Review 379: Post Office

Post Office by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have a note that Bukowski wrote this novel in 4 weeks, and was likely the first novel he'd written. It is fairly autobiographical, based on his time working at the post office and his off-work activities: lots of drinking, getting with women, and gambling.

Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski is the main character (he appears in many of Bukowski's auto-fiction novels). Interspersed with his failing relationships with women, a few he married and one he had a child with, we see the drudgery of working at the post office. Chinaski hates the work. It is physically demanding and mentally demoralizing. He gets written up for all sorts of problems, taking too many break, too long, not showing up for work, taking too long to get through a mail bin. Once he even set a small fire in the post office, thus changing the rules for no smoking allowed.

There is humor in this book. It is also a book I can't see being written today, but I'm glad it is there. Bukowski tells it straight.

I listened to the audiobook and it was a perfect way to read the book. Also, was one of those rare moments when I got through a book entirely in one day.