"The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles."—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author
"He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels."—Leonard Cohen, songwriter
Septuagenarian Stew is a combination of poetry and stories written by Charles Bukowski that delve into the lives of different people on the backstreets of Los Angeles. He writes of the housewife, the bum, the gambler and the celebrity to evoke a portrait of Los Angeles.
June 3, 2002
In his latest collection, prolific Bukowski ( Hollywood ) confronts the reader with many of the same down-and-out themes he has been writing about for years. His work for the most part is populated here with society's losers--alcoholic bums, mad housewives, compulsive gamblers--their decaying selves slipping inexorably into oblivion. Life's supposed winners fare no better. The movie star in the story ``Fame'' is murdered by a fanatic fan. The writer in ``Action,'' who once smugly refused the Pulitzer Prize, squanders all his money at the racetrack and wastes his creative abilities in the process. Even the author's fictionalized self, Henry Chinaski, rescued from being ``a pile of human rubble'' by an editor interested in his work, can never transcend the junk heap of human existence. He continues to rely, paradoxically, on booze to help him survive. Bukowski's rejection of the redemptive power of love and his refusal to probe the psychological origins of his and his characters' behavior limits the validity of his message. Aside from several arresting images and some entertaining dialogue, the writing is flat and uninspired.
June 15, 1990
The prolific poet laureate of the lowlife celebrates his 70th birthday with this long, uneven melange of tales and poems. Many explore familiar Bukowski subjects of alcohol, sex, gambling, writing, and the violence at the heart of human relationships. Taking place on the Los Angeles backstreets, they sympathetically depict individuals whose lives are circumscribed by barrooms and bad jobs. Other pieces present a different view, as Bukowski looks at the vicissitudes of life as a wealthy and famous writer or faces fears of physical and artistic decline. Harry Chinaski, Bukowski's cynical, misogynistic, yet ultimately sympathetic alter ego appears throughout. There is an excellent 200-page book among the nearly 400 pages gathered here. For larger collections.-- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1990 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.