Ham, Rye: "Ham on Rye"

Unfortunately for me and the people with whom I interacted with last week, thanks to Bukowski I felt suicidal and depressed for most of the 9 or 10 days finishing the novel, consequently suffering from post-traumatic syndrome afterwards due the gloomy and grotesque narrative of this monster.

The plot is basically refers to a “pseudo-autobiography” of the author, embodied throughout the life of Henri Chinaski (note his real name is Henri Charles Bukowski, so figure it out.). The tone is somewhere between gloomy and disdainful, considering the sentence structures and word choosing are crude and omnipresent with hatred and repulsion. The sequence of events cover his early childhood until his early adulthood, and is written in first person narrative, aiding the personal tone of the piece overall.

Although post-Great War, and pre-WWII  America is a definite background veil in the story, 1930-1940’s L.A becomes the most prominent setting in the story overall, establishing the entire ambiance of the novel in an universal sense, to the point of representing a continuous metaphor for the narrator.

I would resume the novel as: “life in its bare reality”, since Bukowski tends to reduce his narration to that point, adding some nihilism and vomit-like features to that narrative stage, next to an intermittent space of nothing. Reduced literary devices are employed in the novel, mainly due the nature of the narration, as explained previously. However, due the informality of the piece, many descriptions and conversations are attached to simple oxymorons and allegories: “She had her skirt pulled specially high, it was terrifying, beautiful, wondrous and dirty. Such legs, such thighs, we were very close to the magic” (p. 104).

When referring to literary elements in the piece, there is an overuse in imagery, present and employed throughout the whole novel: “I saw her huge white upper flanks, rivers of flesh. There was a large protruding wart on the inside of her left thigh. And there was a jungle of tangled hair between her legs, but it was not bright yellow like the hair on her head, it was brown and shot with grey, old like some sick bush dying, lifeless and sad” (p. 191). Additionally, as a constant in the novel, Chinanski himself transcends or better yet, “relates metaphysically" to the dramatic, tragic and comic irony in the novel, acquiring himself the condition of being extremely ironical and cynical at the same time:

“...lifeless and sad.

I stood up.

I’ve got to go, Mrs. Hatcher.

...to think, somebody had suicided for that.

The night suddenly looked good. I walked along toward my parents’ house” (p.191).

The situation overall can establish Chinaski as a character: a continuous juxtaposition of irony and cynicism, the situation with his friends mother reflects his sensibility (dramatic irony) hidden by a shell of sarcasm.

Long story short, I accept feeling certain connection with Chinaski for being (and living) the classic archetype of the teenage years, most of it being trashy and disdainful off course, but above of everything standing as torn and real as possible.