Factotum by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Site-seeing on a Budget

The human body comes equipped with any number of genetic and acquired defects. Yet it is very difficult to kill. This seems to be the principal message of most of Bukowski’s work. To the extent his protagonist, Hank Chinaski, is biographical, one can only marvel at his ability to survive such largely self-inflicted misery and his refrainment from self-immolation.

“The desire to find a job did not seem to be with me,” Chinaski says after enduring several weeks of virtual starvation and sleeping on park benches, and just prior to decking his nagging father. Chinaski is a mystical bum who depends a great deal on the spirit to move him to anything more challenging than a glass of beer. To suggest Chinaski is hapless might imply that he cares about his fate. He doesn’t. His aimless wandering is his purpose.

New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Miami, and just about everywhere in between. It’s not clear why Chinaski travels; all the sleazy rooming houses and the low-life bars are the same. The jobs in each are different but their commonality is that no one else will do them. Besides, he is always alone in any case: “I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it.”

Miraculously, it seems, Chinaski finds the strength and the time between drinks to write his short stories - four or five a week. Dedicated to his art, when he isn’t falling off a barstool. The one thing he does have is a sort of vengeful hope that he can make it as a writer. The only thing he has to write about aside from the booze is random sex. It sells of course. Anyone who can have that much sex after that much alcohol has something important to say.

There is a certain seedy courtliness in Chinaski’s encounters. After one particularly vigorous session, for example, he can give credit when credit is due: “for a woman with only one ovary she responded generously.” And he is aware of gentlemanly obligations: “A woman is a full-time job. You have to choose your profession.” If you’re a writer, this rules out anything serious. And it doesn’t inhibit the occasional punch out either. Chinaski is an abuser, even when he’s not drunk.

But the booze always wins, over and over again. The repetition is convincing but tedious. Going nowhere fast is a tough story to tell. Petty pilfering, collegial tiffs, office sex and descriptions of a variety of failing businesses don’t really sustain readerly interest.

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