Charles Bukowski is one of those authors whose work I’ve been aware of for a long time without actually reading any of it until now. I came across a copy of FACTOTUM, an early, autobiographical novel by Bukowski and read it yesterday. Set during and just after World War II, it features Henry Chinaski, a thinly-disguised version of Bukowski himself. Chinaski wanders around the country, gets drunk, works at a variety of menial jobs that he hates, tries to be a writer, and sleeps with a bunch of slutty women. And if you want any more plot than that, you’re out of luck with FACTOTUM. It starts and stops rather arbitrarily and ultimately seems pretty pointless . . . which was probably Bukowski’s point.I tend to enjoy low-life novels. Quite a few Gold Medals and other paperbacks from the Fifties fall into that category. Bukowski does a fine job here of capturing the squalid parts of various cities. There are some good descriptive bits and nice lines of dialogue, and the terse, Hemingway-like prose reads very fast, always a plus where I’m concerned. After a while, though, the plotlessness and the squalor got really old to me, which makes me think that while I didn’t actually dislike the book, I might prefer Bukowski in smaller doses, such as short stories. However, there are two more novels featuring Henry Chinaski, POST OFFICE and WOMEN, and I might read them one of these days, just to complete the trilogy.
6 comments:
HAM ON RYE (which takes place before FACTOTUM) deals with Chinaski's childhood. It's also a much better book.
I've read Post Office and found the beginning to be very funny (particularly if you'v ever worked at the PO), before it slipped into depressing mode. I did enjoy it though.
Yeah, smaller doses, like Raymond Carver. In fact, I first got interested in Bukowski because of a poem by Carver, "You Don't Know What Love Is (an evening with Charles Bukowski)"
http://bukowski.net/forum/showthread.php?t=137
I've not read any of his novels, but I really enjoyed a lot of his poetry in the collection "love is a dog from Hell." Intersting stuff, although much of it is almost anti-poetical.
I'm with you here, James. I don't much like Bukowski either. Some of his opinions on women and music are in strong contradiction with his reputation as a rebel and a rabulist.
I remember liking Post Office very much though. But then again, I was 15.
Factotum is my favorite Bukowski book, but I am a sucker for just about everything he has done
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