Seventies – DaneCobain.com

Spike Milligan – Rommel? Gunner Who? | Review

Title: Rommel? Gunner Who?

Author: Spike Milligan

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 194

Rating 3.5/5

I mean, if you can overlook the racism here then this is a pretty good book. The problem is that not everyone will be able to overlook it, and it feels like kind of a big deal here because even though it was published back in the seventies, Milligan was kind of old at the time and I guess he was of a generation and all that.

Otherwise, there’s quite a lot to like here, if only because of its historical significance. It’s fascinating to follow in Milligan’s footsteps as he and his army unit take on an African campaign, and while I find his humour hit and miss, the hits make up for the misses.

All in all, I’ve been enjoying reading Milligan’s war diaries so far, but I do also need to take them a little bit at a time to stop them from becoming too tedious. I’d say they’re the kind of books I’ll read once, but only once. But I’m glad they’re a part of my collection.

Click here to buy Rommel? Gunner Who?.

Charles Bukowski – The Roominghouse Madrigals | Review

Title: The Roominghouse Madrigals

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 264

Rating: 3.5*/5

Charles Bukowski – The Roominghouse Madrigals

This collection brings together Bukowski’s earliest selected poems from 1946–1966, which is interesting in itself because according to his author bio, he didn’t even start writing poetry until 1955. You can tell that they’re his early poems, too. He’s still finding his voice as a writer, and it’s his voice which made his work so distinct. Because of that, while this is a reasonable enough collection of poetry, it’s nowhere near Bukowski’s best. I don’t think I’d recommend it unless you’re already familiar with his later work and you want to see how it all started out.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some standout poems here that really stuck in my mind, and I had no problem finding enough that I enjoy to fill a YouTube video. But while you could feel that Bukowski was in there somewhere, you could also feel that he was trying to distill other people’s influences into what he was writing instead of going balls-to-the-wall and writing from his heart, instead of his head.

On the plus side, you do get plenty of his usual topics (women, races, alcohol), and you get to see them through a younger set of eyes. It’s interesting to see that he was just as obsessed with death in his younger years as he was when he reached his seventies, and that gives me some hope for myself. So I’m glad that I read this, I just wouldn’t recommend it to a newbie.