Recent Review of Post Office (1 Viewer)

i liked the buk story but i don't see him as an asshole as the author did(but that's a whole other debate that's been dicussed here, there, everywhere).

i also read a certain someone's story on the rolling stones album "exile on main st". very nice...you really didn't know the stones were british???
 
I have to say it was a well-written review but the reviewer's contempt for Bukowski is fairly palpable. Bukowski was not afraid of "work", for God's sake, he was frightened by the way mind-numbing jobs for the otherwise unskilled laboreres of the world siphon human souls away and swiftly into the grave.
 
CarversDog said:
Bukowski was not afraid of "work", for God's sake, he was frightened by the way mind-numbing jobs for the otherwise unskilled laboreres of the world siphon human souls away and swiftly into the grave.
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That's why I wouldn't read any more of this guy's writings beyond that one, because he doesn't take time to slow down and attempt to peek under the surface of something.
 
Yeah, the writing was polished and professional enough but I also did not feel compelled to read more considering the ignorance and arrogance supplied by his review of "Post Office" (which, incidentally, is not my favorite Bukowski novel but that's neither here nor there, I suppose).
 
A fair use excerpt might shed some light on the reviewer's credibility:

"Like Bukowski, Chinaski worked for decades as a mail carrier for the U.S. Post Office."

First off, that doesn't make any sense, and Buk was only a letter-carrier for three years. So he cites the usual casual Buk stereotyper pastimes of drinking, gambling and womanizing and blah, blah, blah, but at least he liked the book.

So come on. You've got to admit that the scene where he eats the snails with Barbara Frye and says "EVEN PURPLE STICKPIN HAS AN ASSHOLE!" is pretty funny.
 
For most of his life, Bukowski tried being a writer, but found better success as a down-and-out, womanizing, scheming, gambling drunkard who'd be more at home as a character in a Cormac McCarthy novel than stumbling around the California sea board.
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Not a very nice description, and what's this about Buk tried being a writer for most of his life? With all the books Buk wrote in his lifetime he sure did more than just trying (Don't Try!), he actually made it as a writer. Oh, well...
 
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Buk as a McCarthy character? The absurdity of that just struck me. One associates Bukowski with L.A. and city grime, not some backwoods Faulknerian landscape.
 
Look at it this way. Maybe the critic wants to be a supervisor or is one, therefore he thinks anyone who complains about a supervisor is an asshole. Just thought I'd give the guy a way out before we gather the torches and pitch forks. Onward to the old mill we have him cornered.
 
Purple Stickpin said:
A fair use excerpt might shed some light on the reviewer's credibility:

"Like Bukowski, Chinaski worked for decades as a mail carrier for the U.S. Post Office."

First off, that doesn't make any sense,
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It actually does, with his third paragraph:

"When sober enough to hold a pen, he wrote various short stories and poems mimicking his life and current situations. Somewhere in his whiskey-soaked brain, he created the anti-hero to his problems: himself. The literary form of Bukowski's thinly-veiled alter ego is Henry Chinaski."

He acknowledges it. But that's the only time I'll make note of anything related to his writing. He could have done a better job with that aspect of the review.
 
The Chinaski character "worked for decades" in light fixture warehouses, making dog biscuits, packaging brake shoes, in slaughterhouses, changing advertisements in trolley cars...and yes, even for the post office. Never did Chinaski nor Bukowski work for decades as a letter carrier.

Ipso facto, it doesn't make any sense.
 
vwt.jpg
 
That's funny. I can see people looking for the stars and stripes on the shelves and saying, "Well, no Post Office here..." Ha.
 

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