Alan Burns’s intriguing and original fictions
have not had the pleasure of a second life in the manner of fellow British brains
Ann Quin or B.S. Johnson. His first novel (barring Buster in
New Writers 1), is Europe After the Rain, a classic
postwar novel probing the randomness of evil: bleak
staccato prose limning a scorched wartime landscape. His efforts in
the cut-up field are what set him apart from other novelists,
however. His fourth novel (or fifth counting Buster) is a
splendid example of the cut-up-collage technique at its most
meaningful and potent. Having previously considered the technique a
passé relic of sixties pomo excess, Burns has proven to me that an
explosion of meaning can be compressed into each page with creative
and playful juxtapositions of text and newspaper clippings.
Dreamerika! nods to Kafka’s Amerika (which Kafka
wrote without having visited—Burns moved to America in the 70s,
after publishing this novel), except this is ‘A Surreal Fantasy’
involving the namesake of the Kennedys, satirising the rampant reign
of corruption and capitalism after the peace-love dream of the
sixties died. Described in the blurb as a ‘novel of lies,
surreal-biography, fantasy-history, fusion of fact and dream’
Dreamerika! resembles (and is as successful as) Ann Quin’s
similarly satirical Tripticks, J.G. Ballard’s The
Atrocity Exhibition, and Michel Butor’s demented road trip
Mobile, and its surreal text mingles in perfect sync with
the cut-out headlines and paper pages, the prose having a more
“ordered” feel than in a novel such as Babel while still
retaining an original weirdness. Burns followed this with a more
conventional effort (in terms of prose), The Angry Brigade.
Here he tried to write a novel that had more mass appeal to provide
shoes for his children. Parting from his mentor and regular publisher
Calder, Burns released this novel that uses straightforward “spoken”
accounts to recreate a fictitious protest faction that balloons into
violence and murder. An inventive look at the poison that can infect
well-meaning causes and lead to the sort of fascist madness that
makes our planet such a shameful waste of skin. These three novels
represent the range of skill Burns brought to his full-length works:
as with B.S. Johnson or Ann Quin, no novel is a mere retread of the
previous. Each seeks to break new ground and open up new avenues in
fiction and makes the whole enterprise seem effortless. Burns’s
marvellous novels are in dire need of republication (one, Babel,
is available on demand from Marion Boyars, the rest are all
unattainable even in the used market).
Bibliography:
Novels:
Buster (in New Writers 1), John
Calder, 1961.
Europe After the Rain, John Calder, 1965.
Celebrations, Calder & Boyars, 1967.
Babel, Calder & Boyars, 1969.
Dreamerika!: A Surrealist Fantasy, Calder &
Boyars, 1972.
The Angry Brigade, Allison & Busby,
1973.
The Day Daddy Died, Allison & Busby,
1981.
Revolutions of the Night, Allison &
Busby, 1986.
