Behind the Boils

Behind the Boils

A perspective of Bukoski's Ham on Rye By: Matthew Dobson

      In a world of bright and shiny, picture perfect people, there are bound to be many individuals

who are smarter, richer, and more successful than us. One point Mr. Bukowski makes

consistently throughout "Ham on Rye," is that no matter how untouchable, classy, or perfect a

person may seem, they will at some point be squatting over, squeezing shit from their asshole.

Bukowski proves not only that we are all human, and playing the same futile game, but that in

this maniacally pointless parade we call life, nothing is sacred. Almost by accident, through the

realization that in the world of Henry Chinaski nothing is special, the reader becomes

increasingly aware that everything is.

     Throughout the story, situations and metaphors help construct the extreme alienation

of our Henry as a social outcast. Though the reader may not be an outsider to society,

everyone has felt at least some degree of isolation, which makes Henry's horrendously lonely

state of being quite identifiable. While experiencing life through the eyes of such a tragic

hero, there is an overwhelming desire to root for Henry. Henry Chinaski's survival somehow

represents our struggle, however different it may be, to endure within a hostile environment.

The first blow inflicted more shock than pain. The second hurt more.

Each blow which followed increased the pain. At first I was aware of the walls,

the toilet, the tub. Finally I couldn't see anything. As he beat me, he berated me,

but I couldn't understand the words. I thought about his roses in the yard. I

thought about his automobile in the garage. I tried not to scream. I knew that if I

did scream he might stop, but knowing this, and knowing his desire for me to

scream, prevented me.

      Each time Henry survives one of his father's sadistic beatings, there is a dark spiritual

cleansing in the reader. Henry's ability to endure such atrocities grows as he becomes

increasingly resilient, and we grow with him, experiencing catharsis the whole way.

      Henry develops a horrible skin condition which covers much of his body with boils and

scars. This is a very physical representation of his separation from the accepted. Like  

the lepers of biblical days, Henry feels like an outcast more than ever. Here author Ernest

Fontana very elegantly sums up the meaning of these boils and scars.

                        Bukowski extrapolates Henry's acne into a powerful metaphor for his

isolation from the mythic California of the American Dream, which Kevin Star

identifies as charged with human hope, as linked imaginatively with the most

compelling of American myths, the pursuit of happiness. Because of his incurable

acne, Chinaski is never permitted this illusory hope.

       It is Henry's crushing lack of hope, which will leave readers grateful for the hopes

and dreams they do possess. Henry is so ashamed and alienated that he fantasizes about solitude.

When Henry's face is covered in bandages, it gives him a brief sense of power. No longer a

specific sad person with a horrible ailment, he is now an anonymous,

bandaged super villain.

I looked into the mirror. It was great. My whole head was bandaged. I was all

white. Nothing could be seen but my eyes, my mouth, and my ears, and some

tufts of hair sticking up at the top of my head. I was hidden. It was wonderful. I

stood and lit a cigarette and glanced about the lobby. Some in-patients were

sitting about reading magazines and newspapers. I felt very exceptional and a bit

evil.

        This concept is relatable by all. There is always some degree of personal imprisonment,

which anonymity can release. It is much like a socially awkward teen who is “cool” within the

online community, or an amputee stuck in bed  who finds a disability-free escape in an online

video game.   

         Henry's consistently hard-knock life leaves him with some bitter attitude toward people

that are happy. Henry’s thoughts on religion are clearly influenced by his circumstance. There is

no doubt the following quote is Bukowski’s own personal feeling toward religion. “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.”

          Although Henry is dark and cynical about many things, there are several circumstances

where he encounters or creates something that he believes in. In these brief fleeting moments we

see the inspiration and light which contributed to the incredible body of work he would later

accomplish. That is if we are assuming Henry Chinaski is in fact Bukowski himself, which I feel

safe in doing. There is a certain air of honesty which can only be felt when something is true.

Here are some of Henry’s thoughts on his earliest writing.

The Baron went on doing magical things. Half the notebook was filled with 

Baron Von Himmlen. It made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man 

needed somebody. There wasn’t anybody around, so you had to make up 

somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn’t make-believe 

or cheating. The other way was make believe and cheating: living your life 

without a man like him around.

          The statement “living your life without a man like him around,” is very likely referencing

Henry’s own sense of feeling cheated, and having no real male role model, or any role model. It

is in these moments when Henry actually experiences the happiness of creation, that we see there

is a chance for him to have a soul. Despite impossible odds, Henry creates truth within a world

of shit. It is pleasing to see that Henry is able to be moved by literature, again a glimpse into the

mind of Bukowski himself.

Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth

first encountered can be very funny. When someone else’s truth is the same as

your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that’s great. I read my books

at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all

those good lines while suffocating. It was magic.

          Regarding the many social limitations within which Henry and his family are living, there

are several metaphors.  A key one is an encounter toward the beginning of the book during one

of the family outings in the old Model T. Ernest Fontana describes it in his criticism on Ham On

Rye:

Many of these characteristics are evident in Bukowski’s most recent novel Ham

on Rye (1983) The two extreme geographical limits of this bildungsroman are the

orange groves of the San Bernardino foothills and the beach at Venice. Both

function as illusory paradisal loci in which Henry Chinaski is presented as an

intruder. As a child, Chinaski accompanied his immigrant parents on excursions

in their Model-T through the San Bernardino foothills where they enjoyed

picnicking amid miles and miles of orange trees always either in blossom or full

of oranges. One Sunday, Chinaski’s father leads the family into the groves to 

pick oranges. The owner of the grove discovers them and, brandishing a shot 

gun, expels them: “I’m the law here. Now move.” He forces the Chinaskis to 

leave behind the oranges they picked and warns them not to return. “Or next 

time it might not go so easy for you.” This episode defines the territorial and 

social limits that Chinaski and his family are confined to. The paradisal 

abundance of Southern California is forbidden them, and Chinaski’s father, 

who loses his job as a milkman during the depression, becomes an increasingly 

embittered, frightend, and tyrannical father.

          This is a particularly meaningful metaphor. There are beautiful orange blossoms all

around, yielding so much fruit, that it could never all be used. Yet despite the abundance, the

extremely close proximity, and the beauty, the fruit itself is untouchable. So right from his youth

Henry’s education in being an outsider is perpetuated by situations like these.

          Consistently we see a world portrayed which Henry Chinaski cannot be a part of. Due to

his disfigurement, his economic class, and the many harsh years which have turned his view of

people sour, Henry cannot take part in the world around him.  On a trip to the beach with his

friend Jimmy, his acne prevented Henry from socializing. Here are his thoughts as he watched

Jimmy hanging out with a few girls on the beach.

Jim was splashing water on the girls. He was the water God and they loved him.

He was the possibility and the promise. He was great. He knew how to do it. I 


had read many books but he had read a book that I had never read. He was an 


artist with his little pair of bathing trunks and his balls and his wicked little look 


and his round ears. He was the best. I couldn’t challenge him anymore than I 


could have challenged that big son-of-a-bitch in the green coupe with the 


looker whose hair flowed in the wind. They both had got what they deserved. 


I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the green ocean of life.

          Much like Jesus, Henry Chinaski suffers so we don’t have to. It is very easy to feel sorry

for Henry, and in these moments it is also easy to feel good that we don’t have to bare his full

burden. We all are, however, caught in the Henry Chinaski cycle to some degree, and it would 


do well to remember not to let circumstance cut us off from the light. There is always a million

reasons to feel inferior or left out, but if we remember the lessons from the literary greats we

don’t ever have to. Henry Chinaski alienated himself that day on the beach, because of his

perceived shortcomings, and in his crucifixion, our shortcomings are forgiven. We can enjoy

the day despite the reasons not to.

        Another recurring metaphor is the spider, it’s web, and the flies caught in them.  Henry 


is undoubtedly caught in the web of circumstance, and there are many venomous spiders in his

world. Henry learns quickly that the only way to survive is to crush them. Fontana addresses


this in his review:

One of the recurrent motifs in Ham on Rye is that of the spider and the fly.

Henry’s adversaries, from his father and the bullies of his childhood to Jimmy

Newhall and the English teacher at Los Angeles City College who makes the

class recite Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics to improve their diction, are the spiders.

The spider web becomes the metaphor for the depressed working class Los

Angeles of Henry’s childhood, a region of failed hopes and petty tyranny.

Although Henry cannot fully extricate himself from this web, he comes to realize

that the fly does not have to accept passively the role of the spider’s victim.

          It is great when Henry decides not to be the victim, and stands up for himself. Having 


been perpetually beaten on mentally and physically from childhood, he becomes stronger and 


stronger as he grows up. This strength and resilience manifests itself in an extraordinary way 


during the last beating Henry’s father gives him.

“Let’s go,” said my father, and I walked into the bathroom. He got the strop

down. “Take down your pants and shorts,” he said. I didn’t do it. He reached in


front of me, yanked my belt open, unbuttoned me and yanked my pants down. 

He pulled down my shorts. The strop landed.  It was the same, the same 


explosive sound, the same pain. “You’re going to kill your mother!” he 


screamed. He hit me again. But the tears weren’t coming. My eyes were 


strangely dry. I thought about killing him. That there must be a way to kill 


him. In a couple of years I could beat him to death. But I wanted him now. 


He wasn’t much of anything. I must have been adopted. He hit me again. 


The pain was still there but the fear of it was gone. The strop landed again.

The room no longer blurred. I could see everything clearly. My father 


seemed to sense the difference in me and he began to lash me harder, again 


and again, but the more he beat me the less I felt. It was almost as if he was 


the one who was helpless. Something had occurred, something had changed. 


My father stopped, puffing, and I heard him hanging up the strop. He walked 


to the door. I turned. “Hey,” I said. My father turned and looked at me. 


“Give me a couple more,” I told him, “if it makes you feel any better.”

          At the point in the story where this final parental beating occurs, Henry is only in Jr. High.

This is a fairly young age to be standing up to, and capable of overpowering the biggest 


directing force in life. Although Henry is still blind to the nature of the world, his ability to 


confront fear is exceptional. This natural inclination to survive in spite of un-survivable 


conditions, is what keeps Henry from suicide, and eventually must have helped him write 


his first great works.

          Finally, toward the end of the book we come upon a passage written not by the innocent

little Henry Chinaski, who is the victim of fate and circumstance, but by the Henry who has

undergone a dynamic change. Still not quite the epitome of virtue, there is no doubt that Mr.

Chinaski has undergone one of the most hellish journeys from Innocence to Experience ever

endured. The major issues in literature: love, blood, sex, death, and money, Chinaski was beaten

and bruised by all of them. Here we see his summed up version of the world.

I quickly became disenchanted with military proceedings. The others shined their

shoes brightly and seemed to go through maneuvers with relish. I couldn’t see

myself crouched down in a football helmet, shoulder pads laced on, decked out in

blue and white, #69, trying to block some mean son-of-a-bitch from across town,

trying to move out some brute with tacos on his breath so that the son of the

district attorney could slant off left tackle for six yards. The problem was you had

to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, 


they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 


most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving

automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible,

like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.

          While Ham on Rye leaves Henry’s future uncertain, history does not. During the worst 


and most torturous moments of Henry’s life, the reader should remember the character is based 


more than loosely on Charles Bukowski. So despite the violent and belligerently psychotic 


behavior, and alcoholism and a complete unacceptability, Mr. Bukowki found a way to not only

fit in, but to become a fond and cherished memory among millions of literature fans. This

coming of age story, as horrendous as it is, rests infinitely more identifiable than other more cute

and shiny such stories. The tormented soul of Henry Chinaski lives on to write another page, and

so must we live through adversity toward our own destinies.

          Ham on Rye portrays a view of a world not glimmering with opportunity, or ripe with

possibility, but drowning in the untouchable dreams of broken men. It is in his ability to relish

such desolate corners of forsaken America, that Henry Chinaski ultimately finds his voice.

In each encounter with Henry’s dismal world, a magical thing happens in the reader’s world

outside the book. Juxtaposed against this condemned man in a dark and hopeless 1920’s L.A.,

the reader’s own world will shine with promise. This appreciation for the simplest things in life

can only be gained by reading literary greats like Bukowski, or by taking the circumstantial

journey to Desolation Row for one’s self.

They’re selling postcards of the hanging

They’re painting the passports brown

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors

The circus is in town

Here comes the blind commissioner

They’ve got him in a trance

One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker

The other is in his pants

And the riot squad they’re restless

They need somewhere to go

As Lady and I look out tonight

From Desolation Row

(Bob Dylan)

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel

you were famous, your heart was a legend.

You told me again you preferred handsome men

but for me you would make an exception.

And clenching your fist for the ones like us

who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,

you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,

we are ugly but we have the music."

(Leonard Cohen)

References:

Ham on Rye (1983) by Charles Bukowski

Bukowski’s Ham on Rye and the Los Angeles Novel  - A literary criticism by Ernest Fontana

Bob Dylan – Lyrics from Desolation Row

Leonard Cohen – Poetry from Chelsea Hotel

Although not quoted these books, web archives, and authors proved indispensable to my research:

www.bukowski.net

Ham on Rye By: Meanor, Patrick, Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition

Charles Bukowski By: Boyle, William, Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition

Literature – A Portable Anthology, Second Edition, By: Gardner, Lawn, Ridl, Schakel

*Finally a special thanks to the Professor Great, David Johansson, whom without I would be exponentially more oblivious to such important literary catalysts as love, blood, sex, death, and money.*