Exterminator!

by William S. Burroughs

Book Overview

A wity, rauchy, satrical novel from the Beat legend and author of Naked Lunch

Conspirators plot to explode a train carrying nerve gas. A perfect servant suddenly reveals himself to be the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. Science-fantasy wars, racism, corporate capitalism, drug addiction, and various medical and psychiatric horrors all play their parts in this mosaiclike, experimental novel. Here is William S. Burroughs at his coruscating...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140050035
• ISBN13: 9780140050035
• Release Date: March 1979
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Revolutionary

Very intense and for sure experimental,This is a work of literary art.Exterminator comes from a new dimension of literary genius.It is bold,daring and to put it mildly, "Revolutionary" in tone,style,and method.This novel could only come to fruition from a literary giant. ps.This is an acquired taste to read...

The book that turned me on to Burroughs

This was the first book by WSB that I ever read. I think this was a case of trial by fire, because numerous people I've spoken to found this book impossible to read. Many of the scenes are hilarious and all are memorable. The book within the book within the book... the 1968 democratic convention... the mexican pistolero in the brilliant "Twighlight's Last Gleaming"... Fu Man Chu... This book is a nexus point, threads running through all the other burroughs novels pass through here at some point.I can't recommend this book enough, but read Naked Lunch or The Wild Boys first, they are easier gate-ways into the wierdness of Burroughs.

My favorite Burroughs volume

EXTERMINATOR! A NOVEL is without any question my favorite William S. Burroughs book. The "A Novel" of the title must surely be ironic, because the book is not in any recognizable sense a novel. It is a collection of largely unconnected sketches and scenes. Not every section is a masterpiece, but several are among the most surreal and brilliant things that Burroughs ever wrote. And for anyone who has not previously read any Burroughs, it is a brilliant introduction. I personally find it far more accessible and enjoyable than NAKED LUNCH, which, while it has many fine passages, nonetheless can at times become tedious.Although by and large the various parts are unconnected, several are focused on the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. In particular, the amazingly creative and hysterically funny "The Coming of the Purple Better One" takes that as its locale. The "Purple Better One" of the title refers to a baboon that is placed upon the convention podium, and upon whose face is superimposed the face of a white Southern, racist politician, whose recorded speech is then played. It is one of the more bizarre, brilliant, and absurd scenes in recent American literature. Another favorite is "The Discipline of DE," the DE standing for "Do Easy." The story is a strange blend of Zen Buddhist tract and self-help manifestation. Other favorites include the title story, with the narrator/exterminator repeating ominously "You want the service?" and a supposed film treatment "Twilight's Last Gleamings." The collection features many of the themes usually associated with Burroughs: Sci-fi, fantasy, drugs, usual medical practices and phenomena, governmental nefariousness, and the corruption of capitalistic life.

Sensational Vietnam War-era literature.

This book is a period piece, but man, what a period piece. Essentially a collection of short stories surrounding the "revolution" of the 1960s, Burroughs tears into the Military, the Right, the morality police, the War on Drugs, technology, and politics. Each story uses Burroughs's violent fantasy to tell a morality tale and bring each target of his ire into sharp relief before tearing it down utterly. Not as chilling as Naked Lunch or as sweeping as Cities of the Red Night. A good book for someone who is just getting started reading Burroughs.

Second only to "Naked Lunch".

This is the only other book of William S. Burroughs that, in my opinion, comes close to the absolute genius of "Naked Lunch." A fragmented novel of strange vignettes, loosely incorporating the theme of the exterminator and his grim trade as its focus, the book reads like a hallucinatory nightmare version of the Sunday comics from an unseen world better left undiscovered. Brilliant, funny, sad and disturbing--everything grteat writing should be.