Hot Water Music audiobook

I had been reading Chekhov’s major plays—now doesn't that sound elegant and literary?—and thought I needed something inelegant and unliterary to follow it up, and found something on audiobooks I hadn’t read before, from Charles Bukowski, a collection of stories, and it is obvious at a glance that the two writers are very different—what do we know about Buk? Wine, women, horseracing, boxing, brutality, usually funny, often obscene, stripped-down prose that is decidedly unpretentious, straightforward—but I have to say, just having read Uncle Vanya, with its panoply of unhappy people, some of whom are drunken philandering men, I begin to see Anton and Charles as distant brothers at a century’s distance. Both are realists, associated with a sometimes bleak/comic existentialist approach. True, Buk is profane at times, crass, sometimes offensive, but in Hot Water Music the main point is to explore honestly the world of the down and out. Bukowski talks simply and profoundly about the underbelly of the working class without raising judgement. Oh, he's hard on the rich and pretentious, but not about the poor.Chekhov also sided with the working class and wrote in largely straightforward, unadorned fashion. And like Bukowski Chekhov also describe the world without judging anything in it unless those things are boring or pompous. I have enjoyed more Factotum, Pulp, Ham on Rye, and Post Office, longer works, but I like the art in some of the Henry Chinaski stories here. It is true that the collective focus of these stories is on booze, writing, and sex, and there's a kind of sameness, but one of his characters responds to this criticism:"You seem to write about sex a lot.""Yeah, what do you expect me to write about? The stock market? Who wants to read about that?!" The more absurd stories such as “You Kissed Lilly” and “I Love You, Albert,” are silly fun but admirably shaped. Some of the clever—and yes, ultimately literary—ones to check out are “The Upward Bird,” “Beer at the Corner Bar,” “The Death of the Father II,” and “Head Job,” which is actually from the perspective of a woman (!). Okay, Chekhov did a better job depicting women than Bukowski, I’ll give you that, but I’ll say Chekhov’s strongest characters generally also tend to be men, not women. So, brothers from different planets? Just a th0ught.

Hot Water Music, Charles BukowskiHot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with drinking, women, gambling, and writing. Contents:Less Delicate than the Locust,Scream When You Burn,A Couple of Gigolos,The Great Poet,You Kissed Lily,Hot Lady,It's a Dirty World,900 Pounds,Decline and Fall,Have You Read Pirandello?,Strokes to Nowhere,Some Mother,Scum Grief,Not Quite Bernadette,Some Hangover,A Working Day,The Man Who Loved Elevators,Head Job,Turkeyneck Morning,In and Out and Over,I love you Albert,White Dog Hunch,Long Distance Drunk,How To Get Published,Spider,The Death of the Father I,The Death of the Father II,Harry Ann Landers,Beer at the Corner Bar,The Upward Bird,Cold Night,A Favor for Don,Praying Mantis,Broken Merchandise,Home Run,and Fooling Marie.تاریخ نخستین خوانش سال 2002میلادیعنوان: موسیقی آب گرم؛ نویسند: چارلز بوکفسکی؛ مترجم بهمن کیارستمی؛ تهران، ماه ریز، 1381، در 119ص؛ شابک 9647049498؛ چاپ دوم سال1385؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، نگر؛ 1400؛ در 128ص؛ شابک 9786229713211؛ دوازده داستان از دو کتاب «موسیقی آب گرم»؛ و «جنوب بدون شمال»؛ نویسنده است؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20مشخصیت بیشتر داستان‌های «بوکفسکی»، «هنری چیناسکی» هست، که ظهرها از خواب بیدار می‌شود، روزش را با آبجو آغاز می‌کند، روی اسب‌ها شرط بندی می‌کند، از «همینگوی» بیزار است، با زن‌ها مشکل دارد و ...؛ در داستان «مرگ پدرم»، «هنری» پس از مرگ پدرش، به خانه ی پدرش می‌رود، و همسایه‌ها به بهانه ی آشنایی با «هنری»، به دیدارش می‌آیند و هر کدام از آن‌ها، وسیله‌ ای از خانه را با خود می‌برند، و در پایان، «هنری» با خانه‌ ای خالی روبرو می‌شود، و ...؛تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/04/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

By far, my favorite work by Bukowski. This collection of short stories is both beautiful and grotesque. He is such an ass, and he talks about such base and vile acts... yet I love it! I could not put it down; I simply had to find out what fucked up thing was going to happen next. I think that the beauty of Bukowski is that he turns shit into flowers. An act that you would never consider to be pleasing is suddenly shown in a more light. Taking a shit. Killing your wife. These things are such social faux-pas to discuss in literature, yet he does it in a captivating way.

The key to understanding what makes Bukowski (in my opinion at least) one of the greatest writers that ever lived lies in this very book, in an often-repeated quote which reads:'Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way'The best art (again in my opinion at least) can evoke a certain time and a place so vividly that though you may not even have experienced it, you still live it, clearly visualise it, breathe it. For instance, there is a downtempo electronic music band called Boards of Canada, that make music that reminds me of my childhood. This is despite the fact that I first listened to Boards of Canada when I was 29. Similarly, when I read about Bukowski's LA, I feel I've been to those very same shady bars, those dusty racetracks and lonely motel rooms. It's hard to pick a favourite from this collection. I could choose between You Kissed Lily, where a marital spat takes a number of extreme turns, In and Out and Over where Bukowski takes us through the highs and lows of the writer's day and makes you feel it is a privileged life after all, the road-rage revenge fantasy of Broken Merchandise, and many more. If I was pushed into a corner, I would choose Beer at the Corner Bar, a fine piece of work that embodies the deep loneliness of the misfit, rather like Camus' The Stranger. There is a very amusing quote about Camus in a different story here, to the effect that Camus spoke of misery as if he had just finished a steak dinner and a bottle of wine i.e. with a sort of detached elegance. There is no such compromise from him here. Or ever. Bukowski's prose as of itself isn't particularly explosive or beautiful in that flowery way. Like Dostoyevsky though, he has the ability to sum up the nature of existence in a way that shocks you with the beauty of its simplicity. He takes aim from his subconscious to yours with a deadly accuracy. He is also the voice of every societal outcast who still stands proud because his soul and his integrity is still intact. I've never really fit in with the masses, but when I read Bukowski I don't feel particularly bad that I don't. Hot Water Music is a terrific collection of stories that shock, amuse, and illuminate the way for a lonely soul to find his place in the world.

This is the first thing I read of Bukowski's and his terse style seemed to me like a breath of fresh air. It's as if he copied Hemingway's style and then mimicked it to the point of caricature. And yet somehow I'm still saying that's a good thing. I believe he took the potentiality of Hemingway's style and magnified it's unpleasantness in a manner similar to how Seth McFarlane exaggerated Matt Groening. Okay, maybe that analogy was pushing it but I love the way no thought or idea is too reprehensible to be included in Bukowski's conception of literature. By the way, besides the numerous pop culture references, the thing that really got me psyched to start reading Bukowski was the excellent documentaries on him that are available on Netflix. The length of his stories is interesting as well. These are more like vignettes and so it’s best to consider the whole work together and the interrelations between vignettes.

I grinned through the first few chapters, chuckled through the next few, then laughed my ass off for the remaining few. CB is a new revelation for me, I think I can understand his perpetual depravity. Maybe depravity is too strong a word. Let's go with misogynist, no, because he also loved thousands of women, for a night or two anyway. I'll have to think of the word, if there is one....@ 6am - Beer & Coffee @ 9am - More beer and a few shots of whiskey @ Noon - Even more beer, a few more shots of whiskey and cheap wine.......Sleep......@ 9pm - Two six packs and vodka & whiskey & red wine until the wee hours of the morning.......next day......the same.

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories about, you guessed it, terrible drunk people. This was my 4th and least favorite Bukowski that I’ve read so far, but I still really, really liked it.Bukowski is best in small doses I find. The characters and scenes he depicts are so dismal and disgusting and bleak that I try to only read one a year to preserve my mental health and sunny disposition (mild sarcasm). I swear if you’re struggling with alcoholism and reading a Bukowski doesn’t get you into rehab, I don’t know what will. Despite the disturbing nature of what he writes, the dark humor consistently holds me in thrall. I chuckled and laughed out loud several times while reading this collection, and those moments of hilarity are what lifts this collection from an almost gluttonous and redundant obsession with drunken low lifes into something more meaningful, more elusive. I’m not really sure how to capture it with words but I do believe there's value in reading Bukowski’s terse, too honest, and sometimes traumatizing stories. You’ll be hard pressed to find a writer that shares everything better than Bukowski, even when you wish he wouldn’t.Unfortunately I listened to this as an audio book, so I don’t have a collection of cringe-inducing quotes to share. However, I do remember one vignette. It was a disgusting drunk man (shocker) who had kept his ex-wife’s high heeled shoes. We don’t need to discuss what he was doing with the shoes, or the vomitorium of substances his body was coated in. In his continuous drunken stupor he can’t accept or remember that his wife is now his ex, and that she’s gone. As another character tries to remind him of that important distinction, that he’s actually divorced, he exclaims, “Tell that to the Marines!”Haha. Damn. You got me again Bukowski.Story-8, Language-9, Ideas-8, Characters-8, Enjoyment-9, Overall-8.5