Charles Bukowski - Ham on Rye

As I said in a previous post, I made the decision to explore the Bukowski phenomenon. I had trouble choosing from the 11 Bukowski books on the shelf at Borders. Thanks to my own bad judgment and recommendations from nobody, I chose a novel called Women. I was not impressed however I was intrigued. Why were there 11 books on the shelf and fewer books in stock by Updike? Or Bellow? Or other Pulitzer Prize winning authors? So my studies continued.

After my original post I was directed to read Ham on Rye which features the same character as the one in Women, Henry Chinaski, in his earlier years (which helps define his adult life in the second book--which by the way was written first). I like continuity in characters which is one of the reasons I loved the Rabbit series by Updike. So I returned to Borders and bought Ham on Rye. The appeal was immediate and I found myself unable to put it down. This, I thought, is a book that could make a writer great. (Just my opinion, of course.) There were certain parallels to Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye although I haven't read that in so long I may be wrong about that.

Did you know that the 2005 movie, "Factotum" was based on a novel by Charles Bukowski? I did not. On the imdb website Fac-to-tum scored 6.5. Not having seen the movie or read the book, I will not comment further.

I would like to share some of my favorite quotes from the book, Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. Since it is written in the first person they were spoken or thought by the lead character, Henry Chinaski.

"My spoon was bent so that if I wanted to eat I had to pick the spoon up with my right hand. If I picked it up with my left hand, the spoon bent away from my mouther. I wanted to pick the spoon up with my left hand."

"I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish."

"One of the failures of Democracy is that the common vote guarantees a common leader who then leads us to a common apathetic predicatability!"

"Never trust a man with a perfectly-trimmed mustache."

"Dying in a war never stopped wars from happening."

Keep in mind, these are quotes from the book. This just gives you a peak into Bukowski's character. When I read a book, I always seek out sentences that can stand alone as quotes, out of context. These are the ones that stood out for me. If you disagree with any of the quotes, don't let that stop you from reading the book. These are just five short quotes out of an entire book. I rate the book 5 *****.