I would rate this a 2.5 or maybe a 3. The 3 being only for the bittersweet telling of his relationship with Betty and his basic self-destruction afterward. Someone please explain to me what I am missing. I read all the rave reviews and I understand what they are saying, but overall I just found the whole narrative depressing and a waste of time. I was interested in reading some of his others, but after this one, I don't...
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*I* work at the post office and this book made me ready to run for the hills. Nothing has changed in over 50 years. This is a time capsule that is darkly funny, but mostly just sad. The best part is the end, genuine and liberating. A quick read written in tiny chapters like diary entries. Easy to pick up and put down and pick up again fluidly.
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Novels like this are rare, and writers like Charles Bukowski are one in a million. The word "authentic" comes to mind; his writing conveys a raw honesty and much needed non-mainstream point-of-view. Bukowski is the voice of dissent, the marginally employed, creatively frustrated working joe. Like the bird in the cage, his spirit is trapped in a world steeped in bureaucracy and bullsh*t. Post Office covers Bukowski's 12 years...
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Hmm.One of the best books I've ever read. Period. Absent of pretension and predictable literary 'formula,' it sucks you in with street-wise grace and humor... existing in the face of numbing, oppresive and sometimes brutal conditions.I went to the library and conducted a few searches on Bukowski. He was never a millionnaire. He refused to leave a small-town publisher, John Martin, in Santa Rosa CA -- despite being courted...
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Charles Bukowski's novel "Post Office" is the first-person account of Henry Chinaski, a hard-drinking gambler and womanizer who goes to work for the United States Postal Service in Los Angeles. The story follows his experiences at the post office, weaving them together with his accounts of romantic affairs, sexual encounters, drinking, and gambling. Chinaski's life is full of encounters with various unsavory, tragic, or ridiculous...
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