Factotum is my first Bukowski book and what a punch in the gut it turned out to be. I had originally set out looking for something more “non-fictional” by the man, perhaps some of his letters or essays, but a dear friend insisted I start with Factotum. I’m glad I listened.
Published in 1975, Factotum is what they call autobiographical fiction – a slippery term when the subject is Charles Bukowski. How much of it is fiction and how much is raw, uncut fact? Your guess is as good as mine.
The edition I read, a Penguin paperback, opens with a solid introduction by Neeli Cherkovski – poet and Bukowski biographer pretty much spells it out: Henry “Hank” Chinaski, the protagonist of the novel, is actually Bukowski. Different name, same wreckage.
Written in a clipped, no-nonsense tone, the book rolls out as if someone turned on a tape recorder and Bukowski just spoke. The voice is breezy but unflinching. It’s a retelling of his early days of poverty, disillusionment and rejection. The days he spent drifting from one dead-end job to another. That’s the “factotum” part.
Chinaski doesn’t work to build a life. He works just enough to fund his next round of drinking and self-destruction. A few chapters in, you realize that career ambition is not part of this man’s wiring. He’s out to survive the day, maybe chase some tail and find the next bottle.
There’s a blunt force honesty to it all. The book opens with thoughts of him contemplating suicide. Bukowski at 24, during WWII, already spiraling. “I drank slowly,” he writes, “and began to think again of getting a gun and doing it quickly— without all thought and talk.” That sets the tone.
This isn’t a rags-to-riches tale. This is a rags-to-more-rags tale and unapologetically so.
The world Bukowski paints is that of 1940s America, but you won’t find war heroes or post-war optimism here. You’ll find dingy bars, grimy flophouses, greasy spoons and women with more bite than stability. The prose is deceptively simple – no frills, no fluff – but some of the lines read like jagged poetry.
There’s an aching clarity in how he describes loneliness, lust and rejection. He keeps sending out stories to magazines, keeps getting silence in return. I mean you can feel the sting.
Much of the novel is a loop: new job, screw up drink, leave, repeat. There’s a rhythm to the madness. Hank moves from city to city, job to job: janitor, truck driver, warehouse grunt, elevator operator, accountant and what not. But he’s always on the outside looking in, never able – or willing – to fit in.
Women enter and exit the picture. The most memorable is Jan, a fiery, unpredictable companion who matches Hank in both dysfunction and appetite. Their relationship is part passion, part combustion. But like most things in Chinaski’s world, it unravels. And when it does, he takes it with a shrug.
The brilliance of Factotum is in how Bukowski makes you care about a character who doesn’t care about himself. He’s self-destructive, antisocial, often pathetic but he’s also startlingly honest, even when that honesty is ugly. He doesn’t wallow in self-pity. He just… exists. Hour by hour, job to job, woman to woman, drink to drink.
That said, the novel isn’t without its flaws. It is repetitive. You could read the first 50 pages and have a decent sense of the next 150. There’s a sameness to the incidents, especially, if you’re looking for plot. And yes, the book is soaked in alcohol, casual sex and bathroom humor. That might be a turn-off for some. At times, I felt like I was reading the diary of a man trapped in a loop of bad decisions and worse hygiene.
But if you’re looking for psychological depth or at least a glimpse into the mind of someone at war with the world and himself, Factotum offers just enough. You won’t find redemption or grand epiphanies. You’ll find a man who doesn’t quite belong anywhere, trying to out-drink the emptiness.
Also worth mentioning is the 2005 movie adaptation by the same name. Starring Matt Dillon, the film updates the setting to a more contemporary backdrop but keeps the soul of the story intact. It’s worth a watch, even if it doesn’t quite hit the raw nerve the book does.
Conclusion
Factotum isn’t for everyone. It’s gritty, repetitive, occasionally grotesque and drenched in booze.
But if you can stomach the filth and cynicism, you’ll find a strangely poetic portrait of a man content with failure, who wears his mediocrity like a badge of honor.
Bukowski doesn’t dress up the ugliness. He holds it to your face and dares you to look away. And that, perhaps, is his perverse kind of brilliance.
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