Book Review: FACTOTUM

This is no novel, it is a journey.

Charles Bukowski is probably the most interesting loser of all time. The musings of love and jobs gained, and then lost, within this book called "Factotum," are enough to confirm what was missing from Kerouac's "On the Road." That missing ingredient is namely general human interest.

Much like On The Road, we follow a drifter and his escapades from one conquest to another. Where Kerouac is the "free spirit" and adventurous type, if you want to give him that much credit, Factotum's protagonist, Henry Chinaski is a sort of Al Bundy poet. Chinaski can't hold a job, or a woman. I think already, I understand where this man is coming from.

Though the book is thin on anything resembling plot and some chapters get a bit repetitive, you will have no problems breezing through this tiny little read. The episodic chapters make this probably a perfect coffee table book you can pick up and any time when delving into a deeper story isn't possible. Indeed, my cousin commented Factotum is probably the best bathroom reading he's ever experienced.

While the daily jobless adventures can get repetitive, the author's prose keeps you reading. Bukowski is so talented with the English language he can make descriptions of running out of toilet paper or fellatio with a prostitute seem positively Shakespearean and inventively comic. There is no mystery why Bukowski is such an accomplished poet, his work may lack lyricism in tempo, but the collective effect of his story on the reader is nothing less than operatic.

Factotum is Marcus Aurelius circa 1970s. For sure this is not Kerouac. Chinaski/Bukowski is something much more accessible and relevant. He's somebody you would gladly have a beer with. Yes this is no novel. Its more a collection of musings and journal entries. Chinaski's journey doesn't really begin anywhere notable, nor does find a particularly momentous conclusion. What we have here is one man's struggle to make it from sunrise to sunset in the midst of a society he doesn't belong to. How different or any less profound is that from the journey we all make every day?

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