Modern literature - I found it fun to read. It's cleverly written, short and a good poke at the bureaucracy of the Post Office.
Helpful Score: 2
Offputting at first, much like the novel "Permanent Obscurity" by Richard Perez, Charles Bukowski's memoir-like novel "Post Office" recounts his years (or "Hank Chinaski's" years) as a Postal Worker. But mostly what this novel is about is the humiliation and tedium of a life spent earning an "honest" wage and having to put up with a lot of stupidity. There's a lot that most people can relate to here. A cruel boss, the endless "sameness" year after year, which eventually grinds you down. A normal working life, to Bukowski, is like a prison sentence. Bukowski's writing style is rough and raw, some might even say primitive. But that's exactly the kind of story-teller he is, so don't expect a PC correct story. Expect a certain level of nastiness and brutality, which also reveals a writer's honesty. If nothing else, Bukowski's writing is honest, and mostly his depiction of the dreariness of day-to-day life is dead on.
This is one of my favorite Bukowski books. I give it to every friend of mine who has ever worked for the post office or known someone who has. It literally makes me laugh out loud everytime I read it.
If you ever worked for the Post Office, or almost any Government office, you'll probably recognize some of the characters in this book. Not much to the story; some of it is funny, but much of it is a little depressing. Also, the story takes place before major postal advances, such as machine mail sorting. But if you remember when there were mail collection boxes on almost every corner, and the mailman carried a large leather bag of mail and walked rather than driving his route, you may enjoy this tale.
This was recommended to me as an example of . . . something but I found it deadly dull, depressing, and pointless.
