This book is not new, but I only recently read it and discovered the author. Since then, I’ve been looking for more of his work. I’m talking about Erection, Ejaculation, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (sorry for the bad language :3) by Charles Bukowski, published in 1972 by City Lights Publishers.

It’s a collection of some twenty short, hard-hitting stories in which Charles Bukowski unflinchingly depicts the lives of the marginalized. Through tales of sexism, daily misery, violence, and despair, he explores years of wandering through America’s underclass.

In a raw, uncompromising style, the author plunges us into the dark world of seedy bars and seedy hotel rooms, where alcohol and poverty reign supreme. But amid this desolation, love, affection, and friendship find their place, defying social norms with disconcerting sincerity.

The book is not unanimously acclaimed, and I understand why. Vulgar, without restraint or modesty, could be seen as nothing more than the vomit of Bukowski’s screwing, drinking, and self-destructive adventures (Hank, the hero of most of the short stories, being Bukowski himself). Steeped in a black atmosphere of filth, bile, and ungodly sentiment, these stories tell us the dirty life of this provocative, subversive writer.

The title is so crude that it wasn’t tolerated in France. So, the French translation I read is entitled ‘Contes de la folie ordinaire’ (Tales of Ordinary Madness), which omits to mention erection and ejaculation, terms that are far too scandalous it seems. That’s why I was surprised at first to read how much it talked about sex. I understood better when I saw the original English title while writing this article.

So rude!

Yes, it’s vulgar. Yes, there are shocking passages. But to me, that’s no reason to stop reading or to dislike it. Of course, you must like dark humor, irony, and the unusual. Deliberately offbeat, the book is almost a burlesque farce, as it pushes the ridiculous and grotesque of situations.

When you read it, you get shaken up. I believe that sometimes, to make people think, you have to shake up mentalities, and that’s exactly what Charles Bukowski does. He tells us about madness, the madness of ordinary life, the madness of a lot of people who go through their days trying to survive, as best they can, and… these people exist. They did in the 1970s, and they still do today. He tells us these crazy stories about parties, dirty things, filth, fat, ugly, dirty, vicious, alcoholic men, slutty, whorish, ugly, drug-addled women, and it’s shocking because it brings a certain reality right into our faces.

They / we — are crazy

I love the concept of ordinary madness. The everyday madness of each and every one of us. This societal madness that is repressed, denied, that we try to eradicate, but which always ends up overflowing and resurfacing. The madness we can’t cure because it’s part of being human. This deep-seated madness emanates from our still-present animal side because we forget that humans are mere mammals, hairless and with big brains to be sure. It’s the madness of our primal instincts, our fears, our anxieties. The madness of life, of being born human, of simply breathing.

When you think that these stories really happened and were lived by Bukowski, you realize that it takes a lot of nerve to do stuff like this and then tell about it. Many thinks about it, some do it, but none tell it. Without false modesty, Bukowski dares, with humor and self-mockery. He tells what others embellish and conceal. And it takes a critical eye to characterize a certain segment of society with a sharp pen. And it succeeds. I had moments of disgust, I said to myself “But how can someone…?”, and then, I closed the book saying to myself that I really enjoyed reading it. Maybe it’s because I’m an ordinary crazy person?