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Hot Water Music  By  cover art

Hot Water Music

By: Charles Bukowski
Narrated by: Christian Baskous
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Publisher's summary

Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing. It is an important collection that establishes Bukowski's minimalist style and his thematic oeuvre.

©1983 Charles Bukowski (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

What listeners say about Hot Water Music

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

If you like Bukowski...

This narrator killed it. His enthusiasm is evident. Perfect inflexion. I can't imagine a better voice to read Bukowski.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome collection of short stories

I've read probably 20+ Bukowski books. I enjoy his novels and poetry, but the short story collections have always been hit or miss. I had never read Hot Water Music before, but I figured to get it on Audible and give it a shot. I am very, very impressed with it. The stories are all very short. Most of them involve the types of 'ordinary madness' that Bukowski wrote about so well. I am very pleased I bought this audio and I will listen to again in the future.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Early Bukowski

You'll recognize the seeds of stories from his novels and the movie Barfly.

Christian Baskous as always performs perfectly.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Not his best but definitely ALRIGHT

Maybe a 5. Certainly not less than a 4. Short stories is Chanaski's creme... Great via audio

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

True-to-life stories with only gentle depravity.

Christian Baskous is better than I thought. He apparently rises to the challenge of more dramatic material. But only Will Patton can PERFORM like nobody else. Okay?

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

My first buk back in '90 or so, enjoyed revisit!

..gotta admit though, i prefer charles bukowski in book form. Not a fan of folks narrating his work.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not the best of Buk's stuff

I found a few things somewhat comical, but overall it was incoherent and dull. I struggled to keep interest and one story sounded like the next.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A Little Bukowski Goes a Long Way…

Hot Water Music (1983) consists of thirty-six typical Bukowski short stories. They are mostly sordidly real but sometimes magically real and feature few epiphanies or transformations or triumphs but mostly endings where life in all its squalid glory goes on. The stories feature LA underbelly denizens like physically and or psychologically mutilated alcoholics, gamblers, writers, artists, editors, students, professors, prostitutes, fans, femme fatales, housewives, beggars, and bartenders. Many a first-person appearance by Henry “Hank” Chinaski, Bukowski’s alter-ego. And many of the third-person narration protagonists just happen to be alcoholic writers not unlike Chinaski. The stories may shift into fantasy, as when a jealous skeleton throws a drink in the face of a bar customer after a woman who claims to have seen Joan of Arc burn gives him a hot kiss, or as when a woman’s brother teleports into the protagonist’s home right when he’s in his bed about to climax-cheat on his wife with the woman, or as when a husband and wife spend the night shooting each other with their gun and are woken up in the morning by the police complaining about domestic quarrel situations.

The suspense-pleasure in reading the stories lies in wondering what dirty sexy gross person or event or situation will manifest next in Bukowski’s deadpan, dry, drawling voice, perfectly channeled by audiobook reader Christian Baskous.

The best stories are humorous, irreverent takes on poets and poetry readings and the writing profession. I really like most of the Chinaski stories, especially the two about the funeral of his father. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of unpleasant, unenriching stories. These feature graphic violence, sex, and political incorrectness, especially regarding women, as in a line like, “a local feminist poet who had grown tired of blacks and now fucked a doberman in her bedroom.” Though Bukowski loved women in his way, his male characters say things like, “A female seldom moves away from one victim without having another,” and “Of course women were all crazy. They demanded more than there was.” And some of the women are monsters preying on men, liable to do something like bite off a piece of one’s penis during oral sex or drive off with one’s wallet, clothes, and car keys while one is in the motel shower. Mind you, Bukowski’s men often deserve such treatment, and the line “What women and men did to each other was beyond comprehension” echoes through the whole collection.

Bukowski writes vivid descriptions like “She tasted like old postage stamps and a dead mouse,” “It was a nice Southern California morning, smoggy, stale, and listless,” and “Her eyes were large, stricken, and stale.”

And lines that ring with dry wit and raw truth, like—

“They kill people by the millions in wars and give out medals for it.”
“There was nothing worse than a reformed drunk and a born again a Christian, and Meyers was both.”
“Love is a form of prejudice… You love what is convenient.”
“The waiting room was full of people with no real problems: gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis, cancer, and so forth.”
“The only people who know what mercy is are those who need it.”

References to Presidents Carter and Reagan, the Falkland’s War, and women’s lib date the stories, but on the other hand the sordid and hence vibrant human condition and cynical takes on America feel universal. As do references to the likes of Hemingway, Faulkner, Pirandello, Hesse, Chopin, and Camus. (Bukowski writes a funny riff on Camus’ existentialism being compromised by his elegant writing that reads like that of a man who’s just finished a rich steak dinner accompanied by fine French wine.)

I mostly enjoyed the collection, but several Bukowski stories go a long way, and about a third of the way into the collection, I started getting jaded, and by the end I was ready for the end.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great, but some overlap with prior collections

Bukowski; what else can you say? He’s at his best with the short story and this collection has some great ones. I did notice that a few towards the end I had heard before; it wasn’t deja vu. I think I prefer Baskous as narrator over the actor from YS who’s name I cannot recall…

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another Great Read

I can't get enough of the Dirty Old Man! Bukowski is at his best describing the trials and tribulations of the working class.

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