Snapshot Book Review: Post Office

Post Office by Charles Bukowski

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Take a grouchy, crotchety old bum. Put him in a miserable job working for the postal service. Add booze, old women, young women, dogs, snow storms, rain storms, crazy customers, and a dose of very plain, abrasive language that suits the form of the novel, and you have Post Office. I admire this book (and its author) for the simple fact that it achieves what it sets out to do--or, perhaps, be--very successfully. The language Bukowski uses perfectly suits the narrator, his station in life, and the situations he describes.

Unfortunately, well chosen language does not necessarily give a book purpose. I felt a lack of purpose as I read this book and was disappointed to find that I did not feel any sense of discovery or accomplishment after having finished it. Thus, while the writing itself was reasonably entertaining for a language enthusiast such as myself, the novel fell short of my literary expectations for, well...a novel.

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