Product Description

Ghost of Chance is an adventure story set in the jungle of Madagascar and filled with the obsessions that mark the work of the man who Norman Mailer once called, "the only American writer possessed by genius." While tripping through the author's trademark concerns?drugs, paranoia, and lemurs, this short novel tells an important story about environmental devastation in a way that only Burroughs can tell it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #400397 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Review
'The only American writer possessed by genlus' Norman Mailer; 'The man's got something to say, so shut up and listen' Time Out; 'Unleashed [is] the formidable power of Burroughs the essayist of conscience, agony, and vitriol' Kirkus Reviews

About the Author
William S Burroughs is the grand-daddy of all cult writers. He is the author of Naked Lunch, Junky and many other novels. Short stories appear in High Risk 1 and The Junky's Christmas, both published by Serpent's Tail. He died in 1998. Ghost of Chance was first published by SerpentÂ’s Tail in hardback in 1997.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ghost of Chance by William Burroughs Leadtext: CAPTAIN MISSION STRAPPED on his double-barreled flintlock, which he kept loaded with shot charges, and thrust a scabbarded cutlass under his belt. He picked up his staff and walked out through the settlement, stopping here and there to talk to the settlers. They had found an excellent red clay for bricks and were constructing two-story dwellings with second-story balconies supported by heavy hardwood pillars. These buildings had been joined to form a tier, with the dining and kitchen areas in the two downstairs rooms and the sleeping and dressing areas upstairs. The balconies were connected and were used for sleeping hammocks and pallets. These structures faced the sea, and steps led down to the bay, where a number of boats were moored. THE WORD FOR 'lemur' meant 'ghost' in the native language. There were taboos against the killing of ghosts, and Mission had imposed an Article that prohibited killing them, on penalty of expulsion from the settlement. If any crime deserved the death penalty, also prohibited under the Articles, then this was that crime. He was seeking a different lemur species, described by a native informant as much bigger—like a calf, or a little cow. 'Where are the big ghosts?' The native gestured vaguely inland. 'You must be careful of the evil Lizard-Who-Changes-Color. If you fall under its spell, you too will change color. You too will turn black with anger, and green with fear, and red with sex . . .' 'Well, what is so wrong with that?' 'In a year you will die. The colors will devour your skin and flesh.' 'You were talking about a big ghost. Bigger than a goat . . . Where are they to be found?' 'When you hear Chebahaka, Man-in-the-Trees, then Big One not there. Her cannot be where noise is.' 'Her?' 'Her. He. For Big Ghost is same.' 'So. He is where Man-in-the-Trees isn't?' 'No. He is there when Man-in-the-Trees is silent.' This occurred at dawn and sunset.

Customer Reviews

Ghost of Chance
"Ghost of Chance" has a lot in common with "Cities of the Red Night" - probably Burroughs' best work - in that it further explores what might have been possible if the imperial/capitalist interests did not win out a couple of hundred years ago. As always, Burroughs is concerned with human potential and individual freedom. Here, though, he is explicitly concerned with political organisation and its consequences for us and for the rest of existence. Captain Mission and Libertatia (the reality of which maritime historians argue about- accounts are conflicting) are symbols of hope - though ones that never had much of a chance. The title is a pun and this is one of its meanings. The Madagascan colony is a "ghost" - a missed opportunity (for humans to live in a free but still organised manner) that didn't survive for the most trivial reasons (it didn't have time to get properly established and fortified before it was attacked). Things could have turned out very differently... The second meaning of the title refers to lemurs; "Lemur" is derived from the Latin "lemures" which means "ghosts". Human destruction/stupidity/greed is making ghosts out of every other species on the planet... bloodlust, the capitalist system and basic rottenness are ruining the earth. Burroughs lectures a bit in this novella but he has to; desperate times call for desperate measures. Read this book, wake up and get angry. Wise up the marks. Things have to change!

Lemurs and diseased minds
A short novella, Ghost of Chance is on the surface the story of Captain Mission, a supposedly historical figure turned pirate, with a unique vision for a utopian society on the island of Madagascar. His colony, dubbed `Libertatia', has no capital punishment, no slavery, and no influence on religion or sexuality. The one, rather strange, commandment is that all inhabitants respect the native lemurs. From this unusual but relatively straightforward starting point, Burroughs quickly abandons his linear narrative to indulge in the addressing of some familiar concerns, namely paranoia, drug use and the irrevocable human stain. Embodied by "The Board", a mysterious and sinister group propagating the "Big Lie", the human race, with its Cartesian belief in the lack of an animal soul, threatens the safety of the settlement and the population of the ghost lemurs, to whom Mission has pledged protection.
Touching a variety of philosophical bases and delivering a broadside on the viral nature of Christianity, yet with some oddly over-wrought footnotes, Burroughs' lectures are all the more apt for their prescience in a time of global ecological uncertainty, and his own chaotic illustrations add an extra dimension of impending doom.
Challenging, yet evocative, Burroughs haunts the imagination.

Definitely worth the read; whatever you want to make of it!
Ghost of Chance is the second book by Burroughs that I've read: the first was Naked Lunch, a book which rollercoastered my opinion while reading it -- at first it was amazing, then waffle, then genius etc... By the time I had finished though, I knew that it was going to be a book that would stay in my psyche for ages. The same is true of this book, Ghost Of Chance, and reading this I felt glad I was already aquainted with the Burroughs style.
It seems like a straight forward read (I knocked it off in a couple of hours) but the experience stays with you and haunts you: the language, the visions, the philosophy. Even the opening surface of the adventure story puzzles: is the afterword actual fact that fills in the holes, or yet another of Burroughs' fictions. Fascinating.
As well as the imponderables, there is also much to access straight-away: what he has to say about the environment and religious and political usury is excellent.
It all combines into what one reviewer calls a "moral brew." It's certainly a heady, strange brew if you want it to be, but because of the book's size it can also be a couple an afternoons indulgence and no more if that is what you want to.