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Ham on Rye ("Rebel Inc") | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Bukowski
Creators: Roddy Doyle, Sean Penn
Publisher: Rebel inc.
Category: Book
List Price: £10.00
Buy Used: £4.00
You Save: £6.00 (60%)
Used (2) from £4.00
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 391950
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 329
ISBN: 086241993X
EAN: 9780862419936
ASIN: 086241993X
Publication Date: April 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear and creasing to covers, but no inscriptions or other marks inside. Posted from mainland uk by next post. Noted for our speed.
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| Editorial Reviews:
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Ham on Rye - Bukowski on Growing up and Down May 8, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If it wasn't for the hard drinking of the budding alchoholic, this book should be compulsoary reading for angst ridden teenagers across the world, but then again, I read it when I was 30 and found Ham on Rye to be quite soothing - growing up If it wasn't for the hard drinking of the budding alcoholic central to the story, this book should be compulsory reading for angst ridden teenagers across the world, but then again, they should read it and feel better about life and ask themselves the question - Do you want to end up like a character from a Bukowski novel? I read it when I was 30 and found Ham on Rye to be quite soothing - growing up is tough and Bukowski's 'fictional' account (how much of it is based on his life I don't know) makes terrific fun out of growing up (from boy to man), sex (not getting as much as one should) and yes, drinking, drinking but still not quite drunk enough.
The Great American Novel December 11, 2002
Ham On Rye is, quite simply, one of the greatest works of fiction I've ever had the pleasure reading. It is sparse, direct, scalpel hard, heart-breaking and utterly inspiring in its rites of passage portrayal of a rightly cynical, dissaffected American youth. Chinaski suffers a great deal, yet never weighs the reader down with his inability to shed his outsider status or state of mind; his ostracisation merely renders the reader complicit in his world-weary resignation, yet never at the expense of a somehow life-affirming overall impression. The darkest moments, here, carry an admirable and undiminishable streak of resigned humour. The demotics of youthful discourse are replicated in a supremely believable way. This is the kind of novel that maybe only Raymond Carver could ever have hoped to parallel. From the American books I've read, it is perhaps the very best, most evocative and affecting, and must rank alongside other great works such as the Bonfire of The Vanities, Rabbit At Rest, Underworld, Breakfast Of Champions, and Portnoys Complaint as a vivid, unflinching and hugely entertaining masterpiece.
One of his best March 12, 2002
Alongside 'Post Office', 'Women' and 'Factotum' this is one of Bukowski's best novels. If you're new to Uncle Buk then prepare for a warts-and-all account of the authors childhood. Searingly uncompromising in his descriptions of his childhood what emerges is a book full of humour, pathos and honesty.
Genius January 24, 2002
This is the best thing he ever wrote, and when you consider the number of novels, short stories and poems he produced (and the sheer quality of most of them) that's some compliment. He gets a little repetitive after a few books, but this and the volume of poetry "The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills" are essential acquisitions.
Bukowski's ode to 'Wait Until Spring Bandini' December 26, 2001
While living on skid row in LA, Bukowski visited the County Library. He envisioned his books right there on the shelf, in the 'Bs'. There weren't many writers of note there. 'Hell', he thought, 'There are barely any writers in the B's, or ANYWHERE, for that matter! But there was John Fante. And two of Fante's books (if you like Bukowski, read them), including Wait Until Spring Bandini, cut right into his psyche. They penetrated deep, touching every atom of his being. So to Ham on Rye. It is Bukowski's ode to the seminal Fante classic. Sure, it tells of Bukowski's alter-ego again, Henry Chinaski, as he grows up. He's a tough kid. He does questionable things. An out and out loser, with loser parents. His parental units want him to aspire to great things. This makes the young writer puke! Let's cut to the nut. In this book, you'll find Bukowski's trademark pounding language, sparse grammar, and choice characters all to tell his unique stories enagagingly. There's the worst acne in the world, and the desperate need for sex (yet the nervous shying away from the oppporuntity of it). There's the hard drinking, pure rebellion and lashing out against a bleached world. There's the skid row lifestyle and the revulsion with American society. If the young character met Adrian Mole, Chinaski would laugh at his preoccuption with appearance, drink him under the table, then grab a handful of Pandora's ass. The writing, the story, the character not only stomps on Sue Townsend's much-lauded character, it mashes much of today's so-called 'writing' in a long flash of engaging brilliance. If you enjoy real writing, or are simply a Bukowski fan: Buy it!
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