Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Black Sparrow Press
Date Published: 1982-09
ISBN-13:9780876855577ISBN:0876855575
Description: LIKE NEW SOFTCOVER. Size: trade paperback; In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's ... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Ecco Pr
Date Published: 2007-03-01
ISBN-13:9780061177583ISBN:006117758X
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780061177583. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Ecco
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780061177583ISBN:006117758X
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Black Sparrow Pr
Date Published: 1982-09-01
ISBN-13:9780876855577ISBN:0876855575
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780876855577. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Ecco
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780876855577ISBN:0876855575
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Edition.
Publisher: BLACK SPARROW PRESS., SANTA BARBARA
Date Published: 1982
Description: Promotional BROADSIDE. (17" x 10") Fine on a single yellow sheet printed in blue, yellow, red & black. (Neatly folded in quarters) Suitable for framing. Actually Broadside Flyer/No.9 (B) read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780876855584ISBN:0876855583
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. Audience: General/trade. Slight age discoloration, small sticker residue on cover, a couple of small scratches on back, small spot on edge. Otherwise solid and very nice, no creasing on spine. Hardly looks read. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Black Sparrow Books
Date Published: 9/1/1982
ISBN-13:9780876855584ISBN:0876855583
Description: Fine. 0876855583 26th printing, pictorial hardcover with clear plastic coating, clean & square....All books are packaged with care to protect the corners. Ships same or next bussness day. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Half Cloth
Publisher: Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780876855591ISBN:0876855591
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. 8vo. Signed by Author. 292 pp. One of 100 copies numbered and signed and with an original painting by Bukowski bound in, this being number 14. Bound in half blue cloth with light yellow boards printed in tourquoise, yellow, black, grey and red on front cover yellow, red, yellow and tourquoise on back cover. Light yellow paper label on spine printed in red and turquoise. Turquoise endsheets. Tissue guards on both sides of painting which is tipped in between copyright page ... read more
"This is my first experience reading Bukowski - I apparently stumbled across his name 5 years ago when searching for something interesting to give my daughter for Christmas. I had never heard of him before, which is strange because he has a huge list of books. This was an easy read from the perspective of it was quick, short chapters. The character is someone you want to hug, but that would be most unwelcome. The story takes place in the 30's and Hank is a sort of gritty, uncharming, defensive, pugilistic-minded fellow. Not happy with his life, but sees no way out. From that aspect, it was a difficult story because our "hero" never gets to be a "hero". Perhaps that's a spoiler... But I still enjoyed it and now will be seeking out more Bukowski books...especially some poetry because I loved the way Sean Penn described Bukowski's writing during an "Inside the Actor's Studio" interview. He said "Bukowski is us after the toilet and before the shower." I think that's awesome..."
"It's not cool to like Bukowski, particularly if you have an MFA in English. Which is why I thought I might enjoy Ham on Rye. The results were mixed.
I've always enjoyed the minimalist diction of Bukowski and Vonnegut; that seems to be the greatest objection by dorks who say things like, "I've outgrown him," or, "I read all his stuff in high school." Though Carver is always given a pass. Hipsters love Raymond Carver.
But I digress.
Bukowski's style coupled with what is basically A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man written by a Depression-era sociopath, makes the first three quarters of the novel quite enjoyable. The narrator, Henry Chinaski, is sympathetic as a self-aware but not self-deprecating misfit. And his failure to adequately socialize is a badge that, over time, he begins to wear with pride.
It's when he fully evolves into, well, Charles Bukowski that I begin to lose interest. I was never too fond of the autobiographical Bukowski. Alocholism isn't very exciting. Proclamations of your dedication to eschwing traditional American morals is entertaining for a few chapters, but not for a significant portion of your entire body of work."
"Bukowski comes clean on some things in this book, perhaps because, dropping back to childhood years, he couldn't help himself. Some things must have just bubbled up despite his outsider persona (more on this below). In this one we not only learn about his awful father and miserable upbringing, but about some of his early influences, as well as some writers and writing styles he recoiled from. He's more human in Ham on Rye.
Bukowski hates pretense. It's what makes him fascinating, and laudable. He hates it with the passion of a Celine, another misanthrope who knew how to write. And yet in this book, with its smattering of vulnerable details, we get a hint that in other books, tough guy Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego, is not an entirely pretense-free construct. Which is too bad, because the scant criticism Bukowski gets (he has mostly fans, few detractors)--that there's no uplift, no redemption, in his writing--probably derives from this missing slice of his life.
And of course it should be said that Bukowski can be nasty. His takedown of Henry Miller in another book, for instance--a transparent aka for the then old man, living in Pacific Palisades, supposedly trying to cadge money from his younger visitor--gave me the creeps. Why savage your precursors?
Back to Ham on Rye: somewhere along the way I realized I was reading this novel/memoir as if it were a noir mystery--a Jim Thompson, say--which is a genre I like, but whose limitations I understand. And I realized too that I'd lowered my expectations, to accept Bukowsky for what he is: a very good writer, but not a great one. Hence the four stars."
"Bukowski's semi-autobiographical tale isn't such a downer, as some have stated before. Sure, there are moments of despair and at times the dark comedic tone pushes the limits of what is right to chuckle at. But what lies under his unrelenting pessimism is what only what conflicts humanity: the innocence that is far too often stolen from us, replaced by the bitter and often ironic facts of life. This is told from the point of view of someone shunned by others by looks alone, and see how men can be pushed to do horrible things just by being byproducts of our civilization. The burning question he leaves us with is one which many people may not want to acknowledge, but one which we all must face sometime. When do we decide to let the world make our choices for us? At some times you have a pivotal choice in your life, which can lead to either something hopefully positive, or (something easily within the narrator's range) something negative. His final choice is a testament to what many people may feel upon learning what's best isn't what's always best for you. Just live with it."
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