Bukowski

People have been telling me for years that I should read Charles Bukowski. Sven was telling me way back in year 93 that I needed to read this guy. And yet I didn't. I blame it on my circumstantial reading habits. By that I mean, unless I get it as a gift, stumble on it at the used bookstore, or in the library, I probably won't read it. For someone with a blog named BAMOF, I really should be more proactive about the books I read.

Anyway, Joanna told me that I should start with Ham on Rye, so I picked it up. I'm happy to say that it is excellent. It pokes fun at the coming of age story, while serving as a nihilistic coming of age story of its own. The narrator, Henry Chianski, has horrible parents, lives in a neighborhood where petty violence is common, and is beset by a 99% worst percentile case of all body acne. If the big questions of the coming of age novel is asking who you are and what are you going to do with yourself, Henry finds out he doesn't really like himself or society and he retreats into an alcohol haze. I thought by the end, the character, based on Bukowski himself, starts to feel a little too sorry for himself, but throughout he questions why people do the things they do.

What I liked best was the black humor that Bukowski manages. The bad experience after bad experience that Henry endures could be ridiculous, but the matter of fact presentation makes it work. And until the end, when he begins to retreat into himself, Henry manages to handle the bad situations well, aside from occasionally beating the crap out of people.