A postcard with the public domain "me worry?" face that later inspired Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman. From Wikimedia. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_E._Neumann.jpg
I finished reading Charles Bukowski, The Continual Condition last night. It was Bukowski's usual mix of women, sex, drinking, bars, and the race track. There were some more reflective poems as well about writing poetry, school, art, and music which are a bit different than his usual works. This makes the posthumous collection of poetry a little more interesting than many of his books. He comes across as older and more introverted in this work. It reads like he is spending more time at home, using a little less cursing, and thinking about his younger and wilder days.
The poetry is a little smoother and easier to read than works like Love Is A Dog From Hell and You Get So Alone Sometimes That It Just Makes Sense. There is less of a firebrand emotional feeling. The work is mature. The book is also fairly short only 126 pages long. It draws in many of his previous poems from a variety of sources.
It was an enjoyable distraction from every day life. This book has lots of mature content and situations in it. It is not always easy to read. Bukowski is considered a counter culture figure and a wild man of the literary world. This is even more so than Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac.
I was reading through http://www.lisnews.com and found this review; Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements http://www.lisnews.org/read_me_century_classic_american_book_advertisements
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