Post Office, Bukowski's semi-autobiographical novel about working in the Postal Service, is his first novel - and it some ways, it feels like it. The prose is lovely though not quite as polished in his later works, and if you've read some of his other works, there are a few things that felt like trademarks that are missing here.

For starters, he doesn't really talk about his writing yet, which feels odd as writing about writing is one of my favorite things Bukowski does well. There's also some of the slumming around with booze and women that Bukowski's reputation has come to be known for in the more basic circles, but not quite to the extent that it would hit at later times.

Much like in Factotum, a novel I appreciate more and more over time, Bukowski's distaste for labor but willingness to do it are often pitted against each other. Chinaski - our Bukowski stand-in - spends years with the Postal Service, doing laborious and mind-numbing tasks, from walking one of the longest routes in a torrential downpour, to sorting hundreds of letters for some kind of sorting exam. But he hits his breaking points, too - leaving a water-logged truck on the street during a flash flood, putting his hat where he's not supposed to put his hat, because what the hell kind of office has a rule about where you can put your hat? He isn't afraid to walk away, and that's ultimately what gives him power, and makes him so different in comparison to today's workforce, where the idea that you might lose your job is one of the more devastating thoughts that probably most anyone in our work-hungry society could bear. Work, jobs, careers are exalted as one of the most important components of "the American Dream," but Bukowski doesn't hold this true. He stands up to supervisors, quits over ridiculous workplace rules, makes the job bend to his will as much as he possibly can, where most are happy or even proud to tow the company line.

For these reasons, it could make for a great starting place for people who haven't read Bukowski and might be a put off from the reputation and bad imitations he's inspired. Bukowski has a cult-like following, and more than anything I think that'd make Bukowski both flattered and uncomfortable. One of my favorite staples of his later work is when he writes about all the people who call him to tell him they can't believe his phone number isn't unlisted. He's just a man, just a writer. But he's a damn good one, at that.

Charles Bukowski is the patron saint of toxic masculinity. That is a simple fact. If reading a deeply autobiographical work by the patron saint of toxic masculinity is something that does not intrigue you, or even worse if it is something that repels you, you might want to skip Post Office. The book is, for me, Bukowski's apotheosis. When people ask me how I rate books I generally say that I try to determine whether the work is the best it could be given the parameters I believe the author set for the book he intended to write (both the quality of the prose and the storytelling are relevant.) Then I think about how much it impacted me, did it change my understanding or the way I look at things. Then I think about how much I enjoyed the reading experience. I wish I could say I did not like reading this, but I would be lying (Bukowski is hilarious and frighteningly insightful) but even if I could say that, this book is exactly the book Bukowski set out to write, it could not have been better, it is as spare as a training manual, every word and punctuation mark is necessary, and its impact on me on this second reading was powerful. I am pretty sure it would have been a 5-star even if I had been miserable reading it. It is freaking genius. It just is.

Many great books are structured around a relationship from just before its inception to its end, and this book follows that structure. Post Office tells the story of Hank Chinaski (surprise, Hank is Charles Bukoski!) and his relationship with the US Postal Service. This is set during his years as a mail carrier and later a mail sorter. Hank's relationship with civil servanthood as he tries to avoid all labor and it tries to whittle him down to nothing more than a machine provides a good deal of the book's humor and pathos. The Postal Service is made to look ridiculous and dehumanizing, but I guess if that experience is going to happen to anyone Hank is the guy you want going through it. Hank is a terrible person. interested only in drinking and going to the track. He exerts the minimum amount of effort needed to keep a roof over his head. He stays with women he doesn't like (let alone love) mostly because it's a roof, it's easy, and it's not worth the effort of breaking up or finding a new apartment or a new lay, and anyway they will kick him out eventually. He has the emotional bandwidth of an earthworm. Generally he is not cruel or violent, but only because it would take too much energy. Hank's passivity, or really laziness, actually surprises me because it is clear from his writing that Bukowski is not passive. His prose has a desperate intensity that is unlike any other writer I can name. It almost feels like someone is standing behind him as he types, loosely holding a garrote and insisting he keep writing and it better be damn good or that wire is going to start tightening. It is like every word must come out or he will die. As a reader I can only describe it as electric, and not always in a way that feels good.

Many people have talked about how Bukowski hates women, but that is not entirely fair. Bukowski hates men at least as much as he hates women, maybe more. If is fair to say that Bukowski sees women as beings he wants to nail and beings he doesn't want to nail. Really that is the only thing that seems to matter. Every woman he sees, other mail clerks, nurses, neighbors, the first thing he does is describe breasts, thighs, legs, asses, noses, sizes. And he must shoot low because Hank kills it with the ladies, never choosing one that rejects him. So here I must address the rape scene in this book, which is related in the same way Bukowski might tell you Hank ran to the store for a quart of milk or took the dog for a walk. It is just something that happened during Hank's day. He felt dehumanized (I know that word keeps popping up) by his job, and ended up with an anger overload that needed release. Someone particularly vulnerable happened to hold the straw that broke the camel's back. Is this disturbing? Of course it is. And feeling beaten down does not make rape okay, But if you sign up to get to know Hank Chinaski, this is part of the package, he is not a good person. There is nothing sensational about the rape, there is no real description of the act, this is not Bret Easton Ellis. Quite the opposite, its just something that happened. When I read this in college I saw this very differently (not just the rape but the depiction of women in general), perhaps not least of all because it was less than a year after I was sexually assaulted, but I think it was mostly that I had a rosier view of people and of their potential then and did not fully understand what happens to a person when every day is something to be gotten through and there is no vision beyond that. As they say, lives of quiet desperation. Either my feelings about Bukowski changed because I became more compassionate or because I came to see how rare unselfconscious truth really is, or because I became jaded. I am not sure which.

I am going to give myself a little time to recover but I am definitely going to reread more Bukowski, and I suspect I will pick up some of the books I never read because it may be vile, but it is funny, and it is true, and it is brilliant.

Dirty and unruly <3