The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps [Paperback]

Charles Bukowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2002

This collection of previously unpublished poems offers the author's take on squabbling neighbours, off-kilter lovers, would-be hangers-on, and the loneliness of a man afflicted with acute powers of observation. The tone is gritty and amusing, spiralling out towards a cock-eyed wisdom.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) remains as prolific and belligerent in death as he did in life. In classic Bukowski fashion, the pieces in The Night Torn with Footsteps: New Poems deploy the line-as-phrase as a primary formal constraint, and a hackneyed, boastful misogyny as a major rhetorical gesture. If continually found "sitting/ in my cheesebox room/ closer to suicide than/ salvation," readers will still be right there with Buk.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Just when you think you've had enough Bukowski, there is more, and if his sixth posthumous collection, Open All Night [BKL D 1 00], seemed to scrape the bottom of the barrel, the eighth (a book of letters was seventh) hints that there are diamonds in the dregs. Remarkably, many of these poems--try the three on living in San Pedro, California, that open the book's fourth section--are as funny as Buk could get, and all are better written than the worst in Open. The barfly's stoicism and the woozy sentimentality that goes with it are here in good measure, but married to so many vignettes of living ridiculously that they amount to just so many maraschino cherries in so many whiskey sours. Bukowski's brand of that twentieth-century staple, personal poetry, defies good imitation and may have influenced performance comedy, such as the movies of Jim Jarmusch and the antics of Saturday Night Live and its bluer cable spawn, more than other poetry. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (May 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574231650
• ISBN-13: 978-1574231656
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,074,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars One of Buk's worst, I am sorry to say!, February 3, 2003

By 

Uncle Borges (Via Lungomare 6) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps (Paperback)

Always loved and respected Buk as a unique character in American contemporary Lit. A hand-picked and convinced anarchist who played many games one of his favorites being to present himself as a lumprenproletarian alcos and womanizer (how about a very sensitive and sophisticated writer with fine, fine taste in Literatur & Music?)and yet all good things come to an end. Dear Linda, please stop publishing the leftovers. This book is not worthy of Buk's legacy. Only sporadically a thought a line reminds us of the grand old curmudgeon...and yet forgive me for telling you this. Perhaps the Bukowski book should never end?

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun..., February 9, 2005

By 

Jack Dempsey (South Miami Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps (Paperback)

Well it's raining it's pouring
Didn't bring a sweater
Nebraska never let you come back home
And on hollywood and vine
By the thrifty mart sign
Any night I'll be willin' to bet
There's a young girl
With sweet little dreams
And pretty blue wishes
Standin' there just gettin' all wet

Now there's a place off the drag
Called the Gilbert hotel
And there's a couple letters burned out the sign
And it's better then the bus stop
And they do good business
Every time it rains
For little girls
With nothing in their jeans
but pretty blue wishes
Sweet little thing
And it's raining it's pouring
Old man is snoring
Now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
All my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
I'd rather die before I wake
Like Marilyn Monroe
And throw my dreams out in
The street let the
Rain make 'em grow

Now the night clerk he got a club foot
He's heard every hard luck story
At least a hundred times or more
He says check out time is 10 am
And that's just what he means
Go up the stairs
With your sweet little wishes
Your pretty blue dreams

And it's raining it's pouring
Hollywoods just fine
Swindle a little out of her dreams
Another letter in the sign
Now never trust a scarecrow
Wearin' shades after dark
Be careful of that old bow tie he wears
It takes a sweet little bullet
From a pretty blue gun
To put those scarlet ribbons in your hair

No that ain't no cherry bomb
4th of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun

No that ain't no cherry bomb
4th of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun

-I find it so childish and stupid (and, to a degree, sickening) that some idiot starts to critique Buk's work by referring to what his dumba*s teachers would have done when presented with poetry. That fool is on such a slippery slope, it's hardly worth comment, but, to begin, everyone knows that those who can't do, teach. Second, of course an idiot such as that reviewer can't come up with anything better, hence he's resigned to writing verbose and over-thought criticims of Buk's work within the confines of Amazon rather than creating anything of worth or substance. My God, I still can't get over it..."if my english teacher saw the word 'brutality' they'd put a red check by name and I'd get no gold star...." Get a life.

As for the rest of you who have enough sense to see through such a review and know that it's worth no more than the bullsh*t it actually is, get this collection of Buk's work without any further thought. It's Buk, it's fantastic, and there are moments of absolute beauty and splendor. I know that makes sense to those who can think for themselves and who actually have a reasonable head on their shoulders.

Anyway, get this book. Enjoy it, cherish it and love it. I'm certain you will.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not his best punch, but it still leaves a mark just the same..., December 17, 2009

By 

JoeyD (los gatos, ca) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps (Paperback)

"...Unleashing the joyful primal call they could no longer hear." Hank "The Night Torn Mad..."

I have read most of his work, and never tire of it. So bring it on Linda and Black Sparrow, where ever you can find it, bring it all on and share it with the rest of us. So it ain't vintage Buk, who cares, it's Hank. Hank baring it all in the singular signature way he always did. Pass me another beer baby and bring me my Bukowski!

Yeah, I like my Rimbaud and Neruda and Sexton and Pound and Browning and Yeats et al...
But every once in a while...
Bukowski drops on my lap,
And I, lap it up
Like a parched pup
After a lengthy lope.

Lord Bryon he isn't, but I just can't get enough of this cat. If you are new to Hank, then perhaps start someplace else - Post Office, Ham on Rye, Factotum, Love is a Dog From Hell, etc... - but if you are an avid fan of his, you HAVE to add this 2001 posthumous patchwork to your book/poetry collection.

"They say that nothing is wasted: either that or it all is."

This is a great coffee table book. For you can pick it up at any time, turn to almost any page, and see the definition of vulnerability, of truth, of what it means to stand alone against this world and not back down to the mindless masses of mediocrity. So give it a stab folks, it just might be worth it... It was for me!

"...and nothing is more personal than walking down
a stairway alone
thinking about nothing. I often like to
think about nothing for hours."