r/CharlesBukowski

I just finished Post Office and it's my first work by Bukowski. I read it because I wanted to know what it is all about. For most of my adult life, Bukowski has been a name I came across frequently and I always got the impression that he is a "men's favorite writer". I have never heard a woman referencing Bukowski or even mentioning his work, let alone obsess over him. I have, however, encountered many men, both in literature / movies and in real life, who pride themselves in referencing Bukowski and speak about him & his work in a very admiring tone. I often encountered men who I suspected of wanting to be Bukowksi, the same kind of men who are utterly in awe over that "Dude" guy from the Big Lebowsky. I have never met a queer man obsessing over Bukowski or even being interested at all.

That being said, I enjoyed Post Office a lot, I like this kind of low level scum / dirt bag literature. I appreciated his perspective on class consciousness.

However, in chapter 14, the main character rapes a woman. I found it shocking, but that's of no further interest, since it was meant to be shocking. I was curious if he would follow up the scene with some kind of meta contextualization of the scene, a catharsis or narrative on how the fictional character Chinasky would incorporate the event into his own self-image. As far as I can tell, none of that happened, the rape scene was just kind of stood for itself with no further hint for interpretation. Please do correct me if I am wrong on this take and if I have missed something!!

After I finished it, I went to read reviews online to find out if there is a canon position towards the rape scene. As far as I could tell, there isn't really. I have read a couple reviews from classic newspapers / publishers where the rape is not mentioned at all but Chinasky is rather depicted as someone who "unsuccessfully tries to establish a stable sexual relationship" - quote from the KiWi publishing house that published the german edition. This is a representative example for the general tone I have encountered. I have also found a couple of scientific research papers that elaborated on the question whether or not Bukowski objectifies women in his work. Obviously, the answer is yes. I found some reddit posts concerning the rape. Most of them were concerned with the fact that Chinasky is an autofictional character and apparently, the scene in Post Office isn't even the worst of his rape scenes. There has been some interesting discourse around whether or not Bukowski is a rapist or misogynist and how much of his autofictional characters deeds are factual. I find this discussion interesting, however it is not what I actually want to speak about here.

I want to speak about how Bukowski fandom / his cultural reception deals with his casual mention of his autofictional character raping a woman. The first thing I noticed is that his fans / readers are having a much harder time naming the rape for what it is than the author & main character does. I have read "quasi rape" or whole paragraphs of people trying to find hints in the book that could make it not rape. But Bukowski could not have been clearer in the book: the woman yelled "rape!" and Chinasky said "and she was right", to paraphrase. Again, correct me if I have missed something, but I am pretty sure that nothing was said that could make the reader think it could've been anything other than rape. And I think I have been looking for these hints really hard too, because I actually like Chinasky, I sympathize with him, I think he is nonchalant and witty and funny. I can see what women see in him, despite him being a misogynist. I wanted him to be a good guy so bad. But I am able to look the facts in the eye and realize that he is not. And he never even claimed to be! So what makes his readers want to turn a blind eye to him being a rapist so bad? Is it because the rape scene is so abrupt and shocking that we can just not wrap our head around the fact? My theory on this is that the fact that his readers have such a hard time calling the rape by it's name is part of rape culture. We are just so trained to find excuses / be blind towards sexual violence against woman that it happens on a reflex, rather than dealing with the fact that sexual violence is thrown in our face.

I have seen multiple readers compare it to Nabokovs "Lolita", which obviously is not a good comparison. Lolita is not autofictional and in Lolita, there is definitely this meta contextualization where the author clearly wants the reader to realize that the narrator / main character is actually the villain and is an unreliable narrator. We don't have this setting in Post Office. The rape scene could, however, be the hint to fill in the blanks in other parts of the book. Chinasky keeps being left by women and he always acts so non-chalant and understanding about it. He gives reasons for Betty and Joyce but not Faye. She takes his child and leaves, and he is so understanding about it - but what is he understanding? He must know that he wasn't a good partner & father to be so understanding, but was it that he actually did? Maybe it is harmless, maybe their life was just too miserable. Maybe it was more, with Faye and the other women too. Who is to say that a rapist wouldn't rape his girlfriend / wife? Beat them? On the other hand: if Chinasky already admitted to a rape, why would he not admit to domestic violence? We get another blank when he talks about not hitting Faye because it is hard to hit a girl with grey hair - so who does he beat? Maybe no one, maybe all his girlfriends. Maybe this is all fictional, maybe not. I have read in my little "research" that apparently, Bukowski has many extremely violent rape scenes in his other work. Personally, I don't find the discourse around whether that is okay or not very interesting. I do know, however, that I would not want to be alone with this man. If you are familiar with the case of Till Lindemann - men who fantasize about violating woman on a regular basis, be it in their art or otherwise, are maybe not guilty but they are a liability and I am not taking any chances.

I am not sure if Bukowski leaves these blanks on purpose for us to figure out or if he even sees them as blanks or if he rather assumes that it is obvious how to fill them in. I tend to the second theory. Maybe Chinasky would hit his girlfriends occasionally but finds it so normal that he doesn't feel it worth mentioning. I am curious to hear about your opinions on this. In the end, this is what I also like a lot about Post Office. Bukowski decides how he wants to write is life's story, how much fiction he sprinkles in, where to leave a blank. And it is up to us to have the critical thinking to form an opinion on it. It is a very "take it or leave it" approach and I appreciate that.

To close my argument, after all I have read from and about Bukowski, I am definitely seeing the men who obsess over him in a different light. I am not saying being a fan of Bukowskis makes a man a misogynistic rape-enthusiast by default. But next time I encounter one in the wild, I will be asking more questions about what exactly they like about Bukowski and how they feel about his autofictional sexual / domestic violence.

As for Bukowski, I guess my final thought is that I appreciate his work but not the man behind it. I think it gives us many interesting topics to think and talk about, but I am not interested in reading any more of his ape stories without the much needed catharsis, may they be fictional or not.