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"Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014. Learn more | See related books
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Most fans of the late, great Charles Bukowski, myself included, list Ham On Rye as their favorite Bukowski novel - and rightfully so. This novel is actually a thinly-veiled autobiography of the man we knew and loved as "The Bard of Booze and Broads." We see through the eyes of young Henry Chinaski as he comes of age in Depression-era America, the product of a dysfunctional and physically abusive household. From his early childhood as a desperately lonely, yet antisocial little boy to his adolescence (where he struggles with crippling acne and develops a love of literature), we see the genesis of a great writer. Bukowski pulls no punches (no pun intended) in his descriptions of abuse suffered at the hands of his father, a coldhearted, arrogant, sadistic SOB. The reader is drawn in to Bukowski's passionate determination to be the exact opposite of what proper society tries to mold its youth into. A powerful and heartbreaking read. Great work, Buk! R.I.P - you will be missed!
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78 of 86 people found the following review helpful
I have been returning to the work of Charles Bukowski (1920 -- 1994) after reading his novel "Factotum" and watching the movie based upon it. Bukowski's novel "Ham on Rye" (1982) 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. ("Factotum", written in 1978 covers the next period of Chinaski's life, after he has been rejected for the draft and wanders from city to city in search of work.) 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.Read more ›
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
For years I sold Bukowski's poetry to sad-looking men and the occasional punk-looking (very young) woman. This was in the 1980s and early 1990s. I never took the stuff seriously. Poetry about hangovers and turds? Give me a break.
But when I was introduced to Russell David Harper's manuscript of BALD -- his own ficitional memoir -- and Miha Mazzini's CARTIER PROJECT, I was forced to dig deeper into this phenomenon. (CARTIER is an eastern European Bukowski, and BALD is an intelligent memoir of hangovers.)
HAM ON RYE was my first real Bukowski venture, and I devoured it. It's a sad and moving work. There's not a single metaphor in it; it's to-the-gut writing straight from the heart. I bought my copy dog-eared and coffee-stained in a sidewalk sale in San Francisco, and I'm not letting it go. However, I'm now afraid of digging deeper into Bukowski out of fear of being disappointed. HAM ON RYE has set my expectations unreasonably high.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Depending upon your taste in literature, Charles Bukowski was either a brilliant writer who has yet to receive to respect he truly deserves or nothing more than a drunk with a typewriter. Most of those who love Bukowski seem to have discovered him through his poetry, but Ham on Rye was my introduction to the author, and it remains my favorite work of his. In fact, I think Ham on Rye is probably the best coming-of-age story in American literature, far superior to Catcher in the Rye. Although Salinger's novel captures your attention when you're thirteen, it tends to suffer terribly when you reflect back on it as a more mature individual and recognize the narcissicism and insincerity at the heart of Holden Caulfield's attitude towards the world. Ham on Rye does not romanticize the innocence of children and depict adults as "phonies." It is Bukowski's own thinly veiled account of his childhood and adolescence in Los Angeles between the two world wars, as told through the eyes of his alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Ham on Rye shares the same brutal humor and breezy prose style as Post Office and Women, but it is much more tightly focused than any of Bukowski's prior novels, which tended to be more episodic than anything else. For that reason I think it ultimately achieves a sort of lasting resonance with the reader that is lacking in much of Bukowski's other prose work, for all of the energy and spontaneity his writing always possessed. Ham on Rye is alternatively hilarious and horrifying, but it always remains truthful in a way that few coming-of-age novels are. Anyone new to Charles Bukowski should start with this.
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