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A review by polly_baker
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This is a very difficult book to rate and review. It is an extremely uncomfortable, and at times disturbing, read – a feast of toxic masculinity that never really lets up. It offers very little hope for our protagonist, or indeed, for its presentation of the world. Which, given it is a semi-autobiographical work... is pretty bleak.
Bukowski presents us with a boy born into the depression era. A time of economic hardship, disillusionment and the collapse of the American Dream. On top of that, our protagonist is dealt physical abuse from his father and emotional neglect from his downtrodden mother. All male role models are drunk or violent. Women are polarised as either submissive or manipulative – objects of desire or worthless. This is the America that built Charles Bukowski.
The artistry of it though, merging simplistic child-like prose with deft adult wit when presenting his earliest years (“the legs of the people were not interesting, not like the tablecloth which hung down, not like the table leg, not like the sunlight”) which later develops into prose pelted with teenage angst and frustration (gathered around me were the weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their company through life”), finally maturing into a shrewd and somewhat bitter critique of a world that was not made for him (“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A goddamn nation of arseholes”). This progression of writing style, channeled through a first-person pseudonym makes this coming-of-age story unique in that it remains untainted by a retrospective lens. Bukowski doesn’t gift us any objectivity or authorial insight into how he reflects on this time. The memories are presented to us as raw as in real-time. He forces us to feel the ferocity of his rage. To be tormented by his frustration. Corrupted by his bitterness. To feel a deep disgust and revulsion, which along with the crippling self-pity, he all too often feels for himself. We are not given the space to sympathise with him, instead we are given reason to despise him.
It reads at times like the origin story of an incel. His flirtation with nazism is deeper than an act of anti-establishment rebellion. It reveals how individuals pushed to the fringes of society, disillusioned and forgotten by the state, are vulnerable to extremism. Complicated further by a German heritage, and society’s condemnation of Hitler feeling like yet another personal attack. Bukowski’s alter-ego is an unloved boy turned resentful young man who refuses to take ownership of his increasingly reckless behaviour – after trashing his room in a drunken brawl for the second time he claims: “it really hadn’t been my fault”. The irony being that everything that came before it – the economic hardship, the bullying, the abuse – really hadn’t been his fault, yet the weight of the grudge he holds against the world prevents him from moving forward. He is unable to make any meaningful relationships and sabotages any kindness afforded to him. His final friend, “you’re the best I’ve known” is shipped off to war with tragic finality. As I said, it’s pretty bleak.
If we are trying to work out what Bukowski is trying to communicate to us through Ham on Rye, the best insight we get is from the dedication: “for all the fathers”. The young Chinaski/Bukowski wrote stories because “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.” As much as it tells us about the construction of masculinity then - it stands as a commentary on the continuing damage the patriarchy inflicts on individuals, shapeshifting through the generations but still: it endures.
It’s a hard book to ‘enjoy’. An even harder book to recommend. But there is no doubt that Bukowski is a writer.
Bukowski presents us with a boy born into the depression era. A time of economic hardship, disillusionment and the collapse of the American Dream. On top of that, our protagonist is dealt physical abuse from his father and emotional neglect from his downtrodden mother. All male role models are drunk or violent. Women are polarised as either submissive or manipulative – objects of desire or worthless. This is the America that built Charles Bukowski.
The artistry of it though, merging simplistic child-like prose with deft adult wit when presenting his earliest years (“the legs of the people were not interesting, not like the tablecloth which hung down, not like the table leg, not like the sunlight”) which later develops into prose pelted with teenage angst and frustration (gathered around me were the weak instead of the strong, the ugly instead of the beautiful, the losers instead of the winners. It looked like it was my destiny to travel in their company through life”), finally maturing into a shrewd and somewhat bitter critique of a world that was not made for him (“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A goddamn nation of arseholes”). This progression of writing style, channeled through a first-person pseudonym makes this coming-of-age story unique in that it remains untainted by a retrospective lens. Bukowski doesn’t gift us any objectivity or authorial insight into how he reflects on this time. The memories are presented to us as raw as in real-time. He forces us to feel the ferocity of his rage. To be tormented by his frustration. Corrupted by his bitterness. To feel a deep disgust and revulsion, which along with the crippling self-pity, he all too often feels for himself. We are not given the space to sympathise with him, instead we are given reason to despise him.
It reads at times like the origin story of an incel. His flirtation with nazism is deeper than an act of anti-establishment rebellion. It reveals how individuals pushed to the fringes of society, disillusioned and forgotten by the state, are vulnerable to extremism. Complicated further by a German heritage, and society’s condemnation of Hitler feeling like yet another personal attack. Bukowski’s alter-ego is an unloved boy turned resentful young man who refuses to take ownership of his increasingly reckless behaviour – after trashing his room in a drunken brawl for the second time he claims: “it really hadn’t been my fault”. The irony being that everything that came before it – the economic hardship, the bullying, the abuse – really hadn’t been his fault, yet the weight of the grudge he holds against the world prevents him from moving forward. He is unable to make any meaningful relationships and sabotages any kindness afforded to him. His final friend, “you’re the best I’ve known” is shipped off to war with tragic finality. As I said, it’s pretty bleak.
If we are trying to work out what Bukowski is trying to communicate to us through Ham on Rye, the best insight we get is from the dedication: “for all the fathers”. The young Chinaski/Bukowski wrote stories because “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.” As much as it tells us about the construction of masculinity then - it stands as a commentary on the continuing damage the patriarchy inflicts on individuals, shapeshifting through the generations but still: it endures.
It’s a hard book to ‘enjoy’. An even harder book to recommend. But there is no doubt that Bukowski is a writer.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Violence