Allow me to introduce you to...HENRY CHARLES "HANK" CHINASKI:> Monumental asshole and perpetual slob. > Self destructive alcoholic.> Insincerely servile and unrepentantly sarcastic.> Void of ambition.> Unpleasant, crass, cynical, womanising jerk.> Spends his time: - propping up bars; or - losing a small fortune at the racetrack; or - brawling; or - f**king;...the latter with a claim he's an expert!Never have I come across a character that is just so disgraceful; a sad, lousy, pathetic bastard!The opening line of Post Office is: "It began as a mistake." I hoped the mistake was not mine in deciding to read this novel!The novel's narrator is Henry ("Hank") Chinaski, a middle-aged alcoholic, willing to buck any system, void of ambition, yet exhibiting superior intellect and reasoning. In his youth, Hank worked in slaughterhouses, crossed the country on a railroad track gang, worked in a dog biscuit factory, slept on park benches, and worked nickel-and-dime jobs in a dozen cities. He tells his story after waking up from a terrible drinking spree.During one christmas season, after hearing from a drunk that the Post Office would hire "damned near anybody to deliver the mail", Hank applies and is successful at securing a delivery job as a temp. Oh…but hang on a minute…it's not just mail that Hank is interested in delivering! "I think it was my second day as a Christmas temp that this big woman came out and walked around with me as I delivered letters. What I mean by big was that her ass was big and her tits were big and that she was big in all the right places. She seemed a bit crazy but I kept looking at her body and I didn't care.She talked and talked and talked. Then it came out. Her husband was an officer on an island far away and she got lonely, you know, and lived in this little house in back all by herself."What little house?" I asked.She wrote the address on a piece of paper."I'm lonely too," I said, "I'll come by and we'll talk tonight."I was shacked but the shackjob was gone half the time, off somewhere, and I was lonely all right. I was lonely for that big ass standing beside me."All right," she said, "see you tonight."She was a good one all right, she was a good lay but like all lays after the third or fourth night I began to lose interest and didn't go back.But I couldn't help thinking, god, all these mailmen do is drop in their letters and get laid. This is the job for me, oh yes yes yes."Are you getting the picture here, my fellow GR readers? But while Hank is interested in the ladies, dogs are interested in Hank! "Let me tell you about the dogs. It was one of those 100 degree days and I was running along, sweating, sick, delirious, hungover. I stopped at a small apartment house with the box downstairs along the front pavement. I popped it open with my key. There wasn't a sound. Then I felt something jamming its way into my crotch. It moved way up there. I looked around and there was a German Shepherd, full-grown, with his nose halfway up my ass. With one snap of his jaws he could rip off my balls. I decided that those people were not going to get their mail that day, and maybe never get any mail again. Man, I mean he worked that nose in there. SNUFF! SNUFF! SNUFF!"Get outta there!It wasn't just private houses where Hank delivered the mail. Businesses were also included on his run, including the local Roman Catholic Church. "I went around to the side of the church and found a stairway going down. I went in through an open door. Do you know what I saw? A row of toilets. And showers. But it was dark. All the lights were out. How in hell can they expect a man to find a mailbox in the dark? Then I saw the light switch. I threw the thing and the lights in the church went on, inside and out. I walked into the next room and there were priests' robes spread out on the table. There was a bottle of wine.For Christ's sake, I thought, who in hell but me would ever get caught in a scene like this?I picked up the bottle of wine, had a good drag, left the letters on the robes, and walked back to the showers and toilets. I turned off the lights and took a shit in the dark and smoked a cigarette. I thought about taking a shower but I could see the headlines: MAILMAN CAUGHT DRINKING THE BLOOD OF GOD AND TAKING A SHOWER, NAKED, IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH."Thanks for your 'contribution', Hank!Post Office is broken down into six distinct parts that recounts Hank's life as a succession of boring interludes over a fourteen-year period of employment in the postal service. The plot moves along on the intensity and energy of various crises involving Hank and his supervisors, coworkers, and lovers. He is a typical picaresque hero, the rogue who satirizes his authoritative supervisors. His tone is consistently cynical, he drinks excessively, and he appears to positively avoid success or happiness or comfort, preferring to subsist in penury and even misery. He's a congenital loser trapped in a dead-end profession from which he can derive no personal satisfaction, yet possessed of enough self-awareness to recognize the absurdity of his situation. It is widely reported that Hank is, in fact, the author's (Charles Bukowski) alter-ego and that is why the novel is written straight from the hip in unambiguous, accessible prose. Charles Bukowski. I swear I had this image of Hank when I was reading Post Office!!!!The novel sheds light on Bukowski's life during the period from 1952 and until he resigned from his job at the post office in 1955, before returning to his position in 1958, where he continued to work until 1969. One never knows just where Bukowski's life ends and Hank's life begins! It is widely written that Bukowski too led a reckless life; his relationships with women and his world, which was full of gambling at horse races, booze, sex, homelessness, postal service, and crazy events, were full of black comedy at times and yet deeply tragic at others. This unfolds as Hank recounts his history of working at the post office.The closing lines of Post Office are as brilliant as the opening and one gets a sense here that this was Bukowski speaking through Hank again, during a life-affirming moment: "In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.Maybe I’ll write a novel, I thought.And then I did."It was not a mistake to read this book. I'm glad I did. I went through the gamut of emotions, including laughing at the moments of levity. I recommend Post Office with caveats. If easily offended by language then think twice about reading it. Looking at the big picture, this is an insightful and thought-provoking story about a working man trying to survive the day to day. A classic read.
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.
What do You think about Post Office (2002)?
في بداية الأمر كنتُ ساخطة على بوكوفسكي وذلك بسبب رؤيته الواضحة من خلال النص تجاه المرأة وكيف إن المرأة مرتبطة بالجنس ولا شيء أكثر من ذلك غير إن مع المضي في القراءة تتضح عاطفته تجاه المرأة وتجاه زوجته الأولى تحديدا وإن كانت بشكل مائل للسخرية .. أعتقد أن فرادة هذا النص هو غرابته وطريقة بوكوفسكي في النظر للآخر .. عمل بوكوفسكي موظفا للبريد لفترة 12 عاما عمله كان شاقا ويبدو كأعمال السخرة ولعل نوعية هذا العمل جعلته واسع الإطلاع على أنواع البشر ناهيك عن طفولته الشقية بسبب الأساليب العنيفة التي كان يستخدمها والده تجاهه وتجاه والدته وأخوته وكيف كان يحرمهم من متع الحياة الصغيرة مما ترك مرارة الحياة في فمه منذ سنين طفولته الأولى ، إلا إنه اللافت للنظر كم أراد بوكوفسكي أن يظهر كيف يستهلك الإنسان حياته في دوامة من العمل الذي لا يحبه من أجل أن يعيش وكيف يمضي العمر بالإنسان دون أن يشعر إنه ضاع في عمل تافه !على الرغم من لجوء بوكوفسكي إلى اللغة المبتذلة والصارخة جدا إلا إنني أرى أن هذا العمل من الأعمال البارعة جدا عمل بارع لرجل لم يستطع أن يجتاز الاختبار النفسي لأداء الخدمة العسكرية ، رجل لم يكن يترك زجاجة الخمر من بين يديه رجل عاش للنساء والقمار ومع كل ذلك فهو شاعر وأديب ساخر ببراعة .. سأحب كثيرا أن أقرأ عملا آخر لبوكوفسكي
—mai ahmd
Bukowski puzzles me. This could be a true story, he could honest to god have sat down one day, with a hangover from hell, and decided to write this book, for no other reason than to tell the world "I exist. Lives like this are lived every day". Something struck me, not in the book (well, to be honest, the entire book struck me), but there was something on the back of it. One of the reviews read: "Cunning, relentlessly jokey and sad". That broke me. It isn't relentlessly funny, no, it's relentlessly jokey. What's the difference? Funny is clean, it makes you feel good, like it'll all work out in the end. Jokey is when you're standing in the gutter knee deep in shit and you make a joke about not lighting a cigarette because it would set the world on fire. Or something like that. So I agree this book isn't funny, there are no thought through jokes, they were never meant to be written down on paper and told in a microphone for a well-dressed crowd, the world simply shoved situations in his face and he decided to laugh. Jokey indeed, and well done, Bukowski has you laughing with him. Then there's the other part "and sad". And sad. At the end of the sentence, like it's an afterthought, the feeling you're left with when all the others have come and gone. It's so simple, no fancy word, no 'sorrowful', no 'endlessly depressing'. It's sad. Like that. There's not a damn thing you can do about it, it's the way it is. It won't make you cry, but it will make you feel like drinking. I wasn't sure how much I liked it when I finished it last night. But then I woke up this morning and I felt a strange desire to read it again. It just hit me out of nowhere, it was like realising you're hungry, instead I just wanted more of this, this book, of Henry Chinaski. Perhaps it was simply the pull of a life I'll never know, of struggles I'll never endure.In any case, it made an impression. I recommend you try it out for yourself.
—Kirstine
لا بد، قبل أي شيء، أن نثني على دار الجمل لإقدامها على هذه الخطوة غير المسبوقة لترجمة رواية لهذا الكاتب الأمريكي الذي لم يصل إلينا من نتاجه سوى بعض القصائد والمقالات!ومع أن الخطوة/الترجمة كانت متعثرة نوعًا ما، سواء من ناحية الإخراج أو من ناحية الأخطاء التي اكتظ بها النص، إلا أنها مع ذلك تظل محل تقدير!فبوكوفسكي واحد من هؤلاء الكتاب الذين ظلوا منبوذين لزمن طويل في أمريكا نفسها بسبب حديثه بكل صدق وتسميته للأشياء بمسمياتها دون تزييف ومواربة، فالكاذب يسميه كاذبًا، والسارق يسميه سارقًا، والمحتال يسميه محتالاً.. وابن ال**** يسميه ابن ال****!هذا النوع من الصدق يمكن أن تكون إحدى تبعاته عدم رضا المتلقي وامتعاضه من الكاتب وما يكتب، ولكن يبقى لهذا الصدق حلاوته وطعمه الغريب الذي لم نعتده من كثير من الكتاب، وبالذات كتابنا العرب الذين تعودوا تغليف الحقائق بورق سوليفان لتتناسب والمكانة الاجتماعية المرموقة للكاتب، فما بالك عندما يكون الموضوع سيرة ذاتية كهذا الكتاب!في "مكتب البريد" ينسف بوكوفسكي الحدود بين الأشكال والأجناس الأدبية، بحيث يمكن اعتبار هذا العمل روايةً وسيرة ذاتية في آن واحد، فهو يروي سيرته الذاتية عندما كان موظفًا في مكتب البريد لأكثر من عشرة أعوام قبل أن يتخذ قرارًا بالإستقالة والتفرغ للكتابة، أي أنه يمزج بين الواقعي والتخييلي. وهنا ينشأ ما يسميه النقاد بنشوة التدمير؛ أي تدمير الأنماط السردية السائدة.أما على المستوى الشخصي، فيمكن اعتبار بوكوفسكي من الأشخاص الذين حذرتنا أمهاتنا من الإختلاط معهم ونحن صغار، ومن الأشخاص الذين قد لا نتمنى اللقاء بهم في مكان عام أو شارع أو حتى الجلوس بجانبهم في مقعد حافلة!
—Mohamed Al Marzooqi
