The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories

I've read many/most of Bukowski's books - he is a truly gifted poet - he is from and of the gutter - but some of the stories in this volume are beyond the pale - they are just too degenerate, too disturbing even for us 21st century amoral Americans - the code by which we now live degrades every aspect of our sordid lives, but, for godsakes, can't we leave the babies and the dead out of it - can't we have just one or two sacrosanct no-go zones. Two astonishingly vile stories about fucking a dead body and another about doing the same to a very little girl - why? - to what end? some things are truly better left unsaid.

This isn't as good as Ham on Rye or Post Office, but neither is it as good a collection as Notes of a Dirty Old Man. There's a couple of strong stories including the titular starter, but a lot is also-ran filler material better executed in his stronger collections. There's also too much of a good thing, the endless cycles of drinking, fucking and bumming around weren't meant to be collected like this, but spread out over features in various dead end publications you'd go a week or a month or longer between reading a piece of.
If you keep it on a shelf and dip into it every now and again it's probably a better experience than the straight read through.

This is some rough stuff. That’s a warning. Do not go into this thinking you’re going to read some nice little stories that describe the rougher side of life. You are going to read some rough stories that make the seamy side of life seem boring in comparison. Bukowski does not pull back. Some will consider it obscene. Some will consider it over the top. (The ultimate example is a story called “The Fiend” which I will not describe because, in a review, it is best not to describe it.) But, all that being said, this collection contains some of the most compelling…things…I have recently read. (For all the distaste that arises from “The Fiend”, it is still an incredible example of craft and storytelling. I don’t think I’d show more ever want to read it again – just looking up the title again gave me pause – but I’m glad I read it once.)

The content is all over the place. Some are stories, some are snippets of Bukowski’s life, some seem to be somewhere in between. And, that means the results are all over the place. Some are good, some are so-so, but some are gems. The best may be the opening story, “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”. But I may also think that because, as the opening story, I was hit smack in the face with Bukowski.

It is almost impossible to describe the stories (particularly on a web site where children may accidently read the review). Suffice to say they are the tales of people who haven’t had the best of lives and are living on the edge. But the interesting thing is that the stories are not judgmental (probably because Bukowski was right there with them.) The people accept their lives and live them.

Again, the contents are rough. I happened to be reading a number of these in doctors’ offices (it would take too long to explain why) and, while no one could actually see what I was reading, I kept figuratively looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching. But they are worth the time and effort. Even the slowest and least exciting still have writing that catches your attention and does not bore.

Enter at your own risk, but do enter. show less

Bukowski’s stories are wonderful, shocking, crude and plain funny at times. They revolve around drinking, screwing, avoiding work, betting on horses, and cruelty.

The self-professed ugliest man in town tragically gets together with the most beautiful woman in town. A witch shrinks her husband to six inches to use him for one unique purpose. Two drunk bums steal a body from a hospital and discover it’s a beautiful young woman. Bukowski’s poetry shines through at times. The beautiful woman is like “fluid moving fire.”

The gritty stories and writing have almost no limits or boundaries and seem to sum up Bukowski’s reasons for writing. “I did not like the world, but at cautious and easy times, you could almost understand it.”

I confess I didn't like Tales of Ordinary Madness, the counterpart to this collection, all that much. Maybe it's just because I had lower expectations for this second volume, but I did like The Most Beautiful Woman in Town a bit more. It's rather front-loaded, and the stories in the first half of the book are rather strong. The rape and paedophilia stories towards the end soured me a lot; not only because of the content but because there seems to be no reason for them – no artistic imperative or theme or message or method beyond simple fantasizing. But, often, when you read Bukowski you're not a reader – you're a panner sifting through dirt to find bits of gold-dust. I think I just liked the sloshing around a bit more this time.

I somehow have gone my whole life not knowing anything about Bukowski, before picking this up from the Audible Included library. Made it part way into the title story and was getting weird vibes, so I did a bit of a look into him and his writing and I'm no longer interested in anything this guy had to say. For me, good prose and some powerful poetry don't excuse being a creep and exuding that in your work.

Not telling or judging anyone who has a different perspective, but I'll never manage to read every author and book I want to before I die, so it's a very simple thing for me to cut the bigots and chauvinists that I'm aware of from my reading pool.

The other part of Ejaculations, Erections, Erosions, Explosions, and Tales Of Ordinary Madness, The Most Beautiful Woman In Town isn't quite as good as its counterpart but as would be expected its highs do reach the heights Tales Of Ordinary Madness reaches. One of those highs is an account of Bukowski's stint in the charity ward of a hospital as he was hemorraging from a 10 year drinking binge. One of the truly fine things about Bukowski is that no matter you read early Bukowski or late Bukowski chances are you're going to get a good book. This is a great example of early Bukowski, not having yet invented his literary avatar, Henry Chinaski. In a sense it can take guts to be this simple because everybody will know the bad ends of you. show more It is what it is, though, and still beats hell out of everything Henry Miller wrote post-Tropic Of Cancer. show less