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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Naked Hunch, 1 Mar 2003
In none of the other of Burroughs' novels are his political and social intuitions laid out with so much candour. In parts this 'novel' is a barely disguised manifesto against the hypocrisies of the world, and at other times a light (!) and effective collection of 'routines'. The book is inhabited by the usual collection of incarnations of Burroughs himself, camp officials, murderous doctors and a masturbating baboon for U.S. president. Throughout, and despite all this familiar chaos, the book has an ordered feel and is actually a delicately balanced exploration of Burroughs' favourite themes: drugs, sexuality and control. The absence of a singular narrative is, as usual, incidental, the author having preferred to develop the book solely along the lines of its substance. Exterminator, as one would expect, does veer into the realm of the obtusely abstract at times, but for once this adds to Burroughs' intrigue and the sense that you're getting something just a little bit deep.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
bits and pieces of the genius, 19 Aug 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Exterminator!: A Novel (Paperback)
As fragmentation was always Burroughs trademark, this collection of short stories or pieces of prose and some poems fits in with the whole of his oeuvre perfectly well, because it sheds light on some dark passages of his earlier work. Moreover it is essential in that it contains some of his most lyrical prose, the tale of the Priest has a transcending beauty resembling that of Joyce's The Dead. Where in the Wild Boys his straightforward attempts at more traditional writing failed occasionaly in blending with his experimental voice for which he is so renown, here they serve as counterpoints that have their own mysterious power, be it that there are also traces of the writers block that was building up inside of Burroughs round the time this was published. It was not before Places of the Dead Roads that he would fully realize and bring to bloom the possibilities created by this endeavour, although in a way this book can be seen as a try out for his epical masterpiece Cities of the Red Night that lacks the flow of the phrases that shine from the pages of this flawed gem.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sensational Vietnam War-era literature., 17 April 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Exterminator!: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
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