This was bad. It reads like a poor man's Céline. Are Factotum

>>8952803

They are almost exactly the same books.

It's basically an American version of Celine who fell in love with booze and fighting at an early age. Not as literary or epic, but still a good story of an outcast kid.

I was living in Boston a couple years ago, boozing a lot, when a random guy at the bar pushed a copy of Ham on Rye across the bar towards me. He told me he'd give me the book, but only under the condition that I'd also give it away randomly at a bar when I was done with it. The book was a slight shock, in a good way - I hadn't heard of Bukowski before - and after I was done I gave it away at a bar. Good memories. It's hard for me to read Bukowski now, though, since Celine is basically the same thing but way fucking better. (Have you read Normance?)

>>8952803
It's like a man who drank too much and couldn't decide whether he wanted to be John Fante or Celine.

Personally, I liked Bukowski. Then I started to hate him. After some time went by I picked some of his books back up and started to re-read his stuff and found myself thinking it was pretty okay. Enjoyable, but nothing monumental.

>>8952803
Oh I forgot to say, I think "Pulp" was my favorite book by Bukowski. I really liked "Hollywood" and "Women" too.

But between "Factotum" and "Post Office", I'd read "Post Office" first.

>>8952900

I was sitting in my office, my lease had expired and McKelvey was starting eviction proceedings. It was a hellish hot day and the air conditioner was broken. A fly crawled across the top of my desk. I reached out with the open palm of my hand and sent him out of the game. I wiped my hand across on my right pants leg as the phone rang.

I picked it up. "Ah yes," I said.

"Do you read Celine?" a female voice asked. Her voice sounded quite sexy. I had been lonely for some time. Decades.

>>8952915
Yeah... pretty much. Still I really enjoyed it.

Like I said, I really started to hate Bukowski after I started reading Fante and Celine because I realized that is who he wanted to be. But going back, I like reading about ol' Hank Chinaski

>>8952881
pretty cool story actually. how did you know you'd chosen the 'right' boozer to grant the book?