Factotum

Henry Chinaski travels throughout the U.S., usually by bus, occasionally writing, and losing odd jobs with frequency. “I always started a job with the feeling that I’d soon quit or be fired, and this gave me a relaxed manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.” He engages in his time-honored pursuits: drinking, sex, gambling and getting arrested. “Disturbing the peace was one of my favorites.” These are usually what cause him to lose jobs.Henry’s a misanthrope, or at least claims to be. Maybe he has cause. A woman asks him: “Your parents hated you, right?” “Right.”Chinaski claims he’d rather be alone: “I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me.” But Chinaski always has a woman, preferably one that drinks as hard as him.What characterizes Chinaski is his refusal to accept the conditions of life as it has become: “Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed.” He rages against it the entire book.

Like I said in my last update, I did not like the main character. He degrades women and seems to have nothing else to stand by besides drinking. It also seemed to have some gross moments, which I could handle, but didn't seem to have any significance to the plot or character development. I would've given this book 1 star, but I understand his attitude toward working for something you don't believe in, and I found myself laughing along with him at the people who seemed so eager to be recognized as perfect cogs in the machine. I would not read this book again.

It’s straight. I can’t give half stars. Weird.
Lorem ipsum.

The writing is rugged yet fluent and it feels real in the sense that it was as if he told his life story and not at all some made up fiction. I will forever consider Factotum, Post Office and Women my absolute favorites, especially for the strong nostalgic feeling I get because they triggered my interest in literature.

‘The Leaky Faucet of my Doom’ sure would have been a heck of a title for this book!

“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
How in the hell indeed?!?

There is no real plot in this. Basically, the main character is a raving alcoholic, and he just goes from job to job, getting fired from all of them. Seriously, try to count how many jobs he holds during these 205 pages! And he moves from place to place when he inevitably runs out of money from losing all of his jobs. And, he has trouble wiping himself after he poops. Often.
So, that's basically the book. But dang is it enjoyable to read! Completely like watching a car wreck! Not a redeeming character in the whole book, but an entertaining one for sure!

Episodic book as Bukowski's alter ego goes from one bad job to the next, staying just long enough to buy some more booze. Lots of the vignettes are very effective, however, and it's a better book than his first novel, Post Office.

I never connected with the story at any moment. (Translated from Spanish)

First, you should know the definition of factotum - it's an employee who does all kinds of work.

This is Bukowski, it's exactly what you would expect from him. If you've never read anything from this author before, hold on. Actually, I would recommend starting with Ham on Rye before reading this or any of his other novels.

I didn't like it. An unbearably monotonous and predictable book. (Translated from Spanish)

It is curious to approach this suburb of marginal life, where Chinaski, an alcoholic with no apparent future and a present compromised by the irresponsibility of his actions, drags himself along. It seems he is seeking answers and ways out in an uncontrolled consumption of alcohol, only to find deficiencies, dirt, arrests, fights, empty sex, toxic relationships, and irrevocable job losses. And yet, there is something that brings a certain light to the whole, his longing to be a writer, the unexpected and sublime pleasure after selling a story that gives him more satisfaction than all the desperate drunkards. Despite the harshness of the narrative and the repeated failure, this work hits you with brutality and teaches you about other realities dominated by self-destruction. A tough and authentic work. Easy to read but difficult to digest. (Translated from Spanish)

A tough and torrid novel. The character, perhaps the same writer, completely outside of what is culturally expected. The different and the unexpected is marked in fire in each of its paragraphs. (Translated from Spanish)

Proletarian writer, living a life like everyone else but knowing how to put it on paper in a real and funny way. (Translated from Spanish)

Chinasky and his underworld of work, sexuality, and personal life, sincere and brutal at times at the feet of Mr. Bukowski. (Translated from Spanish)

A directionless young man jumps from one job to another without any ambition other than to be a writer. However, of all his texts, only once does a publisher or magazine accept to publish one of them.

He has completed two years of a Journalism degree, but he can’t find any related employment. He has no intention of continuing his studies or interest in maintaining the jobs he gets.

Drunk most of the time, he moves from one city to another, from one dead-end job to another, where he lasts no more than a few weeks, sometimes just days. He always gets fired for being an alcoholic, for getting involved with some girl, for arriving late, or simply for being the disaster that he is.

Bukowski exacerbates the failures of life in each of his stories and, specifically, in this novel, he shows the terrible torture it is for a man to be constantly searching for a job he does not want to have. (Translated from Spanish)

It outlines the turbulent life of Henry Chinaski, the alter ego of author Charles Bukowski. "Factotum" is a forward escape, constant shakes to awaken from the suffocating lethargy, a path with no fixed destination. The dreams of every man crushed by trivial jobs, repulsive situations, bottles of port strewn across the apartment, sex, gambling, and everything that can help life not to keep you by the neck. Attempting to capture his life as an underworld man, he recounts a brutally funny and sadly horrified view of the ethics of people who are increasingly mediocre or objectified, and how the "soul" of those gloomy characters is bending. With his terse and forceful narrative, he describes an era for those who never achieved their longings. (Translated from Spanish)

This is the third book of Bukowski's that I've read. I liked it. Of the three, Post Office is my clear favourite.

Although it's a bit repetitive, Factotum is the work of a true working class, impoverished, writer. It is an unpolished and harsh work that could loosely compare to Orwell's Down and Out and London's People of the Abyss, but Factotum has the added bite of being written by someone who lived that life, instead of by those who only visited it.

It won't be the last book of Bukowski's I read.

I saw the film a few years ago, the one with Matt Dillon. He was convincing in the role of Bukowksi, here Henry Chinaski. More convincing than I had expected him to be. Finally I got around to reading the source material, and I'm so glad I did - the book is excellent. In his pared-down prose, Bukowski wastes not a single word in telling his story of drink and poverty and running from job to job. He removes the romance from the myth of the starving artist. And that final line - wow. What a sucker punch.

I loved it. Bukowski's ability to make one feel empathy for such an anti-hero is exasperating. Excellent! (Translated from Spanish)

Faithful to Bukowski, it would seem like an autobiography of a part of his life. With brilliant phrases and that acidic humor, critical of society. Entertaining and fun. (Translated from Spanish)

It's the second one to read by Bukowski, and it's good. Not better than the first one, which is "The Writings of the Lost." In fact, it seems like another chapter of this. For the same reason, it's good and gets more laughs out of you than the first one. (Translated from Spanish)

Factotum describes the life of a complete failure in every sense. I highlight the skill with which Charles Bukowski reveals various dimensions of Henry's life without romanticism, and shows how his misery is a consequence of the decisions he has made and the attitude with which he faces everything. While it is depressing, it makes a lot of sense. (Translated from Spanish)

Excellent book, it shows a simple way of writing while explaining everything. (Translated from Spanish)

Like I said in my last update, I did not like the main character. He degrades women and seems to have nothing else to stand by besides drinking. It also seemed to have some gross moments, which I could handle, but didn't seem to have any significance to the plot or character development. I would've given this book 1 star, but I understand his attitude toward working for something you don't believe in, and I found myself laughing along with him at the people who seemed so eager to be recognized as perfect cogs in the machine. I would not read this book again.

Adventures in the life of Henry Chinaski. Drunken words of wisdom and struggle.

Bukowski is one of the few writers I would call a truth-teller. He just tells what happened, in plain prose, using short, direct sentences. What's amazing is how rare or how hard it is for most authors to convey unalloyed reality.

People want to give Karl Ove Knausgaard a Nobel Prize for writing in a genre which I call the novelized autobiography. But Bukowski was documenting HIS STRUGGLE forty years before Karl Ove, and, much more, didn't have the audacity to claim such a Christ/Hitler like title. My Struggle. My Ass.

Factotum is a fun book. It is a light book. It is also by turns a sad and disturbing book. It is a book with no questions. Only one answer: work for the poor is soul crushing and there is no nobility in having your soul crushed for a pay check. Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego, works his way through nearly every low paying job in America, taking pride only in his getting fired.

This book is best considered as a volume in a larger story of the Chinaski novels. Before you judge Chinask/Bukowski, read Ham on Rye, the harrowing story of the childhood that created monster factotum.

Fantastical story of working class boredom...

You either love him or you love to hate him. It's Bukowski's straightforward engaging emotional style that is interesting. I see a lot of reviews that seem to have a problem with his lifestyle or want to celebrate it. To me, it just seems to be what it is; I've known a few Bukowski's so I am not impressed or put off by his story telling but it's the style that has merit; it's compact and efficient like Carver without an editor removing all the emotion. He often fails but when he succeeds the writing is as good as anyone in recent times.

Bukowski unflinchingly wrote about life in all its raunchiness, I must say. Some of it will still seem sordid, especially to the reader looking for warm and fuzzy. These, if autobiographical, anecdotes are from his days as a young man. He definitely had a hard time trying, or not trying, to adapt to society. I'm not sure the guy would've had the nicest personality or attitude, but I like the simplicity and directness of his prose. This book reminds me of my own experiences with employment though I have generally lasted longer and have not had a serious alcohol problem.

It is sort of repetitive, basically a litany of crappy jobs Bukowski (aka Chinaski) loses because of his laziness and/or drunkenness. Readers who want nice characters and happy endings should stay very, very far away.