Web MasterNothing says October at Washington University like 80 degree-plus autumn temperatures and midterms, both of which bring one word to mind-despair. While you’ve just got to wait out the psycho weather, midterms can be avoided in a number of ways-namely, by curling up into a little ball and eating lots of Mars Bars. While you’re ruing your fate and cackling over the amount of reading you have to wade through, pick up one of the following works and embrace the dark side of life.
The Magic Christian
By Terry Southern
Paperback, Grove Press (Reprint July 1996), $8.80
Referred to by many as Southern’s masterpiece, this book satirizes every important American obsession-including money, TV, and sex-through Guy Grand, perhaps the most appropriately named character in literature ever, who does just about anything you can imagine (and one can imagine quite a bit) in the name of money. This guy also wrote the screenplays to Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider, so you know you’re in for a roarin’ good time.
The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
By William S. Burroughs
Paperback, Grove Press (Reprint September 1992), $10.40
You have to admire the guy for writing so well while on every type of drug under the sun, and the fact that he pulls off a satire only adds to his esteemed reputation. Man, he must have been made of steel. This 1971 book, although written in a hallucinatory style, is actually quite vivid and frightening in its portrayal of future global warfare. While the protagonists, a gang of guerilla boys, fight against a repressive police state, you’ll be mesmerized and way, way out there.
Life After God
By Douglas Coupland
Paperback, Pocket Books (Reprint April 1997), $9.56
This one’s a fast read, with eight stories tied together by one narrator, but it resonates long after you put it down. As the title implies, Coupland’s work is primarily concerned with the experiences of those Gen-Xers who don’t know what they’re doing because they don’t know where they came from. This book isn’t just about satirizing the whining and worrying that goes on about death and adulthood, but actually is touching and in places, hopeful. If you can read the last chapter and not get a bit teary, you’ve got issues.
Vacant Possession
By Hilary Mantel
Hardcover, Owl Books (March 2000), 242 pages, $10.40
The New York Times referred to this work as “a giddy cocktail of horror and gleeful anticipation.” Doesn’t that sound like fun? After public funding runs out, our protagonist, Muriel, must leave the mental hospital she’s called home for ten years and live by her wits-er, yeah. Once again, with Vacant Possession you’ll be laughing (and crying) at society’s stupidity.
I’m Not Stiller
By Max Frisch
Paperback, Harvest Books (Reprint May 1994), 383 pages, $11.20
This book isn’t your typical black comedy, but since it’s humorous on many levels and a rather dark portrayal of one man’s self-denial, it belongs on the list as one heck of a read. The gentleman Stiller wakes up in a Swiss prison, where he refuses to believe that he is who they say he is, preferring instead to hide behind a false American identity. As he meets those from his true past, and determines what made him switch identities in the first place, Frisch uncovers the absurdity of life otherwise belied by the monotony of its details. A multi-layered work that operates on many different levels, it’s entertaining and smart.
Glamorama
By Bret Easton Ellis
Paperback, Vintage Press (March 2000), 546 pages, $10.47
After ripping apart the business world (and we do mean rip apart) in American Psycho, Ellis turns to the crazy land of Hollywood, where everyone is showered with confetti and looks like Christian Bale, for another round of death, disaster, and pitch-black comedy. Victor, the spacey model glamour boy from hell, takes us through the glitz and name-dropping of wine spritzered Tinseltown, but things don’t really get messy until he runs into a psychotic group of models with bombs and 747s. A great, sick and twisted read.