All right, first of all, only two stories in
The Bell Tolls for No One
were previously unpublished, "A Kind, Understanding Face," and "Flying Is the Safest Way to Travel," other than that, there's nothing new or unknown in the book. But hold on - don't let that dissuade you, because unless you're a hard core Bukowski periodicals collector, pretty much everything in here is going to be new to you.
I am definitely not a Bukowski periodicals collector, but I do have, or have seen, a few of these stories before. Maybe 5 of the 45 or so in the book. But even at 45:5 I'm still an 89% winner, and I'll take those odds any day when it comes to Bukowski. The bulk of the stories are from the
L.A. Free Press during the particularly fertile and wonderful Bukowski period of 1972 to 1975, so if you like the mid-70s work you're going to like the book. If you don't know one Bukowski writing period from another, you're still going to like the book.
I can't help but compare this to
On Writing
since they were published essentially at the same time. I started reading
The Bell Tolls and then
On Writing came in, so I set
The Bell Tolls aside to read the letters. I like reading Bukowski letters, but at the risk of heresy I might say,
enough already. The first Black Sparrow letters collection was an incredible revelation. Having so many letters in one place, it was beautiful. Then came the second volume and that was more of a good thing. But then we got to things like
the Martinelli letters
and everything came to a screeching halt. But it's been a few years, so I was looking forward to another letters book. And it was
a'ight, you know. I didn't hate it, but it was repetitive - as Bukowski letters always have been - and at the end of it I felt nothing. It wasn't an exciting read, but not because the book was no good, just because, like I said, enough already.
Which brings us to
The Bell Tolls, and I have to say that City Lights has really done something that should be recognized and applauded and encouraged in continuing to publish Bukowski short stories and other bits that can't be jammed down either the poetry or novel funnel. Without City Lights all we would have are a couple of good-but-sanitized Black Sparrow short story collections, we wouldn't have any of the messy madness that flows through the City Lights collections, all the way from
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness (available these days as two volumes:
The Most Beautiful Woman In Town And Other Stories
and
Tales Of Ordinary Madness
) to this new collection.
And hats off to David Calonne who has compiled and edited all of the recent City Lights collections in a no-nonsense (and chronological!) way.
