Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Volume 2 : 1946-1992 by Charles Bukowski

Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Volume 2 : 1946-1992 Reviews

• 
  Arthur Graham

  Great title, great book. Unlike so many posthumous releases, which either scrape the bottom of the barrel or just trot out more of the same, this one gives the lie to all those critics who came to regard Buk as a one-trick pony while he was still alive. Plenty of previously unpublished selections here, many of which will surprise ardent admirers of the dirty old man, while at the same time reminding us why we came to admire him in the first place.
• 
  Daniele

  Bukowski su Bukowski.
  
  Il massimo è verso la fine. Quando Bukowski si autorecensisce.
  Ecco, ora io da lettore impavido ma stucchevole, voglio fare come Bukowski e svelarvi un segreto di pulcinella che molti sanno e pochi ammettono.
  Quindi prendo le distanze da me stesso e mi osservo in modo distaccato e oggettivo mentre leggiucchio una poesia e ne memorizzo un brano.
  E mi accorgo che non ho fatto altro che leggere romanzi e poesie
  solo per portarmi a letto le ragazze.
  
  Funziona.
  Consigliato.
  
  Checché ne dicano qui o altrove..
• 
  Solita

  OK, I don't know if this book, published posthumously, is actually "amazing", but IMHO Charles Buskowski, aka the Buk, IS amazing. Every time I re-read Bukowski, I am amazed. The Buk was brilliant, just f'ng brilliant. I absolutely agree with his point of view. How can I not love someone who articulates my own feelings and perceptions of this world? I meet too many Bukowksi fans who first and foremost think of him as a drunk, fans who are f'ing drunks themselves, because they want to be Bukowskians. Fools. Someone once told me that supposedly Oscar Wilde said, "All poets are drunks, but not all drunks are poets." So, these fools I have met in my life, in person or virtually (aka on-line), love beer, getting drunk, and they write what they call poetry, sad, boring sh.t they call poetry. Oh, but geeze, they are so excited and full of life, full of enthusiasm, with lots of friends, and so full of sh.t. Some of them mean well, though, and are passionate, so I can't help but have a heart for them, even if I don't think they are much as poets. But judging poetry, really, is personal taste and expectations, at the end of the day. I love poetry "that makes the top of my head feel as if it were physically removed", as Dickinson expressed it. I hope I got that quote right; I didn't double-check, but it's more or less what she said/wrote, anyway. What she is saying, Dickinson, I mean, is that she loved poetry that "blew her mind". That's exactly how I feel about it. Poetry, short stories, any kind of writing, if it "blows my mind", well, hell, I love it. And the Buk blows my mind. It just happens that most my fave writers (well, artists of any kind) are, or were, drunks. (It's never been said, but it wouldn't surprise me if Dickinson was a "wine-ah" herself. I mean, she might've often indulged in a glass or two or three of wine, red wine. Shoot, surely...) My fave artists are/were drunks or drug addicts. Addicts of some type. Even sex addicts. But I don't love drunks, and drug addicts, or sex addicts per se. Just because you are a drunk, or a drug addict, or a sex addict, doesn't mean you are a genius. What I love is genius and art. It's kind of a thing about artists, I mean, Great Artists. They have issues, and, well, they anesthetize themselves. They are extraordinarily sensitive people, which is what makes them express themselves through art. But not all art is a work of genius, and not all artists are genius. The ordinary person doesn't have "it", including some very intelligent people. Genius is something special. It's god-given, so to speak. People are just born with it. As was the Buk. I loved reading this collection of stories and essays written by the brilliant Charles Bukowski, the Buk, a genius.
• 
  Gibson

  Scrivere e bere, bere e scrivere
  
  Un ventaglio di racconti inediti che abbracciano gli anni dal 1944 al 1992, un ventaglio molto efficace per comprendere un autore che riflette sull'arte dello scrivere - e della vita, per lui la stessa cosa -, che non si tira indietro di fronte alle eminenze grigie della letteratura e che ha ben chiaro cosa vuol diventare, costi quel che costi.
  
  Si ride, perché Bukowski sa essere scanzonato anche nelle situazioni più imbarazzanti.
  
  Ci si scandalizza, ma sempre col sorriso, di fronte alle goliardiche imprese sessuali di Bukowski.
  
  Ma si riflette, anche, perché quando lima via l'irriverenza, e grazie alla sua capacità di essere sempre diretto, Bukowski riesce ad avvicinarsi a quelle ombre che tutti abbiamo e le dirada con quel mezzo sorriso meno stupido di quanto non voglia farci credere.
  
  Bukowski è così, ti insegna mentre ti fotte.
• 
  Ioanna

  "Η ανθρωπότητα έχει τόσες πολλές αδυναμίες, αλλά δύο απ'αυτές παραμένουν ορόσημο από παλιά: η ανικανότητα να κινείται στο παρόν και η παντελής απουσία της λογικής να υλοποιεί τις υποσχέσεις της"
• 
  Dane Cobain

  I never know how to categorise Bukowski’s prose because it’s technically semi–autobiographical and therefore counts as both fiction and non-fiction. I also always feel like it’s important to say that Bukowski’s work always makes me think about separating the art from the artist. He wasn’t the best of guys, but his work is interesting.
  
  Absence of the Hero isn’t my favourite of Bukowski’s collections, but mainly because it doesn’t really feel cohesive. It’s like it doesn’t know what it’s trying to be, and while I enjoyed the majority of the essays and short stories in here, there was no real cohesion and I didn’t understand why they picked those particular stories over others.
  
  Absence of the Hero isn’t my favourite of Bukowski’s collections, but mainly because it doesn’t really feel cohesive. It’s like it doesn’t know what it’s trying to be, and while I enjoyed the majority of the essays and short stories in here, there was no real cohesion and I didn’t understand why they picked those particular stories over others.
  
  I also tend to prefer Bukowski’s poetry over his prose and so maybe that has something to do with it. Still, I’d recommend picking up something like Ham On Rye or Post Office if you’re new to him, and saving this until you’re a seasoned fan. And by that point, you’ll probably have read half of the stories that are in the collection anyway.
  
  And yet despite all of that, I enjoyed it. Bukowski’s writing always gets me thinking, and I particularly like the way that he tackles complex topics with simple language. The work here is pretty typical of Bukowski’s work overall, but I don’t think it’s the best introduction. Go ahead and make of that what you will, but do be sure to check out some of Bukowski’s work if you haven’t already. He’s a genius.
• 
  Sara Gatta

  La gente spesso mi fa sentire stupido così: io dico qualcosa che credo sia sensata e poi loro dicono qualcosa che toglie completamente senso alla mia affermazione, e poi non riesco più a rispondere.
  
  Poi vai a letto. Mi piacciono i letti, credo che il letto sia l’invenzione più grande dell’Uomo – quasi tutti siamo nati lì, si muore lì, si scopa lì, si sborra lì, si sogna lì...
  
  Leggendo della mia esistenza, dei giorni, delle notti della mia vita mi sono domandato come diavolo ho fatto a essere ancora vivo e ad andarmene in giro tranquillo fino adesso?
  
  Quindi ascoltavo, ascoltavo, poi ho salutato con un bacio mia figlia e sono andato al lavoro in macchina. Lì, nove su dieci sono neri ma te ne dimentichi man mano che passano gli anni. Non è nulla di speciale finché una donna bianca femminista lo rende speciale.
  
  Non avevamo nulla se non il tempo.
  
  È difficile da spiegare, e amore è una brutta parola ma suppongo che nel senso del significato della parola noi fossimo innamorati. Per me non c’è dubbio sul fatto che non puoi dire di conoscere veramente una donna finché non hai fatto sesso con lei, o lei con te. E più si fa sesso, più ci si conosce. E se funziona nel tempo, quello è amore. E se smette di funzionare, allora è quello che ha la maggior parte delle persone. Non sto dicendo che sesso è amore; può anche essere odio. Ma quando il sesso è bello, subentrano altre cose – il colore di un vestito, la lentiggine su un braccio, varie cose che legano e allontanano, ricordi, risate e dolore.
  
  “Vern si fida di noi” ho detto. “È un povero scemo” ha risposto Claudia.
  
  (Scrivo racconti, poesie e romanzi. Di solito infarcisco la mia roba con richiami di sesso tanto per tenerli svegli, e mentre sono svegli gli parlo anche del resto. Infilo tutto di soppiatto. Do loro la morfina e poi rianimo le loro esigue anime.)
  
  “Abbiamo votato di non ucciderti, Hank.” “Non è mica un regalo. Soffro di complesso suicida...”
  
  “Devi bere così tanto?” ha chiesto. “È dannoso per la tua salute.” “È dannoso per la mia mente se non lo faccio. Scrivo quando sono ubriaco.”
  
  Il genere umano ha molte debolezze, ma le due principali erano: incapacità di arrivare in orario e incapacità di mantenere le promesse.
  
  “Quasi tutti gli uomini sono ostacolati da ciò che pensano di non potere ottenere.”
  
  Harry teneva la torcia sulla scimmia. In realtà l’animale un po’ lo spaventava. Si muoveva troppo in fretta e sembrava bacato nel cervello. Un cazzone simile sarebbe stato capace di qualsiasi cosa. Poteva aggredirti in un amen.
• 
  Bregoli Francesco

  Non consiglio a nessuno per nessun particolare motivo.
  Le tre stelle sono la sintesi tra una rozza, superficiale e insignificante descrizione di scene sessuali (a cui assegno 2 stelle perché rimane comunque migliore di Dikele), che non sono scritte per un pubblico di 13enni arrapate ma piuttosto sono pensate per dei 55enni in carcere per molestia sessuale, e la apprezzabile analisi e descrizione del mondo che lo circonda, colmo di miseria umana e disperazione, di artisti falliti e falliti senza arte.
  Molto crudo in ogni caso . Libro totalmente sconnesso, non ho trovato il filo logico tra i capitoli (che probabilmente esiste? No?)
• 
  Paul Maher Jr.

  Charles Bukowski, the ever-prolific even in death American novelist and poet, continues to satisfy the insatiable hunger of his vast cult-audience for more, not with bottom drawer rejected pieces, but with significant work that instills into his canon an ever-growing indication of his true importance as a man of letters. The posthumous shadow he casts across American lit only continues to loom larger with each passing year. Editor David Calonne has ably compiled 39 previously-uncollected stories and essays spanning the years 1946 to 1992. The first volume, Portions From A Wine-stained Notebook (2008) demonstrates the journalist in Bukowski. He conjures the best qualities of a newsman pulling together slices-of-life, summoning his readers into a ragtag world of losers, wanna-be’s, believers and doubters, girlfriends and whores, and the ghost of his father that seems to constantly appear over his shoulder. Bukowski’s aim is unerring and he never wastes ammo, always making his point with compact, bullseye-hitting sentences that explode in the brain like verbal shrapnel.
  
  In abundant display is the “don’t give a fuck” attitude that makes for writing of the highest caliber. He is, I would argue, an echo of Albert Camus, in that he neither glamorizes nor sympathizes with life’s absurdities. He even references Camus’ The Stranger by addressing the percussive impulsiveness of his life actions and the driving motivations of his literary sensibilities. Bukowski calls it “The Panic.” Blindly grappling with the stagnant realities of his personal life, he documents the withering flower of despair together with nebulous shades of hope, each overreaching, blotting the Bukowskian mindscape. Haunted by a tortured boyhood, Bukowski makes himself a poster boy for hard-knock living and the virtues of tough love. Like a brass-rail Existentialist or a skid-row Transcendentalist, he is candid, unblinking, leaving it to his readers to cast their own judgment about his mishaps, his drinking, his sexual appetite or his own pessimism. He is Ralph Waldo Emerson as a Dirty Old Man, not lounging in the grape-arbor of Concord, Massachusetts, but bent-over a table in an L.A. flophouse scribbling in pencil to the strains of Sibelius. Nowhere else will we read the perspective of an accused rapist caught with his pants down in front of a little girl after her mother bursts through the bathroom door. Buk makes it episodic and tragic, I mean, you wanna believe the guy! Reading poetry to a scrubwoman, he is gentle, apathetic even under the shadow of an unmitigated ex-con only interested in trying to fuck her (true to form, Buk ends up making her, after an ensuing winefest stimulates both his reading and her libido).
  
  Bukowski’s hard-earned contempt for the old guard elites of the literary critic industrial complex is also well-represented in this collection. In “Manifesto: A Call For Our Own Critics” he declares:
  
  "The fresh air of a new culture, the magnetism and meaning and hope, the exactness of our energies—these things haven’t, in any sense, been harnessed or realized. And until they are. . . .five or six old men, craggy and steatopygous in University chairs, will be the hierophants of our poetic universe."
  
  Oh, to be a fly on the wall at a summit meeting between Bukowski and Harold Bloom, just to see who’s left standing. Bukowski’s embracing of Nietzsche’s dictum from Also Sprach Zarathustra — “Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood” — sorted out the pale pretenders from the steely practitioners. The collection of interviews between Barbet Schroeder and Charles Bukowski, available on DVD (The Charles Bukowski Tapes), first drove that point home to me, and this book and its previous volume confirms it. Buk never sold out, never went soft. He even sets out to defang the author that was once the scorn of respectable book shops and lending libraries across the country, Henry Miller. Miller, it seems, isn’t interesting at all to Buk: “You know, I wonder if Henry Miller is really all that good? I’ve tried to read his books on cross-country buses but when he gets into those long parts in between sex he is a very dull fellow indeed. On cross-country buses I usually have to put down my Henry Miller and try to find somebody’s legs to look up, preferably female.”
  
  Though he always bristled at being labeled a Beat Generation writer, Buk’s unabashed references to sex, drugs and alcohol echoes portions of Jack Kerouac’s Visions of Cody, a posthumous masterpiece that Kerouac considered his one great book. This is, as Calonne points out, where these two craft-masters finally meet. Unlike Kerouac, Buk’s writing is less dependent on spontaneity than it is at drawing from a deep well of raw talent. His is an ability to describe both his outer and inner worlds with scary lucidity. And he was unflinching. In one passage, Bukoswki reaches Burroughsian heights, almost sounding like ole’ El Hombre Invisible at times: “Did I ever tell you about the 6-foot-2 sailor who got so jaded with dick he took a guy’s arms up his ass, right up to the elbow?” he wrote in the 1970 article “The Cat in the Closet.” That’s pure Buk: shocking yet undeniably true to form, and, most importantly, still bleakly hilarious 40 years later. Together with its first volume (and I hope there are more to come!), this makes absolute required reading, not only for the Bukowski fanatics, but also by jaded readers who have been stupefied into what good reading should be by our pale pretenders.
• 
  Jason

  Wow! This collection kicked off with a bang of a story and ended on a new personal favorite Bukowski piece. There were a few pieces that I didn't care for, mostly the ones where he's reviewing or discussing other writers. Highly recommended to any Bukowski fan.
• 
  catastrophia reads

  Lo que más admiro y me atrae de Bukowski es que no le teme a la hoja en blanco. No le teme al error, simplemente porque no busca cumplir las expectativas de nadie. Se hubiese reído de esta generación llena de cobardes, con pánico visceral al fracaso, a siquiera aventurarse a trazar esa primera línea en el lienzo, por miedo a que salga torcida. Y me incluyo absolutamente en esa declaración anterior.
  
  En esta entrega hay relatos imbatibles, los hay mediocres, hay críticas literarias que bordean lo incomprensible, con palabras que, sospecho, las inventó en el instante. Pero, como suelo decir como un mantra, el lenguaje es mutable, así que nuevamente admiro aquella intrépida proeza.
  
  Si lees sus novelas y recopilatorios de ensayos y relatos te encontrarás con las mismas historias, rememoradas en distintas etapas de su vida, con otras palabras, pero manteniendo la misma esencia, mismo argumento. No hay prueba más fehaciente de que el hombre ha vivido.
  
  Qué envidia me dan a veces sus andanzas desinteresadas, un día lunes para él es uno en diez años para un mortal como yo, como nosotros. La habilidad humana por excelencia que encabeza la lista siempre será la comunicación. Nada se le compara a una buena narración, independiente del envoltorio en el que se entregue.
• 
  Bice

  l’ho amato!! il primo libro che leggo di bukowski. È come me lo aspettavo, molto esplicito, quindi lo consiglierei dal 15 anni in su. Mi aspettavo però che fosse un romanzo, invece è una raccolta di storie. Comunque prenderò sicuramente un altro dei suoi libri perché mi ha tenuta incollata alle pagine
• 
  Sara ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

  A parer mio non è paragonabile a "storie di ordinaria follia" che ho adorato dall'inizio alla fine, ma comunque riesce a farsi apprezzare molto. Alcuni racconti li ho trovati più interessanti di altri e li ho letti in pochi minuti mentre altri, si ci ho messo anche li pochi minuti, ma avevo la sensazione di averci messo delle ore.
• 
  Antonio Depietro

  I cant believe there is still Bukowski to discover and love. I just learned some things about the human condition and isn't that what great art is about? (not for the faint of heart)
• 
  Hank1972

  Un Bukowski minore, ma pur sempre un Bukowski !
  Dieci racconti che abbracciano tutta la sua vita artistica, dai primi lavori degli anni '40 passando per i successi degli anni '70 - '80 e fino agli ultimi componimenti dei primi anni '90.
  Ritroviamo tutto quello che ci piace di Bukowski, alcol sesso e amore, ippodromi e scommesse, poesia e letteratura, macchine da scrivere e musica classica a tarda notte, auto scassate, reading turbolenti, situazioni bizzarre, e tutto questo insieme per affrontare le durezze della vita, con sensibilità ironia e tenerezza, e farcela.
  
• 
  Andrés Astudillo

  Lo califico como 5 porque es esencial; para mi un libro esencial es el que permite que una persona ajena a un escritor lo conozca no a fondo, pero que al menos permita que el terreno no sea del todo insondable.
  Tiene un poco de todo, de la narrativa de la lascivia de Mujeres, de lo duro y crudo de la vida de Tales of ordinary madness, de la mala racha en la existencia prosáica de Hijo de Satanás. Muy aparte de que también se arma de un par de opiniones muy personales de Hank.
  Uno de los relatos que te dejan con la boca abierta por la crueldad es "Cristo con salsa barbacoa".
• 
  IGNACIO ROMERO

  Por supuesto que no es lo mejor de Bukowski. Pero, si estás aburrido de leer a los otros escritores pretenciosos, este libro te sirve para entender el crecimiento de Charles. Sus primeros textos, donde todavía no era Chinaski. Este libro tiene textos de 1946 a 1992, casi toda su vida. Algunos son muy buenos, otros aburren, pero de todos se sacan una o dos buenas ideas.
  Que te puedo decir? Es el mejor escritor de todos. Sus libros siempre valen la pena
• 
  Jordi Via

  Sí, me encanta Bukowski.
  Aquí, aunque todo es material inédito, nos reencontramos con el viejo Hank y sus habituales borracheras y escenas sexuales explícitas. Además interesantes ensayos que vuelven a poner de manifiesto que había mucho de leyenda detrás de su mala fama.
• 
  Sara

  La cosa bella di Bukowski è che ti fa venire voglia di scrivere.
• 
  Oscar

  Es claro que Charles Bukowski tiene un estilo bastante peculiar. Más allá de que Bukowski sea un gran escritor, ya que muchos lo son, su verdadero don está en su atrevimiento para escribir sin miedo a la crudeza. Él mismo lo reconoce en sus escritos. Reconoce, además, que le sorprende lo mucho que gustan al público sus crudezas aun cuando no son verdaderamente lo que a él le gusta escribir, siendo de su preferencia escribir poesía, por ejemplo. Dice en su relato El Don Juan del este de Hollywood:
  
  "Con el alquiler más barato tenía oportunidad de escribir algún poema. Estaba harto de escribir relatos de polvos, aunque lo s escribía mejor que nadie. (...) Los poemas podía escribirlos como me diera la gana porque nadie pagaba por la poesía."
  
  El autor es reconocido, sin embargo, principalmente por tales relatos. Él sabía que los escritores (y la gente en general) tienen este miedo irracional a escribir crudezas como las suyas, especie de tabú. Él, a quien no le importaba nada de lo que la gente piense de si, aprovecha esto al máximo.
  
  Ausencia de héroe permite ver a la persona detrás del famoso Bukowski. Se describe a sí mismo como sentimental y muestra una faceta diferente a la que uno imaginaría de la simple lectura de sus obras más famosas.
  
  Recomiendo la lectura del libro a las personas que les interese conocer más acerca de Bukowski.
  
• 
  Zvonimir

  Stari Buk stvarno ne stari - uvijek uspije izmamiti osmijeh, ubaciti pritom kritiku društva, književne scene, politike, ljudi općenito... i ostati mrtav hladan, ispijajući svoje pivo iza zavjese dima. Rani tekstovi nisu me toliko privukli, no lijepo se uklapaju u tijek piščevog sazrijevanja, a kolumne Zabilješke starog pokvarenjaka, kojih se nekoliko nalazi i u ovoj zbirci, su mi potpuni vrh njegovog stvaralaštva.
  

  Više dobrih ljudi upoznao sam po zatvorima, hladnjačama za pijance, u tvornicama, na trkalištima negoli na satovima engleskog, satovima umjetnosti ili među drugim piscima koji su mi kucali na vrata. Samo zato jer netko radi s umjetničkom formom, to ga nužno ne opravdava niti čini valjanim. Iz istog razloga ne bi trebalo bez potrebe uzdizati ni svećenike, patuljke ili ljudi bez nogu i kurve.
  

  
  Novu (čitalačku) godinu najljepše je započeti u društvu starog pokvarenjaka Hanka!
• 
  Antonis Louizidis

  Το βιβλίο αποτελείται κυριως από ακυκλοφόρητα κείμενα ,από κάποια άρθρα του Μπουκόφσκι στην προσωπική του στήλη καθώς και κείμενα από άλλες εφημερίδες. Εκδόθηκε μετά θανάτων του συγγραφέα,δεν μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί ως μια συλλογή απο ποιοτικά του έργα και πολύ πιθανόν να μην ενέκρινε την έκδοση του και ο ίδιος.Πολλές από τις ιστορίες θα μπορούσαν να χαρακτηριστουν ανοστες και ελάσσονος ενδιαφέροντος,τα κείμενα στα οποία ο Μπουκόφσκι ασκει κριτική σε άλλους συγγραφείς με ξένισαν πάρα πολύ,δεν του ταιριάζει αυτός ο τρόπος γραφής καθώς και το συγκεκριμένο ύφος .Τέλος υπάρχουν και κάποια αρκετα ευχάριστα και καλογραμμένα κείμενα αλλά δυστυχώς αποτελούν μειονότητα.
• 
  Valentina Xenia

  'Sfogliando le pagine di questa raccolta si sente il ticchettio furioso e disperato della macchina da scrivere del vecchio Hank. L'intimità della scrittura ci catapulta nella sua stanza ammobiliata tra mozziconi di sigaretta, bicchieri rovesciati e donne folli. Bieca oscenità, sarcasmo abrasivo, saggezza sboccata, sereno cinismo, poesia, alcol, sesso, musica classica come solo Bukowski sa mischiare". Purtroppo non è una lettura compatibile con i miei gusti. A tratti ripetitiva e monotona, in altre si riscopre il genio.
  Raccolta da leggere senza troppe pretese.
• 
  Ivan

  Pročitao sam sve novele Bukowskog i uglavnom su mi bile odlične ili jako dobre (ok, Pulp malo manje). Ipak, ova zbirka kratkih priča, novinskih članaka i pisama čini se posebnom i kao da smo ovdje dobili mrvicu više od onog što Bukowski uistinu je i predstavlja. Kao da ga mogu vidjeti pijanog i s cigaretom u ustima kako kasno u noć piše svaku od ovih priča i živo ga zaboli hoće li to itko pročitati ili se ikome svidjeti. Zbirka mi je tim malo draža jer je poklon drage prijateljice koja je točno znala kojom knjigom će me posebno razveseliti :)
• 
  Alex Budris

  I realize I'm reading these backwards, but regardless, this 2010 volume, the second in a series, of Bukowski's uncollected stories and essays is a marked improvement from the third (2015) volume. It seems there were leftovers still worth reading when Absence of the Hero was published. Still... New to Bukowski? I wouldn't recommend starting here. Read everything he wrote and want more? This is for you. If the pattern holds the next one I'm starting - Portions From a Wine Stained Notebook - may actually have some classic Bukowski in it.
• 
  Iñigo Cobo Iniesta

  Bukowski...me encanta y lo odio, aunque me gusta mucho más de lo que le odio. Nunca pensé que leería un relato suyo sobre coches, caníbales o monos, pero así ha sido. La fuerza con la que escribe es muy difícil de explicar y catalogar, siempre abordando temas crudos a través del sexo. Lo hace a propósito, como él mismo dice: "encauzo mi material por el sendero del sexo para que no se duerman, y mientras están despiertos, les endilgo el resto; se lo cuelo disimuladamente. Les doy morfina y luego les arranco la escasa alma que tienen".
• 
  Robert Waterman

  It was typical Bukowski. You love him or hate him and I love him...lol. But it was more of a collection of his short stories that went to the underground press. But it also was a good collection of rare works that I had not seen before and I've read many of his books. Worth seeking out if you like his writing.
• 
  Daniel

  The best thing about Buk's longevity, despite his well-known habits, is the seemingly neverending output of uncollected material, which simply never gets old. Furthermore, never ceases to satisfy. Such is the case with this book.
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  Nicolás

  Como siempre Bukowski dándole el toque crudo, obsceno e indecente a su magnífica poesía. Y pensar que sus obras son 95% reales, que gran hijo de puta con todas sus letras wm!
  Mis respetos a este viejo indecente y maldito.