Tales Of Ordinary Madness Short Story Collection

Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972) His first short story collection, the book was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Press, and is composed of works Bukowski had written for various underground magazines and newspapers. Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski Perhaps the rape fantasies that Bukowski obsesses over are in part an attempt to exorcise the feeling of being abused within his—or the characters’—existence. As this book goes on, the shadow of death looms over the pages more and more; the voice or voices of the protagonist linger on the topic. This collection of short stories gives an insight into the dark, dangerous lowlife of Los Angeles that Bukowski inhabited. From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his 'tales of ordinary madness'. These are angry yet tender, humorous and haunting portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles. Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness was a paperback collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, first published by City Lights Publishers in 1972. It was the first collection of Bukowski's stories to be published, and it was republished in two volumes in 1983, as Tales of Ordinary Madness and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town.

This collection of short stories gives an insight into the dark, dangerous lowlife of Los Angeles that Bukowski inhabited. From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his 'tales of ordinary madness'. These are angry yet tender, humorous and haunting portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles.

While looking back at my reading over the last few years, I noticed that many of my favorite books have been short story collections by women in translation. This came as a surprise to me initially—I hadn’t realized I had even read that many short story collections—but once I began to look these books over again I was struck anew by their brilliance. And so I sought out others to round out a list from around the world that will hopefully bring as much joy to you as the reading and compiling did for me. Because boy was compiling this list of 20 must-read short story collections by women in translation a pleasure! I dipped in and out of these stories with utter amazement, finding something for every mood, whim, and desire.

Do you want to laugh? Maybe pick up An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good or The First Prehistoric Serial Killer. Is it October and you want to be utterly terrified and not sleep for days? There are so many options, from Revenge to Flowers of Mold to The Houseguest. Do you want to read a story so achingly perfect that you’ll never try to write again? Well, there are more than a few stories like that in these collections, but I would start by flipping to almost any story in The Woman Who Borrowed Memories. The list could go on. I wish you many hours of happy reading!

20 Must-Read Short Story Collections by Women in Translation

The Houseguest by Amparo Dávila, translated by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson

The horrors of The Houseguest are rarely described on the page. They lurk in the margins. They haunt the shadows. And it’s this thrilling psychological tension that leaves you gasping for air after each story of desire, paranoia, and isolation. Carmen Maria Machado writes that “Each of these stories is equal parts Hitchcock film and razor blade: austere, immaculately crafted, profoundly unsettling, and capable of cutting you. Amparo Dávila is Kafka by way of Ogawa, Aira by way of Carrington, Cortazár by way of Somers, and I’m so grateful she’s in translation.” And do you really need more than that?

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Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

In this beautiful debut collection, Sudanese author, journalist, and activist Rania Mamoun crafts a complex and moving portrait of contemporary Sudan. It’s a uniquely urban collection as Mamoun reflects on the isolation that can come with urban life, but she also depicts powerful stories of human connection and love. You’ll feel these stories deeply in Elizabeth Jaquette’s thoughtful translation.

The First Prehistoric Serial Killer: And Other Storiesby Teresa Solana, translated by Peter Bush

I love this short story collection and don’t think it gets nearly the attention it deserves! It is one of the funniest books, especially if you like dark humor. Very odd things happen in Teresa Solana’s stories. Statues decompose and stink out galleries. Two old grandmothers are vengeful killers. The first prehistoric serial killer is afoot, but so is the first detective. The collection also includes an interesting and fun web of stories that explore the darker side of Barcelona. Clever and effortlessly funny, this collection is a gem.

by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

Samanta Schweblin, author of the literary sensation Fever Dream, returns with her first short story collection translated into English. Like Fever Dream, I was struck by the elusive, almost unsatisfactory nature of the stories. Some are strikingly short. Others are carefully crafted to confound. All leave you wanting more and thinking about them long after. Strange and fantastic, dark and disturbing, the stories in Mouthful of Birds are sure to please fans of Schweblin’s uniquely unsettling style.

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella

If you’ve ever read Tove Jansson’s classic The Summer Book, a novel that “distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—into twenty-two crystalline vignettes,” then you won’t be surprised that Jansson’s short stories are also exquisite. Dealing with many of the same themes as her longer works, her stories touch on art, nature, isolation and so much more—the various stages between sunlight and storm, the spectrum of shades between light and dark. In her introduction, Lauren Groff writes, “We read Tove Jansson to remember that to be human is dangerous, but also breathtaking, beautiful.”

Aetherial Worlds: Stories by Tatyana Tolstaya, translated by Anya Migdal

This fascinating collection from one of Russia’s most important contemporary writers transcends ordinary realities into dazzling other worlds of folklore and fantasy, “rendered with the emotional insight of Chekhov, the surreal satire of Gogol, and a unique blend of humor and poetry all her own.” Rich and clever, these stories explore politics, identity, love, and loss in Tolstaya’s masterful voice. After finishing it, I rushed out to get her collection of essays Pushkin’s Children: Writings on Russia and Russians, translated by Jamey Gambrell.

by Clarice Lispector, translated by Katrina Dodson

Gathered from the nine collections published during her lifetime, The Complete Stories captures Clarice Lispector in all of her “darkness and dazzle.” The stories, written during her adolescence all the way up until her death, are inventive and haunting, often about women at various stages of their lives. Some are more traditional than the novels she’s come to be known for, but as a whole the collection is a great way to “get” (or grasp at, at least) a sense of Lispector and her prose. You can dip in and out of these stories—86 in the hardcover and 89 in the paperback with three newly discovered stories—but I would recommend picking them up early in your reading of Lispector. Find your way into the other works of Clarice Lispector with this reading pathways post.

The Sea Cloak & Other Storiesby Nayrouz Qarmout, translated by Perween Richards

Author, journalist, and women’s rights campaigner Nayrouz Qarmout draws from her own experiences growing up in a Syrian refugee camp as well as her current life in Gaza in this collection of stories that looks at what it means to be a woman in Palestine today. Qarmout thoughtfully weaves together stories of conflict and strife with tales of ordinary life, resulting in a deep and moving collection.

The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya, translated by Asa Yoneda

I loved this collection of quirky and wonderful stories. Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, Motoya is a magician—she takes mundane, daily life and just twists it into these amazingly strange and fantastic tales. In these stories, a newlywed notices that her husband’s features are sneakily sliding around his face to match hers, umbrellas are more than they seem, women are challenging their boyfriends to duels, and you might want to reconsider dating the girl next door. I’d recommend this collection to fans of Hiromi Kawakami.

by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff

Once you’ve read one book by Fleur Jaeggy—an undeniable master of the short form—you won’t want to read much else until you’ve finished all of her work. In these stories, which are so emblematic of her short, piercing style, Jaeggy writes of madness, obsession, and violence and “contrives to somehow stealthily possess your mind” with her “champagne gothic worlds [that are] seething with quiet violence.” Her prose has been compared to shards of glass and cut gems and while I won’t add to the descriptions, I will warn you now—you won’t come away from these stories unscathed.

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Goodby Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good is dark, funny, and oh so satisfying. Maud is an 88-year-old Swede who has no scruples about solving life’s problems with some lowkey murder. I enjoyed this story collection and have since picked up Helene Tursten’s mystery novels, including the Inspector Irene Huss series and the first installment in her brand new series featuring Detective Inspector Embla Nyström, Hunting Game. An Elderly Lady is also just such a great package—the title is fun and clever, the needlepoint cover is hilarious, and the small trim size finishes it off perfectly.

Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Marianna Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell

I was blown away by this collection of dark, macabre short stories set in contemporary Argentina. They are stories of ghosts, disappearances, violence, inequality, and more, and I promise that you will be haunted by them. My favorites were stories of obsession like “The Dirty Kid” in which a young professional woman discovers that a local child has been killed and mutilated, and “The Neighbor’s Courtyard,” a story of an ex–social worker who believes her neighbor has a child chained up in the backyard. The collection is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado.

by Ha Seong-Nan, translated by Janet Hong

“If you’re looking for a book that will make you gasp out loud, you’ve found it.” So says Kirkus Reviews and dozens of other publications and reviewers who can’t stop talking about Flowers of Mold, myself included. Unnerving, haunting, captivating, these ten stories follow ordinary characters going about their lives—they have a nightmare, lend their neighbor a spatula, or find out their landlord wants to sell their building. But something disturbing lies just below the surface. One small crack and everything’s unleashed. “The latest in the trend of brilliant female Korean authors to appear in English, Ha cuts like a surgeon, and even the most mundane objects become menacing and unfamiliar under her scalpel.”

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington by Leonora Carrington, translated by Kathrine Talbot and Anthony Kerrigan

For the first time, all of surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington’s short stories have been collected in one definitive volume, many of which are translated from French and Spanish. The result is a fiercely intelligent and fantastical collection. The stories themselves are pure flights of imagination, ranging from biting satire to the macabre, and even some outrageously comedic tales. A strange and surreal treat!

Arid Dreams: Stories By Duanwad Pimwana, translated by Mui Poopoksakul

Duanwad Pimwana, an important literary figure in contemporary Thai literature, hit the U.S. literary scene by storm last April with two new books, both translated by Mui Poopoksakul. Bright, published by Two Lines Press, was the first-ever novel by a Thai woman to appear in translation. And Pimwana made her short story English debut with Arid Dreams, published by Feminist Press. In Arid Dreams, Pimwana turns her keen eye and sharp wit on modern Thailand, as she explores issues of class and gender in insightful and subtly subversive stories.

by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder

I’m in awe of Yoko Ogawa—she’s published more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction and has won every major Japanese literary award. Her range is incredible, from books like this dark collection to her touching novel The Housekeeper and the Professor and her latest The Memory Police, her take on an Orwellian novel of state surveillance. Revenge is an intricately interwoven collection of stories about grief, death, and yes, revenge, where each story stands alone but also connects in surprising ways to its fellows. This layered effect coupled with the subtle calm of Ogawa’s prose makes the disturbing elements of these stories feel even more chilling.

Forgotten Journey by Silvina Ocampo, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Katie Lateef-Jan

“Silvina Ocampo is one of our best writers. Her stories have no equal in our literature,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges. Now for the first time in English translation, readers can delight in all of the strange brilliance that is Silvina Ocampo’s first collection of stories, Forgotten Journey. Published alongside her novella The Promise, this collection is primarily concerned with the lives of young women and girls. Often menacing and strange, each story has a thrill to it, a dark joy that keeps you fixed to the collection. In her foreword, Carmen Boullosa writes of the often cited comparison between Ocampo and Julio Cortázar but argues instead that, “While in his fabulous stories Cortázar discovered the unreal in everyday life, Silvina enters real, detailed, intimate spaces, which she observes with an eye that is intimate, real and detailed, and yet an eye from another world.”

Toddler Hunting And Other Stories by Taeko Kono, translated by Lucy North

Kenzaburo Oe calls Taeko Kono “the most carnally direct and the most lucidly intelligent woman writing in Japan” and it’s hard to disagree after reading the unsettling and striking stories in Toddler Hunting. Pleasure and pain mix in the lives of the women of Taeko Kono’s stories, as scenes of sadomasochism and obsession veil her sharp attacks at the ideals of motherhood and femininity.

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, translated by Karen S. Kingsbury

Eileen Chang is one of the great writers of twentieth century China, and her first collection in English, Love in a Fallen City, introduced many readers to her incredible short stories. In this collection, written when Chang was still in her 20s, the stories swirl around themes of love, loss, and family, combining “an unsettled, probing, utterly contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with an intense lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature.”

A Nail, A Rose by Madeleine Bourdouxhe, translated by Faith Evans

Neglected for decades, interest in Belgian author Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s work has seen a resurgence and I’m so thrilled to have been introduced to her work through this collection. Praised by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex and close friends with Russian revolutionary writer Victor Serge, Bourdouxhe was a fascinating feminist writer. Like her critically acclaimed novels Marie and La Femme de Giles, her short stories tell the inner lives of ordinary, primarily working class, women in elegant and vivid prose. And I so appreciated the wealth of detail in translator Faith Evans’s introduction.

For more great reads by women in translation, check out this list of 50 Must-Read Books by Women in Translation.

A Collection Of Ordinary Everyday Madness

This Collection Of Ordinary Everyday Madness is a compilation of human behaviours that from my particular perspective seem incredibly insane.

In fact to call these things merely insane is an understatement. Really what we are talking about here is a global pathological condition. It's the patients running the asylum.

They are most prominent is western society however I am sure they exist in eastern cultures also.

Turns out Charles Bukowski wrote a collection of short stories called Tales of Ordinary Madness. I only discovered this when I went to write this article.

I've not read any of the books in the series and there's no relationship with those here.

The Idea For This Article

What prompted this article today was a conversation with my sons Ruairí and Cian. We were talking about Horrible Histories, you know that kids Netflix show?

Well, it's a show that details some of the craziest things that passed for normality in ancient and even more recent cultures.

So I got thinking that there are equally insane behaviours existent today.

These things are short and sweet, designed to allow you breeze through them.

Later I'll use this list as an idea bank to draw from and expand upon for longer more indepth articles.

So, without further ado…

Oh, before I start, I should be clear that this is my view on things. It's just how I see it – agree or not.

We Follow Others Like Sheep
Most of us have limited capacity to think outside the group mentality. As such we look around for what others are doing before we have the courage to act.
We Sit In Front Of The TV For Hours
TV has become a social institution and as such it holds a very powerful place of influence. We spend most of our spare time staring at this digital representation of life instead of living it.
We're Critical Of Those Outside Our Clique
In-group out-group mentality exists everywhere in society. If you're not in the group you're out of the group, and to be out of the group is to be isolated and alone. And so to reinforce the in-group we criticise others who are not like us.
We Believe Illegal Drugs Are Bad
Government and it's powerful business allays decided one day back in the 60's that some drugs would be illegal and so they were demonised. We believed what we were told.
And Legal Drugs Are Good
They also said that the manufactured drugs they sold were good. We believe them then too, until Thalidomide came along and changed all that. But only for a while. Now we believe them again.
We Glorify War
This is a big one. Check out your TV, see how war is justified and glorified by news channels and government officials in the language they use. They need our support so they tell us what they know we'll believe.
And We Demonise Sex
Then in the next breath they demonise sex – the one things that comes natural to every single one of us. Without it we would not exist. Yet these leaders attach all kind of moral judgement to this perfectly natural and enjoyable act.
We've An Obsession With Celebrity
Celebrity is the new religion. We follow the beautiful people in millions believing everything they say and trying so hard to be like them. Leaving ourselves behind in the process.
We Believe State Sponsored Murder Is Ok
Did you take the life of someone? Ok then we are going to kill you too, that's fair enough isn't it? In many countries across the world an eye for an eye still exists and is executed by the state. Pretty crazy idea…
But Civilian Murder Is Bad
While we strap you to this chair and give you a lethal injection or electrocute until you are dead, know we are honorable and just. It is you who are the evil one. What you did cannot be condoned so you must die for us to have a better society.
We're Unaffected By The Homeless
Every day we walk past people who live on the street. Government make excuses and pay lip service to the problem while giving your taxes to themselves and their cronies. We sit by and see it happening year in year out and accept it as normal.
We Scream At Other Drivers
Shouting at other drivers from behind the wheel is common and sometimes it goes a bit further. Gallop says Britain is the worst country in the world with 80% of drivers experiencing road rage.
We Scream At Our Children
Losing the plot doesn't stop when we get home either. Most of us are so stressed out with the lives we live that we are willing to sacrifice our relationships too. Mental and even physical abuse of our kids is not unusual.
We've More Stuff Than We Need
We live in a consumer driven society that's all about having the latest and greatest stuff to make us feel good. But that nice feeling doesn't last too long and the stuff we buy ends up in the attic, the basement or in landfill.
We Eat Fake Food
We no longer eat real food and choose instead to live on packaged highly processed foods that damages our health and the environment. Big corporations are trusted to supply us nurishment with small local producers forced out of business.
The Media Is Believed To Be Impartial
TV, Radio and the Internet are our sources of information. Media corporations drive misinformation our way and manipulate our lazy minds with carefully scripted news. We believe pretty much all of it without any challenge.
Advertising Is Accepted As Truth
Corporations know that through repeated exposure to a thing we eventually begin to trust it. So they bombard us with positive reinforcement, even paying trustworthy celebrities to endorse their shitty products so we'll believe them.
We Need Others To Give Us Jobs
Most humans possess very little internal sense of creativity and self sufficiency. We rely heavily on outside parties to provide us with jobs, a source of income. When these sources of income dry up and the economy fails, we suffer.
Then Sit In Lines Of Traffic For Hours Getting There
When someone thinks us good enough for a job, we spend hours driving to get to it. Rush hour they call it. Here we sit like sheep in lines of cars for hours each day under the stress and axiety of financial pressure.
We Work Instead Of Play For A Living
So this work thing we value so much above everything else, what about it? Most of us don't even like what we do, yet we spend our best years doing it. They give us money in return, that we then give back to them via debt repayment.
We Give Our Time To Bosses We Don't Like
If you get a boss you like then you're in luck. Most of us don't like the people we work for. We bitch about them around the coffee machine to colleagues and choose to believe that they don't feel what we feel.
Then Ask For Two Weeks “Off” In The Summer
So here we are working our assess off doing things we'd rather not do, with people we'd rather not do it with and rationalise it by giving ourselves a couple weeks off relaxing with family. Wow, we're really kind to ourselves aren't we?
We Drink & Take Drugs To Be Happy
Bring on the weekend so I can get hammered! Partying is great but many of us are hiding behind compulsive behaviours as a means to silence the internal pain. That works for a while, until it doesn't.
We're Destroying Our Planet
All this stuff we amass, useless stuff that advertisers convince us we need to buy, destroys the planet. It's like the story of the goose who laid the golden eggs. The farmer wanted more and more and eventually killed the goose to see what was inside.
We Put Animals In Zoos For Entertainment
There are great initiatives in zoos across the world, but for the most part they are commercial enterprises, caging wild animals to draw crowds and make money. Then we visit and stare at creatures through bars and glass.
We Believe We Are More Knowledgeable Than Our Children
Adults largely believe children need to be taught. Without our guidance they would be lost. In actual fact if they were left to their own devices it's likely they would create a better world than we have. But we are too arrogant and afraid to chance it.
Then Put Them Through The Same Insane System
Our education system is largely a one size fits all that focuses on languages and science and maths. It doesn't encourage development in humanities or the arts. Therefore many children's innate abilities are ignored.
We Blame Others For What Happens Us
When things don't work out we look around to see who was to blame. In the most difficult of circumstances we find ourselves there is always someone else who caused our problem.
Or We Blame A Mystical Thing Called Bad Luck
Either that or we blame circumstance. If it wasn't some person or persons that caused this problem then it was simply bad luck. Whatever it was it wasn't me.
We Don't Believe In God
The fundamental tenet of religion is love, and that's all good. But the story we are given has been more than a little screwed up. So we throw the baby out with the bath water. We are on our own out here with nothing to guide us.
We Believe In God
On the flip side those who do believe in God see it as a force outside us. Some benevolent old bearded bloke up in the clouds somewhere casting his rule down on us. We have no sense of an internalised God, no understanding of the truth.
Yet We Don't Believe In Ourselves
We believe that we have no control over what happens to us. We have no concept of self creation and our ability to bring about all manner of experience. Many of us we hold the concept that we are lesser beings than we are.
We Believe Money Is Evil
We've got this serious negative association with money, it's built into our psyche. Here we are working our assess off to pay bills, thinking money is evil, yet loving it at the same time.
Then Spend Our Lives Chasing It
So all of this thought and counter thought about money is going on, yet we spend our time chasing the big win. Betting on sport, on winning the lottery and so on and we never really see it for what it is.
We Believe Others Are Happier Than Us
Others lead perfect lives. Everyone else is always better off and have been afforded more opportunity and resources than us. Social media tells us a utopic story and we swallow it hook line and sinker.
We Pass By Each Other In The Street
I often remark at how in less populated areas people are more friendly than in higher populated areas. In the city we walk past each other, in the country they wave and say hello.
We Think Partners Are Here To Make Us Happy
Find a mate, buy a house, settle down, have kids. Now while you're at it you better make me happy. That's what you signed up for. My happiness is your responsibility so you better behave the way I think you need to. Right!
We Think We Need Leadership
There's little sense of internal self governance. Almost in every walk of life we are looking for someone to guide us, to lead us. Economically, morally, socially, there has to be a leader otherwise we are lost.
We Can't Handle Death
Everyone is going to die, that's a fact, yet when it comes to death we have a melt down. Very few people actually die when they are supposed to. Unless that is your 80 or 90 years of age.
We Can't Handle Suicide
Or worse again, suicide. Don't decide to check out of your own accord whatever you do. Coming to terms with someone we love deciding their own fate is one of our greatest difficulties. Die slow or die fast, you're leaving here no matter what.
We Over Inflate Ourselves
We pretend to be more than who we feel ourselves to be then project it out into the world. But it doesn't last. We build relationships based on this false self but it eventually wears thin. Usually with the ending of those relationships.
Or We Under Inflate Ourselves
If it's not over inflated ego then it's a lower idea of ourselves that's prominent. Probably a hangover from repeated negative childhood experiences, carried forward into adulthood.
We Believe The Past Created Today
Looking back at past experiences we insist this present came out of that. We assign these experiences to ourselves and make them ours, not realising that the past is created now as we think.
We've A Fear Being Found Out
It takes a lot to break down the structure of the ego personality. It's a shadowy psychic structure but a very strong and necessary one. The trouble is we believe it's real and we dread losing it.
We Believe We Need To Act Responsibly
Whatever you do make sure you don't have too much fun. Have a little bit, but not too much! There has to be more pain than pleasure, sure that's what makes life worthwhile, right?
We're Way Too Serious
Linked to the last point, we seem to be way too serious about everything. Everything has to be structured and organised, put in a box and arranged neatly in rows. Hmmm…
We Lock Up Those That Need Our Help
This is getting better but it's still a problem. People with psychological problems are shipped away to homes and institutions where they can't bother us sane people. Then we give then psych drugs to dampen their “symptoms”.
We've Turned Prisons Into Businesses
Jailing people is big business. What would happen to all those jobs if we found a better way to treat those in society who needed our help. Compassion? Na, fuck that – lock 'em up.
Big Pharma Hides Cures
Pharmaceuticals are big business and these corporations have a vested interest in people staying sick. Cure everyone tomorrow? No way José cancer is our cash cow! How else will we make money?
We Think We Are Sane
We look out from behind our rose tinted glasses and we see other's behaviour as insane. The guy on the street talking to himself is crazy, and we laugh at him. Yet we don't realise that we do the same only we don't verbalise it.

So What Do We Do?

The human race is asleep at the wheel, that's the bottom line here.

Through our constant drive towards outward stimulation and the need to be led by others, it seems to me that we've given ourselves the equivalent of a full frontal lobotomy.

Now, I do admit at the same time there seems to be pockets of people waking the fuck up, but it's way off any kind of tipping point in my view.