by Kent Reedy

Created on: January 21, 2009   Last Updated: January 16, 2010

Charles Bukowski's "You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense" is a collection of approximately 130 mostly very short stories - some so short and focused on a single moment that they are more like vignettes. They are written in a kind of poetic style, but without the rhymes or rhythms of most poetry. The book's title is from one of the stories, a description of what it was like for Bukowski to be a "starving writer," struggling to be published, losing 60 pounds, and eventually becoming so discouraged that he had to quit and take a ten year-long break before he could take up writing again. The other stories are also about experiences in his life - in Los Angeles and in a few other places where he lived for a while - and some observations on life in general.

Among the first few stories are a couple about Bukowski's father - one called "retired" and the other, "my non-ambitious ambition". They seem to have had a relationship of mutual contempt, or at least revulsion. In the "ambition" story, the author says his father seemed like "a crazed and stupid brute", and quotes him referring to his son as "a bum." The younger Bukowski describes his early life-goal to be the opposite of whatever it was that his father was, and says he has succeeded beautifully at achieving that.

At least a few of the stories are about what it's like to be extremely poor. A couple of them, "starting fast" and "bumming with Jane," describe how living a hand-to-mouth existence for a while isn't necessarily such a terrible thing, and can even seem kind of wondrous, as long as there is a way to somehow scrape by and a basis for self-sufficiency. Some of the others, like "the beautiful lady editor" and "death sat on my knee and cracked with laughter", tell of a more somber and familiar kind of poverty - the desperate kind that is accompanied by hopelessness, hunger, and dependency. One very short story, "trashcan lives", describes how the hardship endured by homeless people in a democracy is not too much different from what they would experience in a dictatorship.

There are a handful of stories about the ugliness and frustrations of driving in the city. One of these, "drive through hell," says: "the freeway is a circus of cheap and petty emotions." Other stories of this type include "red Mercedes," "driving test," "the freeway life," and "what am I doing?".

Some of the stories are about things that strengthen and encourage, or at least seem to give life meaning. One such story, "friends

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