Post Office

Mostly what I've learned from reading this one is that I don't like Charles Bukowski. The man himself, not his books, though if this one is anything to go by that's true too. I've rarely seen such a disagreeable protagonist. No idea what people saw in this book. I thought Henry Chinaski was unlikable, but I also didn't think he was believable.

Fay got the girl. I got the cat.

My first Bukowski novel. It was full of rage and good writing, cynicism and brief moments where the hero gets the upper hand. A good novel to relax to after a stressful day.

I realise that this is supposed to be a critique of society and so forth, but it doesn't stand out to me in any way. Read it in one go, but mainly because it's so short and very simply written; that is not a criticism, having just forced myself through a very dense SF book.
Easy to read, but I'm left with nothing, just meh. It really reminds me of another book, can't place it though

If John Williams' Stoner was a foul mouthed, horny, betting, smoking, drinking man, obsessed with sex and woman and fantasies about sex and women, and worked in a post office, this would be that book. Hilarious.

Abandoned, 15% or so (Kindle edition).

Some people like Wuthering Heights and/or The Great Gatsby. I wonder, are they the same ones who like Post Office? The characters in both have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They're nasty, brutish, unthinking, unkind. It is a torture to experience a world with them in it. I finished WH and TGG because I was young, foolish, and hopeful. This one, nope, life's too short.

2.5 stars!!!!!!!

i hate the way bukowski wrote about women!!!!!!!!!

a co-worker lent me this book because he thought i would like it but ugh nothing happened. i know literary fiction isn't my favorite but this was just ok

Excellent! Funny, efficient, ruthless, poetic. Great read. The perfect length for a novel.

Bought & read this in LA. It didn't blow me away, but it was good fun. Short and sharp and enjoyable. And trashy. And hilariously crude. I liked the tug of war between Chinaski's chaotic dark hedonistic existence & the rigid solemn bureaucracy of the post office. 

“All I wanted to do was to get into that chair with that glass of scotch in my hand and watch Betty's ass wobble around the room.”

yeah cool, seems like a good dude.

I don't particularly like Bukowski's style. To be honest I don't see where is his supposed genius as it all looks like drunk writing. Nevertheless this book was so much better, in my humble opinion, than “Pulp” which I read some time before. It gives an interesting view on a part of United States. However, I couldn't say how much of it was just a literary fiction and how much was based on a real story about American post office.