Post Office
 |
| Virgin Publishing |
Charles Bukowski
1971
1971
Other Bukowski Reviews; Post Office - Factotum - Women - Ham on Rye - Tales of Ordinary Madness - Notes of a Dirty Old Man
“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
Charles
Bukowsi's iconic alt-American classic semi-autobiographical novel is,
in the nicest way possible, a book that threw its similarities and
influences at me from every page. Post Office might be a
stand-out piece of infamous 70's Americana, but it fits perfectly within
the three-dimensional super puzzle of 20th century US literary history.
Post Office is most often and probably most accurately genre identified
as a late peace of Beatnik writing; following in the trails of
luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, or Jack Kerouac and On the Road
in certain stylistic ways; detailing the exploits of his main character
Henry Chinaski through a hazy first-person narrative crossing over ten
years in the blink of two-hundred pages, giving only as many details as
he feels like giving.
Going back to F. Scott Fitzgerald and flowing out of the second world war, then the paranoid, perceived self-loathing of the 1950's (Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), and finally the explosion of drug culture of the 60's, Henry Chinaski lives from day to day on the bottom rung of society. His job as a postal worker is dull, depressing, and unfair, and so Chinaski lives in the throng of booze, betting, and women; just totally embracing the baser things in life to make it bearable; it's not exactly William Burroughs and Naked Lunch in style, and you can't really call it straight-up drug literature but there are plenty of similarities to Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in the same year as Post Office, as both Henry Chinaski and Raoul Duke exist as larger-than-life character extensions that get through life by ignoring as much of it as possible.
The story and the mood of Post Office (disgruntled lower-class bum says 'fuck you' to the world around him, gets through his terrible job through women and booze) fits perfectly for the time and counter-culture world around it, but it's the sheer style of Bukowski's writing that appeals to so many people. It kind of reminded me in many ways of one of my favourite authors, post-modernist genius Kurt Vonnegut (something like Breakfast of Champions), in that the prose is absolutely full of character, oozing out of every line, and the dialogue even more so. Some of it is incredibly blunt, blurring the line between heroic rebellion and drunken stupidity but with an unrelenting conviction of belief.
Ultimately I really enjoyed Post Office, as my first exposure to Bukowski it's thrown me down the path of another bibliography. I must say upon first read I didn't enjoy his work as much as Thompson or Vonnegut but there's clearly more to Bukowski than meets the eye, and I get the feeling he's not the kind of author of whom you can get a full grip on the personality of straight away, but who might require taking another look at to properly get the idea. But already it's pretty clear that this is the work of one cool mother.
Going back to F. Scott Fitzgerald and flowing out of the second world war, then the paranoid, perceived self-loathing of the 1950's (Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit), and finally the explosion of drug culture of the 60's, Henry Chinaski lives from day to day on the bottom rung of society. His job as a postal worker is dull, depressing, and unfair, and so Chinaski lives in the throng of booze, betting, and women; just totally embracing the baser things in life to make it bearable; it's not exactly William Burroughs and Naked Lunch in style, and you can't really call it straight-up drug literature but there are plenty of similarities to Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in the same year as Post Office, as both Henry Chinaski and Raoul Duke exist as larger-than-life character extensions that get through life by ignoring as much of it as possible.
The story and the mood of Post Office (disgruntled lower-class bum says 'fuck you' to the world around him, gets through his terrible job through women and booze) fits perfectly for the time and counter-culture world around it, but it's the sheer style of Bukowski's writing that appeals to so many people. It kind of reminded me in many ways of one of my favourite authors, post-modernist genius Kurt Vonnegut (something like Breakfast of Champions), in that the prose is absolutely full of character, oozing out of every line, and the dialogue even more so. Some of it is incredibly blunt, blurring the line between heroic rebellion and drunken stupidity but with an unrelenting conviction of belief.
Ultimately I really enjoyed Post Office, as my first exposure to Bukowski it's thrown me down the path of another bibliography. I must say upon first read I didn't enjoy his work as much as Thompson or Vonnegut but there's clearly more to Bukowski than meets the eye, and I get the feeling he's not the kind of author of whom you can get a full grip on the personality of straight away, but who might require taking another look at to properly get the idea. But already it's pretty clear that this is the work of one cool mother.
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