Post Office by Charles Bukowski
"Post Office" is the debut novel of Charles Bukowski, which explores the life of his alter ego, Henry Chinaski, over a fourteen-year span working for the postal service. The narrative highlights Chinaski's experiences with demanding supervisors, difficult coworkers, and tumultuous relationships, all colored by Bukowski's signature cynical tone. The story unfolds through a series of loosely connected episodes that reflect the challenges and absurdities of Chinaski's life, beginning with the line, "It began as a mistake," which sets the stage for his disillusioning journey.
While the novel does not break new literary ground, it amplifies Bukowski's typical themes of existential struggle and the pursuit of meaning within a monotonous job. Chinaski's interactions with the notorious Mr. Jonstone, known as "The Stone," exemplify the bureaucratic pettiness he faces. Throughout the novel, Chinaski seeks solace in relationships, notably with Betty, whose eventual demise adds to his sense of loss and disconnection. As he navigates his career and personal life, Chinaski's adventures reflect the qualities of a picaresque hero, ultimately leading him to resign from the postal service and consider his aspirations as a writer. "Post Office" serves as a foundational work that foreshadows Bukowski's subsequent exploration of the complexities of the artistic life.
Post Office by Charles Bukowski
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1971
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Post Office is Bukowski’s first novel; it became one of his best-selling works. He had published approximately twenty books of poems and short stories during the 1960’s, with his hero, Henry Chinaski, as the major character in most of the stories. Post Office breaks no new literary ground but offers amplified versions of his typical narratives, now covering a fourteen-year period of employment in the postal service. The plot moves through various episodes of crises with his supervisors, coworkers, and lovers. Post Office presents a domesticated version of the picaresque hero. Chinaski certainly fits the major requirements of the typical picaresque hero, as he is a rogue who satirizes his authoritative supervisors in a series of loosely connected episodes. While his tone is consistently cynical, he usually projects a morally superior attitude.
The plot moves along on the intensity and energy of the particular crisis that involves Chinaski at any given moment. He initially seeks employment with the postal service because the monotonous work appears easy, and he seems exhausted with his transient living conditions; his betting at the race track has also drained his financial resources. The opening line, “It began as a mistake,” sets the tone for the entire novel, which is divided into six major sections.
The first two sections present his beleaguered contacts with overly demanding customers and inflexible supervisors such as the thirty-year postal veteran Mr. Jonstone, known throughout the remainder of the novel as “The Stone.” A bureaucratic bully of monstrous proportions, Jonstone spends most of his days doggedly carping at Chinaski and “writing him up” for the smallest infractions of postal rules. Chinaski, while suffering from The Stone’s consistent pettiness, is clever enough to know exactly how far to go and when to utilize similar bureaucratic tactics to intimidate his supervisor into temporarily modifying his mean-spirited behavior. Chinaski’s only solace during his apprenticeship is the warmth and sexual security that Betty offers him as they drink their way through most evenings.
As Chinaski’s financial condition improves, he concentrates on playing the horses and begins to miss work. Betty, who has become jealous of his attentions to an attractive neighbor, gets a job and leaves Henry. His next amorous partner is a sexually indefatigable Texan, Joyce, who insists on marriage in Las Vegas and moving them to her small Texas hometown directly next door to her millionaire father. There, Chinaski works as a shipping clerk and eventually at the local post office. Joyce becomes bored with Chinaski’s inability to keep her sexually satisfied and divorces him. He then returns to Los Angeles, moves back in with Betty, and goes back to the postal service. Betty soon succumbs to the effects of her alcoholic binges and dies in the city hospital.
Chinaski meets a number of interesting but irksome fellow workers in the sorting room, including David Janko, a novice writer who bludgeons him night after night with the infinite details of both his sexual life and his novel in progress. He relates all these details in a strident vocal narrative that nearly pushes the regularly hungover Chinaski over the edge. The remaining three sections detail Chinaski’s relationship with Fay, an aging hippie who bears his child and eventually moves into a commune in New Mexico. His highly successful performance at the track, letters of warning from his supervisors written in impeccable bureaucratic jargon, and his eventual resignation from the post office conclude the novel.
Adding a level of self-consciousness to this work, the concluding paragraph proposes that the seemingly pointless episodic nature of the narrative will be organized into a literary structure: “Maybe I’ll write a novel, I thought. And then I did.” The concluding paragraph of Post Office, though only three short sentences, qualifies this first novel as an embryonic version of a Künstlerroman, or a novel about the education and growth of the artist. A number of Bukowski short stories from the 1970’s and 1980’s such as “Scum Grief,” “How to Get Published,” and “Scream When You Burn,” concern the specific day-to-day problems of the writer. He compares himself to his literary heroes and colleagues of the past and present, such as Dylan Thomas, Ginsberg, and Hemingway. In many stories and novels after Post Office, he frequently includes references to his creative work along with the typical drinking, gambling, and sexual scenarios that remain standard subject matter for virtually all his work.
Bibliography
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