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The Fin de Ciecle and the Absurd: The "Literature" of William Garner
by
Umberto Chomsky (Dr., Dr., Mr. M.D.)
Mommy, mommy, why did you never love me?
-Tacitus, The Histories
When the sum of twentieth century vengeance literature is examined by semiologists
yet unborn, William Garner's vanguard work in the arena of "magic surrealism"
will surely be regarded as having played a pivotal role in the devolution of the
absurdist anarchomystery. Garner's private detective/sexual deviant/Judas figure
Dick Burns traces his origins back to early post-L.A. Chandler and late pre-AA Thompson
and, indeed, Euripides himself from his tragic "brown period." Part avenging
angel, part psychopath, part faith healer, Burns represents the locus of corrupted
western experience in post-Vietnam American society: to wit, Burns is both victim,
torturer and, some would claim, even the big black metal thing used to inflict pain
on the helpless screaming victim. This is not to say that Burns is anything less
than a brain-damaged pervert with a badge, a bottle of rye, and an account at Smith
& Wesson, but to imply that his influence on writers of this embryonic (some
would say abortive) genre was nothing more than "giving the peanut gallery something
to laugh at while pinching a loaf" would be less than kind but more than appropriate.
When taken as a whole, the stories collected in this anthology can be considered
as an vast and heartfelt confessional on par with St. Augustine's or even Charles
Manson's. Opening with the sparse but harrowing "Nobody to Kill," progressing
through the gut-wrenching "Lead Valentines for Wang" and closing with the
playfully enigmatic "The Pier," these fragments of postmodern decadence
both reassure and challenge the fundamental moral climate of post-Reagan America.
Specifically, Burns plays the judge-jury-victim-perpetrator-executioner-janitor in
a world where Justice is absent, or at least out playing fisties with the defense
team. Behind Burns's subtle facade lies a seething, fetid, undulating mass of contradictions,
absurdities, red herrings and emotional blind alleys where literary critics and myopic
college professors for the next hundred years will find many an excuse to write masturbatory
commentaries and, in general, give themselves an excuse to remain tenured.
However, Dick Burns's existence cannot be reduced to a wrathful manifestation of
the collective unconscious of a public anesthetized by a narcotic media and fed a
steady diet of corporate media half-truths and governmental propaganda mill pabulum.
If he were, his exploits would fall by the wayside like so many freshly cut suburban
lawn clippings on the chalk-scarred sidewalk of Western Literature. William Garner's
protean style effectively transcends such outmoded constraints as "taste,"
"plot" and even "human dignity." The true depth of Burns's psyche
can only be appreciated when the reader enters what I term "Burns consciousness."
This state of mind is achieved when the reader has undergone sleep deprivation for
at least 72 hours; consumed excessive amounts of caffeine, alcohol and nicotine;
and watched Buttman's Mexican Holiday1 until climaxing. The resulting emotional and
physical exhaustion, coupled with the rampant auditory hallucinations provide a unique
opportunity to experience the Burns world: a world where international cabals fight
for control of dwindling natural resources; shady, centuries-old conspiracies abound
with the regularity of tampon commercials, and the mighty Potomac River is perennially
clogged with the dismembered trunks of men in their late forties.
The most vivid example of this unique brand of existentialist humor is found in the
aptly titled "Revenge of the Anarcholesbian Epidemiologist." On its surface,
this vignette can be taken as a simple morality tale of rogue intelligence operative
implicated in a series of brutal but hilarious murder/suicides2. On another level,
when the reader examines it through a "Burns consciousness" perspective,
the complicated matrix of sexual deviancy, repressed Oedipal desires, and animal
husbandry weave a tragic tapestry of self-delusion and, ultimately, self-defeat.
To paraphrase Stephen Daedelus, Burns " is the hornmad Iago that the Moor in
him should suffer."3 Not only does he succeed in apprehending the crazed lesbian
warrior poet responsible for the atrocities, but he also gets a free Slurpee for
his efforts.
On the other emotional extreme, the "The Pier" serves as an appropriate
coda to the series. Functioning almost plagiaristically like Joyce's "The Dead"
from Dubliners, this tale of murder, retribution, self-loathing and self-abuse has
few precedents in the Western Canon of pale penis people literature, with the possible
exception of Heidi. The final emotionally-charged image of the tale presents us with
the self-actualized Dick Burns, stripped of all his petty hatreds, blind prejudices
and juvenile fart/pee humor: a detective wearing nothing but a pair of wax lips,
dances on a snow-covered pier, humming the theme from La Traviatta. Truly
the reductio ad absurdum of Euro-centric society at the closing of the millennium.
Should we accept Burns as simply a morally ambiguous drug addict on par with Sherlock
Holmes and Bob Packwood? Should we leave him behind with all the other wretched excesses
of '80s consumerism? Fortunately for his readership, the vox populi has spoken: William
Garner's second posthumous collection of limericks has entered the New York Review
of Books with a bullet.
Dick Burns would be proud.
1 See The Adult Video Catalog, Leisure Time Products, 1993.
2 A genetically engineered virus forces its victims to slam their heads against cement
walls. Shades of Ayn Rand?
3 Ulysses, pp. 478-479.
The Dick Burns Homepage
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