This is the fourth book of collected writings
published by City Lights and edited by Professor Calonne. It follows Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook
(2008), Absence of the Hero (2010)
and More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The
Uncollected Columns (2011). The latest pocket-sized volume consists of 44
stories, most of which first appeared in L.A.
Free Press as part of Bukowski’s iconic Notes of a Dirty Old Man newspaper
column.
The full breakdown is as follows according to
the bibliography at the end of the book:
#
|
Originally
published
|
Year
|
25
|
L.A.
Free Press
|
1972-1976
|
4
|
Fling
|
1971-1972
|
4
|
Oui
|
1984-1985
|
3
|
Hustler
|
1978-1985
|
2
|
Open
City
|
1967-1968
|
2
|
Nola
Express
|
1971-1972
|
2
|
unpublished
|
1948, 1979
|
1
|
Kauri
|
1966
|
1
|
Congress
|
1967
|
The Bell Tolls for No One takes its name from the last short story in
the book, first published in Oui
magazine. In the story nothing goes right for Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s
alter-ego. He is mistakenly abducted by thugs, hand-cuffed, savagely bashed and
his left ear blown off. Left in the woods and still hand-cuffed, a wild dog
sets on him. The story ironically ends, “I ran forward, kicked out and missed,
fell to my side, rolled over just in time as the flash of fangs ripped the
quiet air, I got to my feet and faced the thing again, thinking, this must
happen all the time to everybody…one way or the other…” The title is an obvious
allusion to Ernest Hemingway’s novel For
Whom the Bell Tolls, one of Bukowski’s literary heroes. In the case of the people who inhabit
Bukowski’s world, nothing falls into place for them.
This collection is better than I imagined but
because Bukowski spent most of life writing and rewriting about key moments in
his life, you get the impression that you have read many of these stories
before. As Calonne points out in his fine Introduction (see the link to it
below), “Several of the stories included in this volume demonstrate how he
worked and reworked his material. He creates the same narrative anew; he doesn’t copy, but starts over. He is
always telling his autobiography but selecting different details, reinventing
instead of rewriting.” He uses the example of the excellent short story ‘An
Affair of Very Little Importance’ about Mercedes which appears in a different
version in his novel Women. The story
‘I Just Write Poetry So I Can Go to Bed With Girls’ appears in a Dirty Old Man column in this volume as
well.
Many of the stories are finely crafted
portraits or focussed on dysfunctional relationships, including ‘Dancing Nina’,
‘Save the World’, ‘The Lady with the Legs’ and several other untitled pieces
from the ‘Notes of a Dirt Old Man’ archives. In his Introduction Calonne emphases
that a central element of Bukowski’s content and style is to poke fun at the
absurdity of romantic love and the sexual politics of the time, “Message
parlours, a pornographer engaging in late-night discussions with his wife,
adult bookshops, older women picking up younger men: the entire panoply of the
fading sexual revolution is held up to satire and ridicule.”
Also of great interest is the inclusion of The Way the Dead Love (pages 29-58) the
beginnings of a novel John Martin urged Bukowski to write in 1966. Several
chapters were published in magazines, including this five- part excerpt which
first appeared in Congress in 1967.
Arguably the best stories in the collection are
those in which Bukowski temporarily abandons his over-written life story and
focuses more on dredging up the gold of his febrile imagination. The satirical
‘A Day in the Life of an Adult Bookstore Clerk’, the investigations into
criminal behaviour in ‘Break-In’ and ‘Fly the Friendly Skies’ immediately come
to mind. The best & craziest short story in the collection is the Cold War
masterpiece ‘A Dirty Trick on God.’ It begins with Harry Greb, an assembly line
packer sitting in a bathtub drinking a beer. He farts and then the bubbles rise
to form a “sponge thing with seaweed arms, blue eyes, blond hair.” This is an extremely
funny story with a message. You may be able to read it on Google Books.
Where to buy the book. Also find the
Introduction by David Stephen Calonne and pages 1-38 here:
