrosser so he's probably not going to make a journal entry, but I will make another one sometime later when I know what his plans for the book are.
Oh, and one more thing: I won't give this book a numerical rating, since I'm just not able to. I wouldn't want to give it good points because of some of the content, and I wouldn't want to give it bad points because I admired some of the writing. This numerical writing system is a bit silly anyhow, so I'll just skip it whenever I feel like it.
"if you don't have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul."
"one man's pussy is another man's handjob."
I find it difficult to review this book. I have too mixed feelings about it. Bukowski writes about Bukowski, and although according to just about every literary theory ever created it is a major mistake to confuse the writer and the narrator, I can't help thinking that Bukowski writes about Bukowski. If I try to think otherwise, I can almost hear Bukowski's drunken voice insulting most literary theories created.
While reading these stories I got quickly irritated with Bukowski, something that didn't happen to me - at least to this extent - while reading his poems a few years ago. At a few points I almost stopped reading this book for good, most notoriously after the story called "Rape! Rape!" in which Bukowski the narrator rapes a woman that afterwards admits having enjoyed the rape. (I just loved the comment "yeah right" scribbled in the margin right beside the woman's declaration!) Afterwards the raped woman calls the police to haul away Bukowski the narrator. At the police station Bukowski the narrator claims his act was not really a rape, and a symphatetic officer replies, few of them are. Argh!
I'm a die-hard feminist, but I believe it doesn't take one to be infuriated by Bukowski's misogynism. Less-than-die-hard feminist could argue that Bukowski seems to dislike all human kind equally much, himself included - but at least he doesn't make it sound as though the men in his stories enjoy the violence being done to them. And speaking of violence, there was one story besides "Rape! Rape!" that made me especially disgusted. I'm not appalled by violence in the writing in general, but there has got to be a point there, and if I don't see one, I get either disgusted or just plain bored.
All that being said, I'd be happy to declare that I feel no sympathy whatsoever for Bukowski the narrator, and yet there's no denying that I do. There's something about his way of writing that appeals to me, although I was about to discard the book a few times.
It's probably been said a thousand times over that Bukowski's writing is honest. Normally I get suspicious when someone's writing is called honest, because often it means only that the writer being praised for her honesty writes about sad and ugly things rather than happy and beautiful things. This definition of honesty is way too simplistic for me: a description of someone's cute little pet hamster can be as honest as, or even more honest than, a description of a steaming pot of shit - provided that the pet hamster doesn't wear clothes or talk in a human voice.
Bukowski gets his material from race tracks, boxing matches, rapes, drugs, booze, mad people inside madhouses, mad people outside madhouses, criminals in prison, criminals out of prison, and a load of other sad, ugly and scary stuff. This is not the reason why I choose to call him honest as well. I think the honesty lies in the way he writes about himself: when Bukowski the writer describes Bukowski the narrator as being a mad, lonely old drunkard that doesn't even like poetry, I get the feeling he doesn't write it because of the shock value, he actually means it. (Remarking upon the writer's intent is also considered blasphemy in context of most literary theories... but just for a moment, screw the literary theories.) And in the end, somehow, despite being a die-hard feminist, I can't help thinking that it was good for me to read this book and think about the stuff he wrote.
On a side note, I almost couldn't believe this collection would contain a story such as "Animal Crackers in My Soup". I won't give away any of it. All I will say is that it's a horrible sci-fi novel, but you'll rarely find such a well-written horrible sci-fi novel! I wonder if Bukowski was poking fun of the genre?
I wouldn't want to see this book in the hands of kids, so wild releasing might be a tad problematic. Arguably most small Finnish kids don't read English well enough to be corrupted into little misogynists even in case of finding the book, but there are always some that do. Luckily I know just the person to pass this book along to! He likes Bukowski's poems, and I hope he'll enjoy the stories as well. He's a non-bookcrosser so he's probably not going to make a journal entry, but I will make another one sometime later when I know what his plans for the book are.
Oh, and one more thing: I won't give this book a numerical rating, since I'm just not able to. I wouldn't want to give it good points because of some of the content, and I wouldn't want to give it bad points because I admired some of the writing. This numerical writing system is a bit silly anyhow, so I'll just skip it whenever I feel like it.
Lukemista miehelle.
