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A review by foxclouds
Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990 by Charles Bukowski
4.0
Bukowski is famous for his poetry but he also wrote novels, essays and short stories. I wanted to read his prose, so I picked up this book from the library (by the way for some reason GoodReads has a wrong number of pages in the system, so when I updated my current page to 178 my status was at 100% although I was 2/3 through).
I admit that I skipped the essays and focused on short stories.
Bukowski writes dirty and gritty stories, which seem to be mostly autobiographical than fictional, peppered with sex, alcohol and drug consumption, and swearing. He doesn't shy from diving into what some might consider porn (well, he did publish his stories in adult magazines too). His words are brutally honest. He doesn't hide anything. His writing resembles the stream of consciousness of a drunk and horny teenager trapped in the old man's body.
Not for the faint of heart.
I loved it, but you need to be in a certain mood for it.
I admit that I skipped the essays and focused on short stories.
Bukowski writes dirty and gritty stories, which seem to be mostly autobiographical than fictional, peppered with sex, alcohol and drug consumption, and swearing. He doesn't shy from diving into what some might consider porn (well, he did publish his stories in adult magazines too). His words are brutally honest. He doesn't hide anything. His writing resembles the stream of consciousness of a drunk and horny teenager trapped in the old man's body.
Not for the faint of heart.
I loved it, but you need to be in a certain mood for it.