Post Office

Product Information

I disliked them all immediately, sitting around acting clever and superior. They nullified each other. The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd. Post Office is an account of Bukowski alter-ego Henry Chinaski. It covers the period of Chinaski’s life from the mid-1950s to his resignation from the United States Postal Service in 1969, interrupted only by a brief hiatus during which he supported himself by gambling at horse races. And so it goes. The more I read, the more Bukowski's appeal started to fade before my eyes. This possibly correlates with his own life-experience and through his sharing of this reality: “Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.” Learning more about the man who is supposed to be a prolific writer, is what has made me delve into these books. Unfortunately, the writing style in this one did not quite win me over. It was extremely choppy, repetitive and appeared to simply be a collection of Bukowski’s conquests as detailed through the character of Henry Chinaski, which I could have done without.

Charles Bukowski Quotes (Author of Post Office) - Goodreads Charles Bukowski Quotes (Author of Post Office) - Goodreads

The main character spends so much time describing the sexual encounters and his drunken stupor that you feel no remorse, no sentiment from him, no nothing. Just a child that sees a new toy and damn sure he's going to get it and play with it, then toss it aside without looking at it twice. Women focuses on the many dissatisfaction's Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's one-time girlfriend, the sculptress and sometime poet Linda King. Another central female character in the book is named "Tanya" who is described as a 'tiny girl-child' and Chinaski's pen-pal.

De dónde venían las mujeres? La reserva era inacabable. Cada una de ellas era individual, diferente. Sus chochos eran diferentes, sus besos eran diferentes, sus pechos eran diferentes, pero ningún hombre podía bebérselas todas, eran demasiadas, cruzando sus piernas, volviendo locos a los hombres. ¡Vaya un festín!” La literatura de Bukowski es el propio Bukowski. En él, en el personaje-autor, y en la fuerza de su lenguaje, duro, sincero e impúdico, reside toda la fascinación que provoca su literatura (que Bukowski me perdone por calificarla como literatura). Era viejo y feo. Quizás por eso era tan agradable trincársela dentro a jovencitas. Yo era King Kong y ellas eran frágiles y tiernas. ¿Estaba tratando de penetrar por un camino que me alejase de la muerte? ¿Estando con chicas jóvenes esperaba no hacerme viejo, no sentirme viejo? Solamente no quería envejecer de mala manera, quería simplemente cortar, estar muerto antes de que llegara la muerte.” Pero las mujeres suponían además otra cosa, eran un buen material para su literatura. “Creo que te follas a las mujeres sólo para escribir que te las has follado”, le espeta alguien en un momento dado de la novela, y, como él dice, romper con una mujer es la única forma de encontrar otra y, por tanto, conseguir material nuevo.

Quotes from the Charles Bukowski Novel “Post Office” Top Five Quotes from the Charles Bukowski Novel “Post Office”

There was a scene right at the beginning where Lydia tells him that he doesn't understand women, and this is pretty much the summary of this book. He doesn't understand them, yet he likes to pretend like he does and like he is dominant over them in every way. He sees them as a sum of their body parts and gets rid of them as soon as they serve their purpose. This book would have gotten 2 stars had there not been several occasions on which he rapes some of the girls. This was definitely it for me.

Ah, honesty goes a long way, doesn’t it?! So does humor. And this book made me laugh out loud – a lot! I went into this open-minded, but prepared to get more than a little pissed off with Henry Chinaski. You see, I’ve been reading a lot of, well, ‘feminist’ sorts of books of late. It made my end of year reading look a bit lopsided. This led me one day to google “the most misogynistic books of all time”! Ha! I would figure it all out once and for all, right? Wrong! The thing is, I never got angry with Henry, or Hank, as I expected. Not that I’d invite him over for a drink anytime soon though either. I’d hate to become one of his research projects. This guy would eat me alive. In Women, Bukowski as Henry Chinaski details a life lived to excess. From sexualizing women, to excessive drinking and gambling. Pleasing himself is his only concern. Vulgar, rude and crude, Chinaski is his own man.