What we're reading: The Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Mike, you're a fucker, man.

Growing up, my brother wasn't really a reader. That started changing when he hit high school.

We never really shared the same taste in books, until Chuck Palahniuk came along, and even among Palahniuk's novels, we have our differences.

And I know better by now than to pick up something Mike has enjoyed.

Burroughs gave me just about the worst sun-stroke-and-paperback-novel trip in the history of mankind. Kerouac made me vomit and lost me two friends to the Pacific northwest. Hunter Thompson invigorated my pen but turned a landlord against me.

And now whenever we talk, Mike is reading something by Bukowski.

Thing is, I've read Bukowski. At least short stories and poetry. I've read Bukowski because every now and then, I'm into self-immolation, and books don't require fire department assistance (except that one collection of his that had me pacing the roof of my office building yelling to the masses below...).

With all the reading I've been doing, I needed a little torture. So I picked up a copy of Bukowski seminal novel The Post Office.

Here's the scene. It's 6 a.m. Friday. Fast forward to 10 a.m. Saturday. I'll save you the math: 28 hours.

- 8 hours at work
- 1 hour at lunch with a colleague
- 8 hours of sleep
- 6 hours at a party
- 1 hour commuting

Figure in general hygiene, cooking a couple of warm breakfasts, and general stretching, pacing and resting, that doesn't leave me much time to have knocked down this novel.

But I did. And I think I enjoyed it.

Crap.

Worse, I think I enjoyed it for the same reasons I enjoy Palahniuk. Conversational prose – even if it tastes like cheap whiskey and stale cigars. Sympathetic protagonists who really are unlikeable people.

Henry Chimanski is a womanizing drunk, rotting away on the night shift at the post office for 12 years. He doesn't like his job, he's not good at it, he hates his co-workers, and nobody likes him for more than a few months at a time.

Why should we care?

But we do.

Mike, you're a fucker, man.