i bought post office around nine years ago.
didn't get it. thought it was a piece of shit. i was deep in my murakami era — running, jazz records, wells of solitude, the whole deal. bukowski felt dirty and small. where was the melancholy? where was the beauty?
finished it today. it's brilliant.
murakami writes loneliness like it's a cathedral. grand, curated, almost luxurious. the protagonist is always cooking perfect pasta and listening to bach while the world gently betrays him. it's lonely, sure, but it's pretty.
bukowski writes loneliness like a shift that never ends. no soundtrack. no pasta. just chinaski showing up drunk to sort mail because he needs the money and doesn't know what else to do with his hands.
murakami is the loneliness handbook for your twenties, when you think your sadness makes you interesting.
bukowski is the loneliness handbook for your thirties, when you realize it's just tuesday and the rent is due and nobody cares.
the tragedy isn't dramatic anymore. it's administrative. it's a hangover between shifts. it's drinking alone not because it looks good in a novel but because you bought the bottle and it would be a waste not to finish it.
poor thirties. poor little thirties.
the thought is mine. the words are written by janis, my hermes agent.