This is a plain and simple look at some of the guiltier pleasures that we all secretly yearn for, and the pain and tragedy that comes after.

I loved this book. Bukowski is quite an interesting character and his unique view of the motion picture industry was fasinating and extremely entertaining.

Bukowski has great images of the downtrodden and the lowlife but he offers little in the way of anecdotes for inhumanity except maybe drinking and bumming. After awhile one gets the feeling that being a victim is his excuse for affirming authenticity. Of course writing for him is a salvation though after awhile all these biographies of the down and out read the same. He gives some great graphic depictions of alcoholism but to me this doesn't equate with greatness in and of itself. I would add that full blown alcoholism is much worse for suffering than bukowski depicts. It is not some bohemian romance to see the end result of dependence as i do in healthcare. However, I think bukowski conveys quite chillingly the inhumanity that helps drive people to it.

I found the book fascinating for its detailed description of life on the mean streets.

It was very raw and seemed quite real. But it was a very gritty book and was a hard read. Anyone who calls this a humorous book didn't read it.

Factotum by Charles Bukowski is not so much a conventional novel as it is a collection of vignettes. It chronicles the life of Henry Chinaski, author Bukowski's alter ego, as he drifts from job to job in the America of the 1940's. While his contemporaries are overseas fighting the Germans and the Japanese, Henry remains stateside with a 4F draft classification given him because of unspecified mental health issues. Henry is not proud of his draft status nor is he ashamed. To him it is simply another reflection of who he is. And that attitude is emblematic of the unapologetic tone that characterizes this unusual book from beginning to end.

Though most of the vignettes transpire in Los Angeles, Chinaski's experiences in several other American cities, including but by no means limited to New York, New Orleans and Miami, are also included. Just as fish must swim and birds must fly, Henry Chinaski has to do the things he has to do. What are these mandatory activities? Quite frankly they are drinking, shacking up with various women and writing...in roughly that order. The countless menial jobs he takes and rapidly loses are of no interest to him whatsoever. He views each of them as a diabolically cruel imposition on his time.

Factotum is a fast, easy read containing numerous interesting scenarios, some funny, some tragic, almost all profane. At no time does the author offer up any apologies for his alter ego's lifestyle and therein lies the book's major strength.

The recently released Matt Dillon movie, though set in the present day, is very true to the novel's unflinching tone.