Henry Chinaski, Charles Bukowski’s anti-hero alter-ego is the central figure in ‘factotum’, a novel chronicling Chinaski’s/Bukowski’s the seemingly endless, dot-to-dot low-paid, low-esteem, low-value (in every sense) jobs that Chinaski takes to keep himself in liquor, cheap rooming house accommodation and, presumably, that Bukowski also took to keep himself in liquor, cheap rooming house accommodation, source material for novels and typewriter ribbons.

Chinaski is a man in the grip of more vices than a woodworker’s convention. He’s an alcoholic, a gambler, he’ll shag just about anything that’s not nailed down and he’d consider himself an experienced employee if he lasted a day on a job.

There’s an odd incongruity about somebody who essentially drifts from job to job throughout the novel. For all the boozing and the hangover hells, Chinaski is hardly lazy or feckless. Nor is he stupid, indeed a reoccurring problem is that because the sort of jobs he consistently takes are pointless and menial, his ‘superiors’ are pretty pointless and menial too, something Chinaski is not afraid to point out, although this is inevitably followed by his looking for another pointless, menial job.

He certainly has a work ethic, even if that work ethic is ‘earn enough to buy some booze, drink booze, lose job, find another job, earn enough to buy some booze, drink booze, lose job’ and so on. The cycle is occasionally interrupted by unloving, but lovingly described, sexual encounters and, of course, gambling.

Indeed there’s an excellent sequence in the book where, over a period of weeks, Chinaski and a colleague dip out of work early in order to attend the last race meet of the day. Soon they are placing bets (or rather taking the bet money and not placing the bets) of their workmates. The description of the race from the factory to the race track and then the final foot race from the car park to the betting window before the starter’s flag falls, and the cheering and hollering race fans who start to make a point of witnessing this regular event, conveys a breathless race for high stakes which makes actual horse race that follows something of an anti-climax.

Chinaski drifts, drifting into and out of different jobs, or at least different variations of the same job, and drifting from city to city, or at least variations of the same city or rather the same part of the city – the poor part, with the poor people in the poor bars and their poor rooming houses where the walls are too thin, the crush of humanity is too loud and escape is not on the first train out of Dodge but rather in uncorking lunch.

Chinaski gets away with turning up to work hungover – a maschocistic measure of his contempt for himself, he makes an unpleasant job unbearable – because he’s an eternal back-room boy, not let near any customers he might scare off, concealed in the half light of the warehouse with the other trolls and misfits.

Because what Bukowski really brings home in this novel is that if you’re in a job that is chipping away at you, you have to fill that growing void with something and if it’s not something that’s generally accepted as wholesome, like family, or religion, or something that’s just accepted as bachelor pursuits, like enjoying internet pornography or making model sailboats and sailing them at the weekend, or, god help you, MMRPGs, then booze will do fine. As long as you leave time for the screwing and the gambling, and realise there’s never enough booze in the world.

Like dirty water circling the drain, Chinaski always returns to his beloved Los Angeles. When I was in that city I stayed in Hollywood. It was, to say the least, educational. Every second shop sold high heels, short skirts and wigs. Lots of wigs. It took me a slow, and I mean tourist slow, moment to work out that these were essentially hooker supply shops (why do hookers need so many wigs? Does sex work lead to premature baldness?). That is the sort of city Los Angeles is, low life, but high heels. That’s the sort of novel ‘Factotum’ is, low life, dazzlingly described. ( )

I didn't like it much. Full of overdrinking and seamy sex. It is supposed to be funny but I only laughed at one situation and a few others were mildly humourous. The whole way through it was the same to the last sentance: Going from one job to another, one drinking bout to another, one loveless sex act to another. It was unrelenting bum living. ( )

http://home.comcast.net/~tonydal/wise... ( )

...what sets Bukowski apart is that his author's voice isn't all that pleased with itself. He isn't trying to shock anyone, he isn't trying to impress the reader or inflate his own importance. What you get most from his writing is a sense of bemusement at the world...

Read the rest of my review of Factotum on my blog, The Nerd is the Word.

http://nerdword.blogspot.com/2006/07/... ( )

And now it's being made into a movie. Odd. ( )