Hot Water Music

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 224 pages
• Published by: Ecco May 31, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0876855966
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0876855966
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 10.6 ounces

About The Author


Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry when he was thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three. During his lifetime he published over forty-five books of poetry and prose—many translated into more than a dozen languages. His worldwide popularity remains undiminished, and Ecco is proud to publish the five posthumous collections of his work (this volume is the fifth and final) in addition to a new selection of his later works, The Pleasures of the Damned.

Reader Reviews
I am quite the fan of Bukowski. I enjoyed Factotum, Pulp, and Post Office in particular, and I think Ham On Rye is a work of art. Perhaps the only real catch to Bukowski's work is that he is something of a one trick pony. Don't get me wrong, though. It's still a good trick. Where Bukowski fails in his writing (when he fails at all) is when he allows his nihilism to devolve into creative redundancy. He doesn't have very many points to make, and sometimes he tends to make them in the same way. Still, the man is a craftsman when it comes to the rough-hewn and the unflinching gaze of existentialism. This is why I was disappointed by Hot Water Music. Bukowski's themes (which are a lot deeper than just drunkeness, sex, ambivalence, and poverty, as some of the other reviews here seem to suggest) translate remarkably well when they are drawn out novelistically by his crisp, spare prose and his dry, gritty dialogue. In his books he takes his time teasing his message out of dark shadows and, when it is exposed to the light, he crushes its skull with a sledgehammer. Short stories, of course, don't give him as much leisure for dilly-dallying, and as a result his work here is blunter (inasumcuh as that's possible) and duller and far more repetitive. The majority of these stories are about, of course, ambiently depressed alcoholics who haven't the motivation or energy to do anything but keep digging their own grave. You read enough stories about soused women farting and horny men with hemorrhoids and your head starts to swim. Some people might argue that these stories are meant simply to be funny, and depending on your sense of humor, they are -- but no one likes to hear the same joke told ten, twelve, or twenty times in a row. Unless, of course, you really really like the joke. The more absurd pieces (You Kissed Lilly, Strokes to Nowhere, and I Love You, Albert) are fun enough, and although their playfulness tends to be vacuous, they are still chewy enough to be enjoyable. And there are really some remarkably subtle and clever stories here as well. Most notable among these are Cold Night, The Upward Bird, Beer at the Corner Bar, The Death of the Father II, In and Out and Over, and Head Job. In these Bukowski trades in his usual and obvious attempts at crassness and crudity for a more ghostly skill: the stories are delivered with his typical point-blank attitude, but their profundity is couched without bravado or brassiness. His short stories work best when they avoid the more blatant trademarks of his novels -- liquor-soaked abuse and disdain. Head Job, especially, is notable for being the first time that I have ever read Bukowski write something from a woman's point of view, and he does it admirably. This is a decent but repetitive collection of stories, with gems interspersed throughout, but the overall impression is mostly lukewarm, although hardcore fans will love it. Comment | | (Report this)