Title: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 234

Rating: 4*/5

 

Charles Bukowski - Tales of Ordinary Madness

Charles Bukowski – Tales of Ordinary Madness

 

This book is interesting, as always – Bukowski has a habit of mixing fiction and non-fiction, like he does here, and it makes it hard for me to give it a classification. But it works well, and this book scratches an itch that you probably didn’t know you had, presenting a number of different shorts that explore the theme of madness in America’s underbelly.

You can expect to see all of the usual here, from whores and horses to crazy men, crazy women and crazy writers. There are a few references to Hemingway, which I enjoyed, and I also liked the ones that were a little more ‘out there’, like one about a blanket that kept attacking people. Every story is different, and yet they’re all somehow the same, and they work well as a collection because of this interrelation. My only complain about that would be the layout – the font was a little bit too small, which was harsh on the eyes and made it feel like slow going at times.

Overall though, this was a great little read, and the variety that we see across the stories will help to keep you hooked from start to finish. Not the best of his books to start with, but it’s up there.

 

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

 

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