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Ham On Rye | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Bukowski
Creator: Roddy Doyle
Publisher: Canongate Books
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £3.60
You Save: £5.39 (60%)
New (32) Used (6) from £3.50
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 6861
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1841951633
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781841951638
ASIN: 1841951633
Publication Date: July 7, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 Is it me, or is it Bukowski? August 8, 2008
Ian Shine (England)
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! June 11, 2008
Mr. John P. Oreilly (Scotland)
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 April 21, 2008
Dillinger (London)
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.
A Classic March 22, 2008
Brendan O. Clarke (Edinburgh)
Bukowski's novel "Ham on Rye" is a coming-of age novel in that it tells the story of Bukowski's protagonist, Henry Chinaski, from his birth to his young manhood, ending with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Chinaski is based loosely on Bukowski's own life; but "Ham on Rye" and Bukowski's other novels are, after all, works of fiction and should be read as such.
The scene of "Ham on Rye" is Los Angeles during the Great Depression, particularly the lower middle-class homes in which Chinaski grows up, as families struggle to survive and to escape from poverty. Bukowski is at his best in describing dingy homes, streets, schools, and desperate people.
But "Ham on Rye" is a coming-of-age book told with irony and twists. It seemingly mocks the story of self-discovery and self-awakening common to these distinctively American books, but in the end I think it follows the pattern of a coming-of-age story in spite of itself. Most American coming-of-age books recount the life of a young person and end when that person comes to some crisis which he meets and, thus, attains a degree of understanding of himself which he carries through life. Bukowski's book tells the story of an unhappy childhood, as Chinaski is subjected to an overbearing father and frequent beatings. In addition, as an early adolescent, Chinaski develops a terrible case of acne which exacerbates his tendency to aloneness as well as his anger and rebeliousness. After graduating from high school, Chinaski loses a menial job, enrolls in a Junior College, and begins to drink heavily. He is well on the way to a life of alcoholism, fighting, wandering, and gambling that is detailed in chronologically later novels of Chinaski's life, such as "Factotum" or "Women".
"I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the other play and they looked foolish to me."
Yet for all its rawness and Chinaski's sense of failure and purposelessness, the book conveys a sense of promise. The book shows a young Chinaski forming the desire to be a writer, and beginning to work at his craft and respond to his experiences in a manner that, years later, would result in "Ham on Rye" and in Bukowski's other works of fiction and poetry. Some of the best moments in "Ham on Rye" show the adolescent Chinaski sitting alone in the Los Angeles Public Library and ultimately discovering authors, including D.H. Lawrence, John Fante, and Sinclair Lewis, who speak to him. As had many before him, Chinaski learns that projecting oneself into artistic creation offers a form of release from the difficulties of everyday life. Chinaski writes: "Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you."
Similarly while suffering from his acute acne, Chinaski develops a character a WW I pilot named Baron Von Himmlen, and writes stories of his imagined adventures. Chinaski writes: "it made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be". (p. 168)
"Ham and Rye" is the story of how a young man found himself in adulthood leading a life of alcoholism, poverty, and loneliness, with no ambition and seemingly few prospects. The book is full of adolescent sexual frustration, dysfunctional families, rawness, vulgarity, and failure. It also includes some funny scenes. The story is told in a sharp, crude, no-nonsense style. But together with all the outward failure and the shocking scenes, we see a young Chinaski in the process of attaining his dream and gaining victory over himself after all. In spite of the dead-end vicissitudes of his life, Henry Chinaski perseveres and gradually brings his experiences alive and learns to make something worthwhile of his existence. He learns to reflect upon himself and his life and to describe them without cant or mercy. Henry Chinaski becomes a writer.
"Practice, that's all it took. All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn't."
The Beginnings of Bukowski February 15, 2008
MYB74 (Cape Town, S.A.)
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.
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