Ghost of Chance Book

Ghost of Chance is a scathing lambastic indictment of the madness of mankind and a dire warning that we are all heading towards our own destruction.

With this in mind, i want you all to know that I'm giving this 5 stars because of the importance of Burroughs' message in this book. If I were to rate it purely on narrative structure, I would probably only give it 3 stars but it's really really important for people to read this.

Everyone is familiar with Burroughs' acidic sardonic sense of humour and hard-boiled prose. While there are elements of that in Ghost of Chance as well, this is more of an 'essay' on ecological destruction at the hands of mankind which Burroughs (and Brian Gyson) call an 'ugly animal'. After reading this book, I agree with them completely. Man IS an ugly animal seen through the eyes of other creatures on this planet, Mankind is 'threat number one' and the blame for the destruction of the planet and the near-extinction of species like the lemur in Madagascar, where this 'story' is set, can be placed at our door. I had this image in my head while I was reading this book - Mother Nature was going around pinning up wanted signs of us.

The story of Ghost of Chance is loosely based around Captain Mission or Mison (nobody knows his first name) - a Provencal pirate who ended up founding a society called Libertatia on the island of Madagascar, a settlement which laid down certain practical, tolerant and non-interfering articles in its 'constitution' such as the freedom of religion, sexuality, no capital punishment etc. Sounds utopian? You bet it is, and like all 'utopian' ideals, they never last very long in the harsh day-to-day reality of Planet Earth. Immediately plans are put into motion to destroy the society. Incidentally, these articles have already resurfaced in another Burroughs' book - Cities of the Red Night which is an absolutely fantastic piece of work.

Then Burroughs took me by surprise. He winds in another 'thread' into the story, and this is where it gets confusing. Enter Jesus Christ. Burroughs argues, and quite convincingly, that Christ was a first-class magician who cornered (or monopolized) the miracle market. I thought 'where is Burroughs going with this?' but over the next few pages follows a brilliant stream of verse on how 'loving your enemy' and 'turning the other cheek' can be used with lethal effect like a mafia don having someone 'whacked'. He categorizes this problem as the 'Christ sickness'. But what is the link? A tenuous one but one which recurs throughout Burroughs' extensive oeuvre - the theme of the virus. First we had the 'word virus' which Burroughs set out to destroy or at the very least put off balance through the cut-up method (in The Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded and Nova Express). Now in this book we see mankind as a kind of 'virus' or certain ideas that he espouses (like the Christ sickness) as viruses which can threaten the well-being of the planet. Therefore, this short novella is also a moralistic essay which not only condemns the evils of mankind but also encourages us to think about these pressing issues of the modern world and challenge them. And let's not forget that Burroughs has a Masters degree in anthropology. And in this book he definitely comes across as a misanthropic anthropologist.

What I found most interesting and moving about this book was the closing lines of the book (a footnote) in which he encourages readers to check out a society in the US which is devoted to the preservation of lemurs and other endangered species. Towards the end of his life, William really became an animal lover and environmentalist and the last decade of his life when he wrote this book and The Cat Inside were indeed golden ones. Everybody who is serious about saving mankind owes it to themself to read this book.