Why was it called 'Ham On Rye'? (1 Viewer)

[ExPresidents]

I just read it. And it's bugging the shit out of me. I have theories, but I'd like to know why Buk titled it with that moniker.

 

[Bruno Dante]

Alludes to 'The Catcher in the Rye' I believe as it's sort of Bukowski's version of that book. As well as making reference to his German ancestry and the type of stuff he would have eaten whilst growing up.

 

[mjp]

Or one of the hundred other theories in this thread.



That thread is the first result for "Ham on Rye" in the new search function, over there to the left. That search is about 800 million times better than the native forum search. FYI.

 

[ExPresidents]

Except I already read that; all of them failed. As does your platitudes.

 

[d gray]

hey! i recognize that brand of illiteracy. i didn't know george bush was a bukowski fan!

 

[chronic]

As does your platitudes.

That should be "as do your platitudes." Plural, no new sentence.


I swear, bukowski.net seems to be becoming a tard magnet.

 

[mjp]

Except I already read that; all of them failed.

If you don't know what the title means, how can any explanation fail? They all succeed, since you don't know the answer.

Your response just failed. I'm going to put it on failblog.org, along with your email address and social security number.

 

[Cowboy]

The german translation of Ham on Rye called "The worst one still comes or nearly one youth" . That`s for me a good title because Buk write from his childhood , youth and the first works of his life .

 

[mjp]

I swear, bukowski.net seems to be becoming a tard magnet.

We could always change it to a magnet school (rather than a public school). But then we might become bored with out own awesomeness.

Think of the magnetized tards like flavor...a little freshly ground pepper in your ramen noodles. Or like monkeys that follow you around all day doing funny things that occasionally make you laugh.

 

[lemuel]

so, where should i post this?... anyhow, i believe buke chose to title his pedagogic novel after the most ordinary of sandwiches to emphasize that a child raised amidst brutality and ignorance was/is all too normal. his story was anything but exceptional. his survival and success through literature is..

 

[Bukfan]

his pedagogic novel

Pedagogic novel? Funny, I've never seen it as a pedagogic novel, but I guess it depends on how one defines a novel as being pedagogic...

 

[poptop]

Pass the mustard

A metaphor means something different to each person, but since this is an autobiographical novel, I always imagined that, growing up, Bukowski felt like a helpless slab of meat trapped between two slices of rough German rye, his parents - and the fate of a sandwich is to be...devoured. Fitting description of his childhood.

 

[conl]

I thought Buk explicitly said he called it that because he felt like a piece of meat stuck between his parents.