I'm gonna ramble about 'literature' for a while...my various reccomendations are in no particular order and my views are pretty much in a constant flux...hope the deluge is appreciated by someone:
Edward Limonov: Why not start with the origin of my username. If you google him two things will quickly become apparent- one, he wrote for an excellent English-language Russian newspaper called The Exile (his columns are online and well worth reading) and two, in recent decades he has become involved with extremist politics and currently heads the banned 'National Bolshevik Party' in Russia. However, back in the '70s he was a samizat (underground- not through the censors, not part of the writers union) poet in the USSR. Eventually his writing brought the inevitable attention of the authorities and he went into exile, first living for some years in France before moving to New York- mainly because exiles from the USSR were offered welfare. Despite being exiled from the USSR he remained a Communist, though very much opposed to the sort of Communism in the USSR...this meant he did not really fit in with the typically very right-wing, often tsarist Soviet Diasporia in NYC...Solzhenitsyn called him a "Disgusting pervert who writes pornography".
It's Me Eddie by Edward Limonov is my favourite of his books, it's about his time in New York following the break up of his longtime relationship (the woman he went into exile with). His whole take on the cold war, Russian culture and especially US culture is fascinating. You don't really hear much about what the dissidents in the USSR- not the western-friendly, right-wing dissidents...rather the Russian 'counter-culture'- thought about the cold war and so on.
Memoir of a Russian Punk also by Edward Limonov is also a good read.
Most of his more recent books are very 'weirdass ultra-nationalist' crap, so haven't been translated. On the whole his reputation in the english speaking world ended when he supported Serbia in the Balkan Wars (ugh)....but really, good author! Worth taking a look if you like the old Russian masters, he follows very much in that tradition but the works that have been translated are just a lot more modern...he was of the generation in the USSR roughly equivilent to the Beat Generation in the USA- they drank, smoked pot, read Lermentov and Pushkin and wrote poetry about sex and drugs and other 'taboo' topics.
Mikhail Lermontov: Continuing the Russian theme, Lermontov is often overlooked but was critically important to Russian literature, particularly the Russian Novel. His life-story was legendary in Russia- he wrote one major poem 'Death of a Poet' denouncing Tsarist society for 'murdering' Pushkin, was banished to Chechnya, wrote one novel-
A Hero of Our Time and was killed in a duel- the fate of Pechorin, the hero of his book. A Hero of Our Time was, arguably, the first true Russian novel...although parts of it had been published seperately as short stories. Incredibly influential and the best example (in my opinion) of that very particular Russian variety of aesthetic nihilism. Pechorin is a great character. It also serves as a good introduction to Russian literature, it's very readible, not very long and it actually feels a hell of a lot more modern that Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy.
Speaking of
Dostoyevsky- Although [i[Crime and Punishment[/i] and
The Brothers Karamazov get most of the attention, I personally believe that his best work is
The Devils/The Possessed (Depending on translation)...it just feels like a more solid whole than either crime and punishment or the brothers karamazov. I think this is because, unlike so many of his works, The Possessed was written with very clear parametres and a prefabricated plot (ripped straight from the headlines, as it happens) which means it just feels a lot 'tighter'. Similiarly,
The Gambler is also well worth reading, it's one of his novellas and was written (essentially) solely for the money...it's a fascinating insight into his own addiction to roulette.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine: Celine is, in my opinion, the finest literary 'stylist' and best example of literary modernism in the 20th century. Although his style is more revolutionary in French (which is a lot more formal in how you are expected to write) than English, he just has a beautiful way of expressing himself. He was much loved by Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, and the influence of Celine can be seen in Burroughs pre-Naked Lunch works as well as in Kerouacs spontanous prose- the 'Original Scroll' edition of On The Road is, stylistically very similiar (though Celine is far better, more minimalistic). He eventually became an anti-semite (much like Ezra Pound) and ruined his career and legacy by collaborating with the Nazi-Vichy government- as many French literary figures did (Drieu La Rochelle & Paul Morand come to mind). As the tide turned in the war he fled, first to Germany after the Normandy landings and then to Denmark where he spend nearly a decade in exile. In 2011 he was excluded by the minister of culture from a list of 500 French Cultural figures to be honoured that year...so despite his undeniable influence he is persona non grata in France to this day.
That said:
Journey To The End Of The Night- My favourite of his books, it is possibly the most pessimistic, negative book ever written...every sentence is filled with a sense of utter nihilism...yet it manages to be incredibly funny (black humour a lot of the time, but genuinely funny) and thought provoking. The depictions of both WWI and French Colonial Africa are particularly interesting/horrifying/hilarous. All his books are largely autobiographical, so they take you through WWI, the interwar years where he goes to both the US and Engand, WWII in France, his time in Germany, his exile in Denmark and finally his return to France and the post-war/cold war period.
"Where, I ask you, can a man escape to when he hasn't enough madness left inside him?"-Louis-Ferdinand Céline
William S. Burroughs: To be honest, I'm not a big fan of his work from Naked Lunch onwards...that is to say...most of his output. The period where he was strongly under the influence of Brion Gysin and (almost) completely alienated from Allen Ginsberg resulted in him coming up with a handful of interesting techniques...but ultimately produced very little worth reading. I mean, yes, naked lunch is worth reading...if only so you understand what all the hoo-haa was about with the trials and stuff...and if you enjoy it (which I don't, on the whole) then why not read the soft machine or nova express...but are you seriously going to tell me that Dead Fingers Talk (naked lunch-soft machine-the ticket that exploded cut up into a 'new' novel) is in any way worth
reading?. Interesting idea, interesting
technique, but the actual
product borders on worthless.
Junky + Queer were originally intended to be published together...it was all fairly haphazard as it took Allen Ginsberg a long time to find someone who was willing to publish it and Burroughs simply kept writing, sending him extra chapters. I think it's well worthwhile reading them together...Queer is so often overlooked, I'd say that there would probably be 25 people who have read Junky for every one person who has read Queer. I think it adds a lot to Junky, you have a much greater appreciation of how much effort went into the dry, laconic style used in Junky. Junky is written to feel like the slow-gravelly voice of someone high on opiates, by reading Queer as the second half of Junky you notice the contrast- not simply moving from 1st person to 3rd person, but also the shift in how things are described etc.
The Yage Letters (try to get the redux version) tells the story of Burrough's journey to Columbia in search of Yage...(at the time) a mysterious drug rumoured to cause psychic abilities. This was the last work that Burrough wrote in his original, laconic style. Beyond the obvious appeal of reading about one of the early western expeditions to find what we know to be DMT, it's also an interesting portrayal of a fairly conservative (in that particularly American way...until he went to Columbia he reviled 'liberals' and would mock Ginsbergs left-wing views) New England 'gentleman' being thrown into this society in the midst of complete social breakdown and realising that his political views don't actually sit right with his gut feelings.
The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1945-1959 Most of these are letters to Allen Ginsberg, however there are also letters to Kerouac, Gysin and Lucien Carr. They provide both a fascinating insight into the reality of the beats much mythologised relationships in the late 40s and 50s. These letters end, essentially, around the time of the publication of Naked Lunch...they provide almost a reference book to all his major works including Naked Lunch...many of the 'characters' and events of Junky, Queer and Naked Lunch appear in various guises...the real Dr Benway is as fascinating and terrifying (in a completely different way) as his fictional offspring. It also includes the letters that provide the skeleton of The Yage Letters. It also expands a lot of the events within Junky and help fill in some of the blanks about how he precisely ended up going from point A-B-C.
I could ramble for another hour, but I think I'll stop now. Stay tuned for another stoned ramble about books in..uh...you know
