Charles Bukowski's Ham on Rye and Women: a Study in Autobiographical Undercurrents

The present book aims at discussing critically the autobiographical tones in the fiction of Charles Bukowski with special reference to his two famous novels Ham on Rye and Women. An attempt has been made to examine how truly he could, through his characters and their peculiar situations express his autobiographical facts in these novels. Bukowski created a literary persona named Henry Chinaski as a vessel for expressing his alternative view of the world, to a large extent concerned with commenting on the role of the artist in the society, the stultifying dullness and conformity of the ?day-job?, the comic dimensions of sexual relationships, the often unpleasant realities of poverty and chronic drunkenness, and the constant struggle of the alienated individual to assert his non-conformist identity. The book traces the development of Chinaski?s non-conformist personality from Ham On Rye, based on Bukowski?s youth in Los Angeles during the Depression, to Women, where Bukowski focuses on relationships and sex.