Customer Reviews

Factotum

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'd read a lot of Bukowski, such as his "Women," and his "Post Office," which up until now, I thought was his best work. But when I heard a movie was being made of "Factotum," I had to go out and get a copy. Turns out, it's even better than his other works. I'm a little embarassed that I waited so long to read this.

Also recommended "Katzenjammer" by McCrae and Bukowski's "Post Office."

Factotum, though not as good as Ham on Rye or Post Office, is still a brilliantly dry, witty, and crude book. Sparsely written in a style akin to Post Office (minimalist in nature), Factotum tells of a young Chinaski jumping from useless job to useless job.

Hilarious, and maybe his most well-written novel, Foctotum is worth your time (though seemingly lacking the substance of Women and Ham on Rye).

Factotum is a good Bukowski novel. I think Ham on Rye, Post Office, and Women are his better novels, but Factotum has its own somber character, and it fills in an autobiographical gap between his school days and his time at the post office. It carries over a lot of the themes and the lifestyle pictured in Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell.

Another Classic. A series of jobs and weird situations during the 4o's in America. He dispatches the end of WWII with a sentence or two! The Best. now go away

This is the one, folks. Read this book before you shave your privates with a box cutter. The rundown: Go out, get a job, get fired, get drunk, get with the town tramp, play the horses, go out, get a job, get fired, get with the town tramp, play the horses, etc. etc. "Factotum" is lots of fun for those who get a kick out of reading about bad behavior. Softies, go read something else.

Next, to The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, Factotum by Charles Bukowski is one of the best purchases I ever made over Amazon.com. I discovered this writer at a time when I was deeply unhappy with my job, and found a kind of comfort I haven't found since. (Believe me, I've looked.) What an angry, 23-year-old, Chicago copywriter had in common with an alcoholic, Angeleno itinerant bum-poet I still don't know, but Bukowski tells it like it is and when you're flailing in a sea of hoo-hah, that's something.

Factotum is a string of stories about Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter-ego, and his bouts of employment. Deceptively simple writing of the very best kind details Chinaski's tours as--among other pursuits--factory worker, shipping clerk, janitor, stock boy and Kept Man before making it to the slim ranks of Writers Who Actually Support Themselves By Writing. Along the way, we're introduced to a remarkable collection of souls living on the fringe, as well as getting a peek into a lifestyle that most 23-year-old copywriters are seldom privy to.

I must confess that reading Bukowski is in part responsible for my eventual love affair with Los Angeles, a city he manages to paint as simultaneously beautiful and hideous, and as accurate a portrayal as I've ever read. Let Factotum serve as your introduction to this delicate soul in a degenerate's body, then move on to the joys of Post Office, Ham on Rye, Women and the rest of the Buk oeuvre.

I'm going to keep this review short and simple for you. This is the second book Bukowski wrote, and its a really good place to start if you are looking to get into Bukowski. The book is filled with short chapters that involve the years Bukowski called his "ten year drunk." The book chronicles his road trip around the United States, just at the time he was starting to become famous.

Its a quick read that includes many of the offbeat and unique observations that this guy makes about the world. You'll laugh every page.

Be careful, though. Reading Bukowski can completely change the way you look at things. The day after reading this book you'll have a little less regard for the little things that usually bother people, and a little more confidence in yourself.

'We chatted and after a few minutes a girl came in and handed John the check. He reached across the desk and handed it to me. A decent guy. I heard later that he died soon after that, but Jan and I got our beef stew and our vegetables and our French wine and we went on living.'

Once again meet Henry Chinaski as he makes his way through dozens of jobs only to find his way back to the nearest bar. Forever down on his luck, Chinaski always seems to find a way out as he makes his way across America in search of work and women.

Factotum (1975), Bukowski's first book after Post Office (see my review), is funnier AND written in a slightly sharper style than his first effort (he still hasn't found his 'final' style, but in this, his second book, he is much closer.) Filled with more sex , more booze, and satirical commentary that is sure to make you never want to work again, Factotum is essential for any Bukowski fan and not a bad place to start for those still unfamiliar with the great Hero of the Gutter. Read this to find out what one of America's greatest poets was doing when he wasn't writing.

I've lent my Bukowski books out many times. Handing them back to me people always say the same two things: 'He's so honest,' and 'He does and says things I wish I had the balls to do.'

"Factotum," the novel by Charles Bukowski, describes the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across the United States during the World War II era. Categorized as "4-F," Chinaski doesn't serve in the military and instead wanders from city to city, from one odd job to another. Along the way Bukowski describes his run-ins with the police, his sexual adventures, and his drinking.

I found "Factotum" to be episodic and to lack the focus and impact of Bukowski's excellent novel "Post Office," also featuring Chinaski. But "Factotum" is still a good read with some really stunning passages. Bukowski seems to be deromanticizing the "myth of the starving artist," which he calls a "hoax," in this book. I only wish that "Factotum" featured more about Chinaski's vocation as a writer; I found the parts of the book that focused on his identity as a writer to be the most interesting parts.

"Factotum" is particularly interesting in its context as a novel of the World War II era which deals with the U.S. homefront, but in an entirely unromantic and detached way. Bukowski's prose is often quite vivid; one encounter with a rather scary prostitute is a particular gem of Bukowski's raw, in-your-face style. Overall, a solid work by one of America's most distinctive writers.

Charles Bukowski is wicked awesome. It's another book about Henry doing exactly what Henry does. I think it's a love it or hate it kinda thing. Chances are, if you hate it, you're a bafoon. Did I spell bafoon correctly?