Book Review: "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town" by Charles Bukowski

I don't know what I expected from an anthology which opens with a title story about a man falling in love with a beautiful former convent girl and she ends up committing suicide. But I mean, I've read enough Bukowski to know that his poetry is a bit more readable than his short stories are. The problem I have with his short stories is most of them just sound like he's complaining and some of the plots end up going absolutely nowhere. I mean, I understand that the story going nowhere is exactly the point but after a while, that mode of writing can become insufferable and it's also clear that he may be an abuser. Especially from his writings in Notes of a Dirty Old Man (which I reviewed some time ago) in which he clearly states that yes, he's an abuser. I think after this, I might just stick to reading his poetry. I don't think I can take very much more of his short prose. I will however, explain this review in a quotation taken directly from Roger Ebert in his review of the movie The Usual Suspects (and I paraphrase) - as much as I understand it, I don't care about it.

In Non-Horseshit Horse Advice, he gives the reader some advice on horse betting and honestly I have to ask one big question that permeates the entirety of his literature. I have noticed that this is a man who constantly complains about never getting anything from magazines in the way of an income. He also cannot seem to make any money from publishing as he complains about that too. He also complains about his drinking habit which must be costing him a fortune and so, with his 'working class' maxims and background: how the hell does he have money to gamble on the horses? Where is this money coming from and why is he wasting it betting on horse racing? Anyways, written out as a series of instructions labelled with letters, I don't think this man is the best person to take betting advice from seeing as most of this anthology is dedicated to him being in seedy and cheap locations and meeting questionable women. I don't know, the whole horse-betting thing feels like an oxymoron to his own ideas about being a bohemian outsider from the middle class literary scene.

In Life and Death on the Charity Ward we get a slightly different Bukowski. Yes, he's still his hard-drinking and shit-talking self but this time, he comes with the additional layer of perspective. As we see the character Harry on the hospital bed being told if he smokes another cigarette he'll die, Bukowski initially refuses to hand over the packet of smokes or the matches. After a lot of pushing from Harry though, our narrator throws them at him - now no longer caring if Harry kills himself or not. Apart from this, we also have our narrator going through a pretty tough time of their own which, for lack of a better phrase, includes blood coming from every known orifice of his body. I'm not going to lie, but if you want any piece of imagery to put you off reading Bukowski then it's probably the imagery you'll find within this story. Life and Death on the Charity Ward is not something you want to read whilst, after or during your meal. It kind of grossed me out even though it was only a few pages long. Be that as it may, the writing was a lot more readable than many of the stories in the anthology, including and certainly the ones about horse racing. (Yes, there's more than one about horse racing).

As you can see, this wasn't a great anthology by any means but I think it was better than the previous prose anthology I had read by him. I will reiterate that I think his poetry is better than his prose and I can definitely see why a lot of his prose wasn't taken up by magazines or published at all. A lot of it can sound like the unfortunate and drunken ramblings of a Hemingway wannabe. But on the other hand, I am still interested to see if there's anything I've missed. I don't think I have ever loved to read an author I dislike so much...