Ham On Rye

Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck with the worst case of acne his doctors have ever seen) through to the first jobs he can't and won't hold down. In this moving story of growing up Bukowski disciplines his muscular, concentrated writing and creates a novel that distils his poetry into the finest full-length piece of prose that he ever wrote. Bukowski is often good but in Ham on Rye he's great.

Sadly, best known as the alcoholic inspiration for the film Barfly (an experience he reflected on in his book Hollywood), it is as a poet, rather than a drunk, that Bukowski should be best remembered. His bitter, caustic, direct, humane, damaged poetry reflects a life dominated by poverty and booze. His poetry stretches over many, many volumes but Bukowski also wrote great novels: all of them have many faults but the first four books he wrote shine for similar reasons. Post Office and Factotum both dissect, quite brilliantly, the life of an angry, poor man forced to do mindless jobs, pushed around and considered mindless by the fools who force him to do them. Women, as Roddy Doyle points out in his short introduction, continues the themes but focuses on the numerous women who share his hero's bed and bottle. --Mark Thwaite

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Superb. - Rated
After reading Ham On Rye, i HAD to read more of Bukowski.

I read another one of his books from the library, but I found that Ham On Rye was 100x better. I found I couldn't put Ham On Rye down once I started it.

Definately reccomended!

Is it me, or is it Bukowski? - Rated
The last time I read Bukowski was five years ago, when I was 21. Then, I read 'Post Office' and loved its raw energy, its 'don't give a f**k attitude'. I found him to be a fresh dose of realism in the face of the, what I then found, pretentious pomp of Kerouac.
I finally picked up 'Ham on Rye' after a recommendation from a friend, and was sorely disappointed. Yes, it's an easy read, and it's in no way bad, but it didn't seem to have any of the edginess or the zip that grabbed me in 'Post Office'. I'd heard that 'Ham on Rye' was Bukowski's masterpiece, and thus maybe my expectations were raised (whereas I went into 'Post Office' with little idea of who Bukowski was), and while it does take a different approach to his another novels, as this is a novel of childhood, a bildungsroman rather than a novel of despair, it really didn't offer me enough of anything to really make me love this book, or deem it worthy of five stars as so many others have on this page.
It's really a fast paced plod through the protagonist's (Chinaski's aka Bukowski's) childhood, from his beatings at the hand of his father, to his playground and later apartment brawls, via drinking games, sports matches, masturbation and attempts to catch site of some snatch.
The book, and character, finally begin to crack into adulthood at the end of the novel, which was where I began to see shades of tender brilliance shinging through, but by the time Chinaski 'turned around and walked out' at the end of the book, I was more than ready to do the same.
Would I have seen this book differently if I'd read it aged 21? Probably. This is little more than a memoir of adolescence, and while it is dedicated to 'all the fathers', I could have done with some more brooding on the father-son realtionship in this novel than Bukowski provides us with. If it contained more of this it would have been more of a tale of growing up through familial difficulties, rather than the diary of a drunken brawler that it turned out to be. Yes, this is perhaps what Bukowski was, but what artistic merit does his recounting of it really have?

MY FAV BUK BOOK! - Rated
Of all bukowski's books this is my favourite. Bukowski has some real jaw dropping, heart-warming thoughts throughout this book and I simply love it! AND it's hilarious!

If you like Bukowski check out the people who Bukowski loved: John Fante (Ask the Dust) Knut Hamsun (Hunger) Top class books!

Brilliant - Rated
Bukowski does it again - with another book that is so easy to read yet about nothing in terms of conventional 'plot' and so funny and also so sad. I just wish I hadn't read all of his stuff so I could come across it for the first time again.

The Beginnings of Bukowski - Rated
Bukowski's formative years laid bare. No shirking from a fully detailed relation of his torment and tormentors. A writer unafraid to tell it like it is. Disarms all with frank statements and vivid recollection of mood, emotion, settings, names and places, his excellent memory is part revenge on all those that crossed him over the years. As always he manages to capture all those thoughts and feelings, that for most people are purposefully buried deep down beyond retrieval, expose them on the page with seemingly no effort, definitely no pretense and sign his name.