The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship by Charles Bukowski

This is Bukowski at the end of his life sounding the notes that have become all too familiar: he is a hero for living on his own terms and everyone else is a soulless moron. This theme is continued with a few variations page after page until the very end. As Bukowski himself acknowledges, many great writers go into a decline and lose their touch, and in this rather unimaginative and monotone work he seems to confirm that. Bukowski is pretty good even when he is bad, but in this book he is merely repeating the same things he has always said, only now he sounds more tired and less original. At his best he can be brilliant, but even then his range is extremely narrow: drinking, whoring, writing, and betting at the track, and not much else. As for this unfortunate effort, it probably would have been better if he had died before he wrote it.