Autobiographical: Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

Ham on Rye

by Charles Bukowski

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL:

Biographical criticism is a form of Literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their works of literature. Biographical criticism is often associated with Historical-Biographical criticism, a critical method that "sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life and times".

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographical_criticism

Biographical criticism is the practice of analyzing a literary work through 

the lens of an author’s experience. It considers the ways age, race, gender, 

family, education, and economic status inform a writer’s work. A critic 

might also examine how poems reflect personality characteristics, life 

experiences, and psychological dynamics. To understand some poems, 

readers need knowledge of the poet’s biographical facts or experiences.

SOURCE: http://www.neabigread.org/teachers_guides/lesson_plans/dickinson_lessons/dickinson_lesson_two.pdf

SYNOPSIS: 

Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck with the worst case of acne his doctors have ever seen) through to the first jobs he can't and won't hold down. In this moving story of growing up Bukowski disciplines his muscular, concentrated writing and creates a novel that distils his poetry into the finest full-length piece of prose that he ever wrote. Bukowski is often good but in Ham on Rye he's great.

Sadly, best known as the alcoholic inspiration for the film Barfly (an experience he reflected on in his book Hollywood), it is as a poet, rather than a drunk, that Bukowski should be best remembered. His bitter, caustic, direct, humane, damaged poetry reflects a life dominated by poverty and booze. His poetry stretches over many, many volumes but Bukowski also wrote great novels: all of them have many faults but the first four books he wrote shine for similar reasons. Post Office and Factotum both dissect, quite brilliantly, the life of an angry, poor man forced to do mindless jobs, pushed around and considered mindless by the fools who force him to do them. Women, as Roddy Doyle points out in his short introduction, continues the themes but focuses on the numerous women who share his hero's bed and bottle.

ANALYSIS:

The story is all about the painful childhood of a boy. It shows all his sufferings and difficulties in life. It affects the writings of the authors. It depicts his personal experiences.