I learned everything I needed to know about bureaucracies, fine wine and hygiene from Bukowski. ( )

Masterful. The futility of mundane but gainful employment at the expense of meaning is portrayed with Bukowski's trademark humour and style. This is Bukowski's first novel and a decade of his life in a nutshell. Hank Chinaski is often offensive and insensitive, at other times gentle and insightful, it matters little, original writers are a rarity and Bukowski stands out as an innovator without peer. ( )

An autobiographical account of Bukowski's life as a postal worker, covering a period of 12 years. Henry Chinaski is Bukowski, gambler, womanizer and heavy drinker. He joins the post office as a substitute mail carrier. He hates it, and makes it seem as if the most thankless job there is. After some time he decides to quit and lives off the winnings from the tracks. He returns to work in the post office, this time as a mail clerk. It is menial, tedious, mind-numbing work, usually supervised by aggressive and sadistic individuals. He seems resigned to his fate. He stays on for many years. And between all this are failed relationships, a permanent affair with the bottle, long periods of intoxication, and brief intervals of lucidity.

Bukowski writes in simple, frank prose, giving us an uncensored and unflattering view of a quintessential institution, and through Chinaski, the daily struggles and frustrations of the underclass in an unsympathetic society. Bukowski, though, never preaches and does not offer a social agenda. He just tells it like it is.

A small, interesting read. It also goes without saying that I now appreciate better what my neighborhood postman goes through to get my mail (including ordered books!) promptly through my door daily. ( )

I’ve avoided reading Charles Bukowski for years. I’d picked up his books in the book shop, read the blurb and then carefully replaced them. The last thing I needed was to read somebody that glamorised drinking. At the best of times I’m as impressionable as wet mud and as a role model or literary hero, an alcoholic was probably a bad bet. Leave Bukowski for those who thought they were troubled but who, in fact, just had the same troubles as the rest of us, but who took themselves and their haircuts, tats and piercings far, far too seriously.

Then I saw that this year, one of the shows at the Edinburgh festival was ‘Barflies’. This, apparently, was to be site-specific theatre. In particular, it was set in a bar. FanTAStic. Surely this was the perfect distillation of the theatre experience, somebody had realised that many theatre-goers resented having to abandon their pre-theatre drink, then rush their interval drink, then scramble for a drink after the theatre let out and before the pubs shut, all for the sake of watching a load of thesps strut and fret. But a play where you were sat in the bar? Genius!

So to prepare I bought some booze and some Bukowski. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect (from Bukowski, I was fairly confident I know what to expect from the booze). By the time I had finished the first page of ‘Post Office’ I was wondering why the hell I had not read this guy years ago. Was there some sort of conspiracy? Why had nobody simply pulled me aside and said ‘read this’? By the time I had finished the book, I was profoundly glad that I had not read this years ago.

Because Christ alone knows what sort of effect this would have on a teenager reading it. You’d probably form an opinion that you too can be a babe magnet, a legendary writer with an astonishing legacy, your own man uncorrupted and uncorruptable and, let’s not forget, an outstanding alcoholic.

One of the first things that strikes you about the book is how much Bukowski hates women. Then you realise that, it’s okay, he hates men too. But not as much as he hates himself. And all the time he is being crucified by his toil at the Post Office itself.

There’s a particular desperation to public sector employment. It’s not like menial employment in a private job, where there’s the chance that one day you’ll marry the owner’s daughter and so have a chance to be as vile to minions as senior management is to you. No, when you enter public sector employment realise that certain jobs are a safety net to prevent you falling out of society altogether and that this way, you get taxed, so the Government craps on you twice over.

This novel roars along, captivating and repulsive and compelling. At times it’s startling, written with tremendous energy in short, episodic chapters, Bukowski knows his craft. A poet as well as a short story writer and novelist, he has the poets’ sensibility for knowing just how to place a word, so, in a sentence and how to structure a sentence, just so, in a paragraph that makes the story stunning. He also makes free use of capital letters, WHEN HIS CHARACTERS ARE EXCITED AND FREAKING WELL TRYING TO GET A FREAKING POINT ACROSS YOU FREAKING FREAKERS!

If you want low life, it’s here. Bukowski’s alter-ego, Chinaski, comes loaded with a full compliment of vices, he’s like a Swiss-army knife of immorality, alcoholic, a gambler, unfaithful. He’s also unable to respect authority although, given the picture painted of the postal service, that can be seen as a virtue. The Post Office, it would appear, is a mill that grinds the life out of its workers. Reaching for the bottle at the end of the day seems, on reflection, to be a sensible move, just like reaching for this book in the book shop, and not putting it back, was the right thing to do.

One warning, about this edition, don’t read the introduction until you’ve read the book, if at all. ( )

This is my first foray into Bukowski's novels, having now been acquainted with his poetry and shorter prose for a couple of years. The hallmarks of his shorter fiction are all present here: the down and out protagonist surrounded by a cast of off the wall characters, and the pace doesn't let up one bit. Bukowski's strong and unique narrative voice holds you from the first page until the very end. Beautiful humor and story emanating from the laughing gutters of skid row. ( )