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. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Bukowski-Contes-de-la-folie-ordinaire/1520

> C'est le moment de s'embarquer dans le bateau ivre de Bukowski, l'écrivain poète, né Allemand, citoyen américain par adoption des rues et des bars, témoin des clameurs urbaines... Virons donc du côté d'une folie ordinaire, celle qui sommeille en chaque individu, celle qui vous prend aux tripes un beau matin et fait du corps une marionnette dont on tire les fils, celle qui s'immisce, reptilienne et ne se tait qu'à la mort.
Bukowski délivre aux lecteurs qui veulent bien le suivre dans sa démarche, les contes quelques peu exubérants de cette lente conquête de la déchéance. D'abord abrupte, trash, la folie se coule peu à peu dans la vie et se fait plus mature. Elle gagne en âge et arrondit les angles, estompe sa vulgarité, s'intériorise, pour finir par adopter le corps physique qu'elle habite. Sexe, alcool, et courses de chevaux sont son lot quotidien : Bukowski parle de Bukowski ; ou plutôt de son double, son extension littéraire au prénom poussif : Hank. Le barfly jubile de son petit tour d'auto-parodie. Il en rajoute avec quelques portraits taillés serrés : des ouvriers alcooliques, des jeunes auteurs déjà accomplis dont loeuvre le révulse et qui lui renvoient l'image insupportable de son parcours d'écrivain à succès. Car Bukoswki vomit à la face de ses contemporains. Il vomit aussi ses pages, et vous somme de prendre son parti ou de le fustiger.
Certes, l'auteur ne laisse pas indifférent, à la première lecture assurément... à la seconde, on se surprend à trouver les limite de ce trash qui apparaît finalement presque désuet. Et pourtant, cette thématique poursuit sa route, se charge d'une iconographie nouvelle, s'enrichit, s'épanouit, se modèle à l'image du monde moderne. Le trash est clean... il suffit de regarder du côté de la bande d'Irvine Welsh. Changement d'époque, mais même folie... Bukowski a fait des petits !
—Guillaume Folliero, Urbuz.com

> À peine lues, ces histoires ne vous quittent plus parce qu'immédiatement vous les reconnaissez pour ce qu'elles sont : en prise directe avec nos plus sombres déboires, nos misères, notre corps, notre esprit.
—Le Livre de Poche

> Dans ce recueil de nouvelles, Bukowski parle des marginaux, des laissés-pour-compte qui se débattent comme ils peuvent entre boulots précaires, alcool et rapports charnels désespérés. Son style direct et ses mots crus prennent aux tripes et ne laissent personne indifférent.
—Nicolas Caumont, Librairie Place Média à Narbonne (11)

you love him or you hate him. those who hate him maybe prefer to live on the surface of life. ( )

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. ( )