William S. Burroughs, not Edgar Rice Burroughs, that is. While I’ve not read everything Burroughs wrote, I’ve read what’s generally considered his best works and I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with a style similar to his. Any suggestions?
Hmmm, you might find Bukowski interesting. He’s a drunk rather than a druggy.
Burroughs is unique, which might be a good thing. But try some Thomas Pynchon.
Of recent authors you might try Iain Sinclair–White Chappell Scarlet Tracings, Downriver, Lights Out for the Territories are the best places to start.
Alexander Trocchi, the Scottish writer, is worth trying too: Cain’s Book.
Oik. Bukowski? Hmm. I’ll refrain from commenting on Bukowski in any detail (how do you spell the sound of emesis?), but I can’t imagine why someone who appreciates Ballard would necessarily like Bukowski. I mean, I’m sure there are those who do, but I can’t see that one would suggest the other. Stylistically at least, which is the point of the OP.
And Pynchon is elaborately dense, something that might be said about Burroughs as well, but their approaches and their philosophies are worlds apart.
Depends on what you like about Burroughs: his writing style? That kind of crazy-person-on-the-streetcorner visionary flow? If that’s the case, try Mark Leyner, whose imagery and associations fly at you with a similar sense of overwhelming complexity and inventiveness. But Leyner is more, well, loopy than Burroughs, and his books are better described as romps than descents into hell. My favorite of his is My Cousin, My Gastroenerologist:[ul]I asked the waitress about the soup du jour and she said that it was primordial soup–which is ammonia and methane mixed with ocean water in the presence of lightning. Oh I’ll take a tureen of that embryonic broth, I say, constraint giving way to exuberance–but as soon as she vanishes my spirit immediately sags because the ambience is so malevolent. . . . So I get right back into my cary and narcissistically comb my thick jet-black hair in the rearview mirror and I check the guidebook.[/ul]**James McManus’s **Chin Music is about the best book I’ve ever read of that style; that kind of fever-dream cyberpunk collage. But his other novels are mostly more straightforward.
J.G. Ballard’s prose style is pretty conventional–if masterful–but his philosophy of life and culture probably come closer to Burroughs’s than anyone: they both see the world as a violent, dangerous place, made so by man; they both see human society as voluptuously, indulgently self-destructive and ultimately doomed; the twentieth century is a neverending Roman orgy while the city burns kind of thing. His autobiography, Empire of the Sun was filmed (badly) by Spielberg; his masterpiece, IMO, is Crash, which was filmed by David Cronenberg. Probably my favorite, besides Crash, is The Atrocity Exhibition, which is not a novel but a collection of short pieces (preface by** Burroughs**) with such titles as “Notes Toward a Mental Breakdown,” “Tolerances of the Human Face,” and “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan.”
Probably the writer whose stuff comes closest to Burroughs in both style and substance is Kathy Acker. (* Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective and the Burning Bombing of America: The Destruction of the U.S; Empire of the Senseless; Blood and Guts in Highschool; Pussy, the Pirate King*). She’s been described as “the next generation’s Burroughs” by one critic, and Burroughs is inevitably brought up in any discussion of Ackers’s work. From Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream:[ul]From her neck to her knees she wore a pale or puke green paper. That was her armor. She had chosen it specifically, for she knew that this world’s conditions are so rough for any single person, even a rich person, that person has to make do with what she can find: this’s no world for idealism. Example: the green paper would tear as soon as the abortion began.[/ul]I hope you read all of these; I for one would be interested in your reactions.
Urp. Here’s the link for *The Atrocity Exhibition.*
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve read Leyner’s MC,MG and was severely disappointed by it. He has Burroughs’s style down pat, but he lacks Burrough’s biting social commentary. I’ll have to check out the others, though. I think that Burroughs was a fan of Bukowski, but I’m not certain.
Grrrrrr!!!