1967 -1983

Rambling lunacy indispersed with moments of lucidity, Bukowski steps between crazy imaginings or retelling of other's stories to his own observations on life at the fringe of American culture. I returned to Bukowski after many years of not reading him, it was in my teens that I read his poetry which in turn inspired me to write as his free-form and at times slapdash method appealed to my brain which was overflowing with thoughts I couldn't get out. Tales of Ordinary Madness continues with that method but in parts veers into the conventional prose writing style. At the start of the book, the first few anecdotes, Bukowski annotates his writing style, talking directly to the reader, as the anecdotes continue he begins to distance himself from the text and deepens the narrative by focussing on the characters, stories and culture of his time. He references other writers, contemporary and past. He reflects on the poetry scene of the time, and its writers. Indispersed with imagery that is less intended to shock than to rather wake the reader up, or give them a jolt. Or perhaps Bukowski got bored and amused himself with a lurid thought put to paper for its own sake, or he was writing with his beer goggles on. Whatever the reasoning, Bukowski toys with the reader, he invents and rants, making Tales of Ordinary Madness a veritable porridge of ideas and observations cut with the daily muck of life by the gutter. ( )

I've read a lot of Bukowski's books over the last few years and appreciated all of them. Some I've even enjoyed. But Tales of Ordinary Madness was, unfortunately, a bit of a chore for me to read. Bukowski's always been crude, but usually he juxtaposes this with a raw humanity and uncompromising anti-social commentary: this is where his art is to be found. I did not find this to be the case in Ordinary Madness, at least to a sufficient extent, with many of the stories being excessively and needlessly crude. Scenes in which Bukowski defecates, or pops a boil, or has a rape fantasy add nothing to the stories, many of which seem to be devoted to cataloguing such depravities rather than providing or supporting any underlying artistic meaning or merit.

That said, his talent does shine through intermittently, with most of the stories having at least a few lines that make you think or nod your head. One or two of the short stories even manage to maintain this talent uncorrupted for the duration: I particularly liked 'Goodbye Watson' and 'A Dollar and 20 Cents', whilst 'Night Streets of Madness' has a good imagined conversation between Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway, which is an interesting story-within-a-story. So there are some little nuggets of gold here – they're just buried amongst the mud and the shit. Bukowski, at his best, is like a drug, so I'll just look back on reading this as a bad trip. Hey, it happens. ( )

At this rate I'm just getting Bukowski books based on how good the title is. Tales of Ordinary Madness is a better title than The Most Beautiful Woman In Town and Notes Of A Dirty Old Man. Most of these stories revolve around Charles Bukowski himself. From the sounds of it they were all written before he invented the character of Henry Chinaski, whose first appearance is perhaps Post Office.

Bukowski is, simply put, a hell of a writer, and this book along with The Most Beautiful Woman In Town are culled from the first collection of short stories Bukowski ever put out. I think before this he wasn't as recognized for his short stories and it took Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Publishing to recognize his acumen. Perhaps there had been too much crap as Bukowski was refuted to have had to develop his craft over a long period of time and most likely over a great number of duds.

I have not personally historically liked Bukowski's short stories from what I've read. The books that he wrote that were mixtures of poetry and short stories were nearly always a wash and the dedicated short story books simply never were as compelling as the bonafide novels (except Pulp). Bukowski here puts opinions literary and otherwise on display with as much freedom as he wants to and perhaps the biggest hat trick is that he actually makes one care. If this were the opinion of someone feckless it would get old damn quick, but that's not all that's here. There's also humor, fantasies, and flights delerium. In fact some of these short stories rank amongst the best writing Bukoswki ever did. ( )

"Tales of Ordinary Madness" is a quite fitting title for this collection of short stories. 238 pages of self pity and disgust, more so than normal for a Bukowski book. Old Hank, unfortunately was feeling his age in these pages. I'll still offer a 5 star rating, the first story as well as the last, redeemed Hank. The rest was obviously written to buy his booze, and pay his rent. ( )