Product Description

With his fourth novel, legendary barfly Charles Bukowski follows the path of his alter ego Henry Chinaski through the high school years of acne and rejection, drinking his way through the Depression, and ends at the start of World War 2.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4652 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

From the Publisher
Ham on Rye recounts both the comical and tragic events of Bukowski's youth (through the character Henry Chinaski), and provides a nostalgic view of a more innocent time and of an inner-city Los Angeles that has long since vanished.

Customer Reviews

Bukowski as "Survivor",
I didn't know what to expect when I picked up Ham on Rye by Bukowski. I'd read some assorted poems and short stories of his that I found amusing because of their bluntness and coarseness. I found that Ham On Rye was much in the same vein: that is, the story of a non-comformist who has to pay the price in America for not selling out and becoming just another salesman or suit. Bukowski needed to follow his own music. This book is obviously autobiographical, and it depicts his rough and sad childhood: his abusive father who wouldn't cut him any slack, his skin condition that pock-marked his face and made him feel like an outcast, his alienation from school and his classmates, his alienation from most of America and the values America holds most dear: being the "alpha dog," the big "winner." Bukowski in effect is a foreigner in his own land, a socially isolated individual who escapes the cruelty of people by eventually becoming a writer and indulging in drink -- while longing for a poetry that our banal consumer society tries to squash. I love this book. It's an easy-to-read and very personal novel, which would probably be marketed today as a "memoir." I know Bukowski is NOT read in college and that's because he's generally "anti-New Yorker," anti-understatement. He's the John Belushi (think of Pluto in Animal House) of literature. His characters WILL COME OUT TALKING, LIKE THIS!!.. Reading Bukowski is an intimate experience, like reading the work of a friend or watching a friend's home-movie. He's largely a self-taught artist so his work is sometimes rough, sometimes over-the-top, sometimes sloppy -- but always full of humor and always largely entertaining and loads of fun. This is my first Bukowski novel, but it certainly won't be my last! So crack open a brew, shut off that stupid TV, kick back in your dirty shorts and read Ham on Rye. I also agree with the reviewer who recommended The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, another lively, funny novel that I could relate to.

Bukowski at his best.
The only Bukowski I'd read previously was Post Office, which is a bare-bones story about a man whose life is swallowed by his job at the Post Office, years passing by, and his struggle to basically try and retain something of himself (be it a woman, his drinking, his gambling - anything).

Ham On Rye features the same character (Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski), but focuses on his earlier life, going to school and university, and descending into violent alcholism. It, too, is a bare bones story - but there's much more to it. Chinaski's frustration at not wanting to be a part of anything, while at the same time wanting to be accepted, result in him being seen as nothing but a bullying drunkard. And yeah, Chinaski is an a-hole, and Bukowski makes no bones about that. But I was forever hoping he'd pull himself out of it.

A great book, and Chuck's no BS writing style is always instantly refreshing.

Check it out, if you can.

Not at all HAMMY , and very WRY.
I have read a handful of Charles Bukowski's literary efforts but found none of them to be quite as endearing as this. The focus is on Chinaski's high school days and the way his outlook on life is steeped in cynicism due to an infliction of acne vulgaris .

The reader will be very hard pushed to find a more cynical literary character than Chinaski , and the book is entrenched in bitterness. However there are some heartbreakingly human moments such as Chinaski viewing young couples holding hands,and believing he can never live like that.

The narrative is gritty , stripped down and to the point.This perfectly suits Chinaski's clipped and dismissive viewpoint on life. Bukowski's human prose allows us to sympathise with the character as he rejects the world.

In conclusion, I would say that this book is in turns moving, witty and repulsive.It is essential for those who feel that now and again life has given them a raw deal.