Ham on Rye
Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years. Written in Bukowski's characteristically straightforward prose, the novel tells of his coming-of-age in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Setting. Like his previous works, "Ham on Rye" is set in Los Angeles where the author grew up. Bukowski keeps his descriptions of his hometown grounded in reality, paying more attention to the people that make up Los Angeles  than to the city itself. This type of description does not venerate or idealize the city, a contrast to other so-called "Los Angeles Novels". Scenes outside of Los Angeles show Chinaski as an intruder, as with an early scene where he and his family are chased out of an orange grove. The story takes place at home, at his different schools, at the doctor's office (for his never-ending acne treatments) and at various other locales around town. Plot. The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941. It begins with Chinaski 's early memories. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the school years and into young adulthood. Chinaski relates that he has an abusive father, and his mother does nothing to stop his father's abuse. She is, in fact, a victim of her husband's brutality as well. Henry is not athletic but wants to be and therefore tries hard to improve. Football is difficult for him, but he enjoys the violence that comes with it. He has only slightly better results in baseball. As Chinaski progresses through grammar school, the focus of Henry's attention  is on sports, violence, and girls. As Henry grinds his way through Junior High School, he discovers the manifold pleasures of alcohol and masturbation. As Henry begins High School, his father, who is experiencing downward inter-generational socioeconomic mobility, makes him go to a private school where he fits in even less amongst all the well-heeled, spoiled rich kids with their flashy, colorful, convertible sports cars and beautiful girlfriends. To make matters worse, Chinaski develops horrible acne so severe that he has to undergo painful, and mostly ineffective, treatments, essentially becoming a human guinea pig for various experiments thought  up by his uninterested doctors. The reader eventually follows Chinaski to college and reads of Henry's attempt to find a worthwhile occupation. Protagonist. Like his previous autobiographical novels, "Ham on Rye" centers on the life of Henry Chinaski, this time during his childhood and teenage years. Throughout the course of the novel, Bukowski develops his misanthropic anti-hero character that is seen in his other works like "Post Office" and "Hollywood". Chinaski, growing up poor in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, is shown developing into a sarcastic loner. This stems in large part from his home life, in  which he is beaten frequently (often for no reason) by his father. He becomes alienated from the children at school simply for somehow being different in a way that none of them could ever coherently articulate. The post-facto rationalizations they concoct for their hostility, however, involve his inability to play sports and his being viscerally revolted by cruelty to animals, the latter being one of the favorite past-times of neighborhood men and boys alike. The grotesque-looking boils of his acne vulgaris will eventually turn their excuses for hating him into an ostracizing trifecta. Chinaski has been compared  to both Frankenstein's monster and Kafka's Gregor Samsa, because of his alienation and outcast resulting from his "monstrous" appearance. He often resorts to violence when confronted with those who alienate him, giving him a tough guy image to his peers. However, he rarely is completely confident with his own abilities and often second-guesses himself. Themes. As a prequel to Bukowski's previous novels, "Ham on Rye" depicts the origin and development of many of the reoccurring themes of his work as well as the persona of Henry Chinaski. Some of the major themes: The Chinaskis. Like Henry , the rest of the Chinaskis are modeled after Bukowski's own family. For example, Henry's parents, like Bukowski's, had met in Germany after World War I.