Sunday, March 15, 2009

What I Just Read: Ham On Rye

Seeing as how I started this book on a plane and finished it before gaining internet access you the readers shall receive one post and one post only pertaining this book and you will not complain about it!

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski is like all other Bukowski novels, an in depth narration of a specific period of life of Henry Chinaski. If Post Office was about his days working for the US Postal Service, and Women about his drunken late in life sexcapades then Ham on Rye is about Chinaski's less than desireable adolescance.

Though an enjoyable novel on it's on Ham on Rye is best for it's insight into why Chinaski becomes the sex-crazed, poem writing, society hating, lazy, horse betting drunkard that he is in other books. I'd rank it 2nd to Post Office out of the three Bukowski books I have read.

As for the cover, like all Bukowski books, I enjoy it imensly (an opinion Katy and I do not share). Being one of the three republished works, Ham on Rye has a vibratnly colored drawing of what the book is about: a young kid fighting his way to adulthood.

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