Title: disappointing
Product review: Bukowski's narrative voice and the confidence of his writing are always compelling, yet time after time I finish his novels feeling somehow cheated (with the exception of "Ham on Rye", which he seemed to put some effort and thought into). He's unwilling or unable to reveal insight into his own behavior and his female characters are devoid of any real presence or depth, aside from their moments of neediness, horniness and hysteria. In this particularly shabby effort, he somehow avoids dealing with what is presumably the entire point of the novel--presenting the day to day tedium of holding a job for 11 years. Soon after describing how he established himself as a postal clerk, he strangely skips the rest of his employment there... the novel then picks up a decade later with a series of warning letters he received, and ends with him quitting. A lot of promise, but shoddily done.
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