Last week saw the publication in English of France’s resident literary bad boy Michel Houellebecq’s newest novel, The Map and the Territory, heralded by some as his magnum opus. The resurgence of the literary great got us to thinking about other literary bad boys who rocked the boat and won notoriety for it — most of them buoyed by endless talent, or just star power. After all, everyone loves to hate (or in some cases, loves to love) the literary rebels and the scandalous men of letters. Click through to check out our list of legendary literary bad boys — and if we’ve forgotten your favorite enfant terrible, be sure to let us know in the comments.
Michel Houellebecq
To his admirers, the controversial author is the pinnacle of the provocative literary luminary; to his detractors, he’s a nihilistic writer of vulgar trash. True, his novels are unrelentingly salacious, and he has a reputation for trying to seduce his lady interviewers, but that’s never stopped us from liking an author. More importantly, he sticks to his idealistic guns, even when under heavy attack. In 2002, he was sued by four Islamic organizations on charges of “inciting racial hatred” after he called Islam “the dumbest religion” in an interview about his novel Platform. “I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims,” he told the court, making sure to add, “I have as much contempt as ever for Islam.” He won the case, the court citing freedom of expression.
Comments (36)
I have to disagree about Martin Amis. He’s not lousy with talent, just lousy. Have you ever read “London Fields”? Perhaps the worst written book I have ever come across, although “Dead Babies”, which he also wrote, is up there. But on a side note, what does him standing next to Ian McEwan smoking cigarettes in the 70′s have to do with arguments about the merit of his work? Surely those arguments would stem from perceived nepotism in regards to his success despite talent, rather than the fact he may have hung out with another terribly dull writer with similarly farcical fears of the lower class.
James Frey? Really? I’ll give you Martin Amis, though I think he’s overrated. Frey, though, as yet to earn any literary chops. One controversy over a poorly written book does not make you a bad boy of literature, especially since when your input barely qualifies as literature.
No Frank Harris No List
Hunter S. Thompson?
+1 for Hunter S. Thompson.
At least consider these:
Tom McCarthy
Oscar Wilde
Edgar Allen Poe
Ernest Hemingway
Ken Kesey
charles bukowski.
No Rimbaud? He’s only the original rebel without a cause but w.e.
Hunter S Thompson?
William Burroughs
Hunter S. Thompson
Jean Genet
Charles Bukowski
any list of bad boys is straight laced without these writers.
Charles Bukowski
Henry Miller
Bret Easton Ellis
Norman Mailer & James Frey are total douche bags. Mailer for having his lips wrapped firmly around Jack Henry Abbot’s dick after JHA stabbed a waiter in NYC, Frey for being a mediocre writer and exceptionally bad liar. Why is Tom Wolfe not here? Kurt Vonnegut? Surely you could fabricate some misdeed/excesses for them. Throw in Larry McMurtry, he drinks a lot and is afraid of computers ooh that’s bad too.
The late Christopher Hitchens.
Oh my goodness, you forgot Bret Easton Ellis
How could you leave out Hunter S. Thompson, the Prince of Gonzo, one of the best and most self-destructive writers of our times.
Such a predictable snooze…Wake me when you cover the Bad GIRLS of Literature.
Damn guys… what about an ounce of copy-editing? Nearly every page is riddled with typos… I’m riddled by this.
Michael LaRocca, definitely.
I’m currently reading the new biography of the ultimate literary bad boy — “Alfred Jarry, a Pataphysical Life” by Alistair Brotchie. Great stuff! Jarry should head the list, both his life and work are outrageous.
Oooh, Jonathan Franzen! The baddest birdwatcher in town!
Next up: literary bad women. Please.
Also, Amis is great. ‘Money’ and ‘London Fields’ are enough to cement it.
Genet, Goodis, Thompson, Rimbaud, Burroughs, Andros, Trocchi, MacClaren- Ross…the list goes on. Most of these lads are lightweights. Yes, women next please?
Oh C’mon.
No beats? (Junky Burroughs, alcoholic and womanizing Kerouac?)
No Hunter S Thompson? (Drugs, shotguns and trashing hotels?)
No Bukowski?! He’s the consumate literary badboy. Frankly his absence from this list is ludicrous.
No Wilde? Ludicrous
No Hemingway? Bull fighting, alcoholism and womanizing?
Really terrible list frankly.
Burroughs for sure. Dylan Thomas. Brendan Behan. Truman Capote. Jim Harrison? Tom McGuane once upon a time. But James Frey, please — fraud disqualifies him even if he could write, and now he’s a lamprey on the face of the reputation of publishing. Start a new category for him, Disgrace say, or Thug.
Irvine Welsh?! Where is he?
Clearly Rimbaud, Genet and Louis Ferdinand Celine were far more terrible and talented than you give them credit for…
Charles Bukowski
Henry Miller, please!
I agree that Rimbaud should have been included, instead of Frey and would have switched Byron out for Celine
Seriously disappointed not to see Charles Bukowski & Hunter S. Thompson on the list.
Please…history provides glorious examples from Christopher Marlowe to William Burroughs, Arthur Rimbaud to H.G. Wells, but Jonathan Franzen makes the cut because he’s kind of pompous and full of himself, like that annoying professor whose name you can’t quite remember?
Hunter S. Thompson!
This list is laughable. Excluding the obvious Bukowski, Thompson, and others listed above while including Frey and Franzen makes me question whether Ms. Temple (the article’s author) reads much.
Christopher Marlowe; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Thomas Chatterton; Edgar Allen Poe; Charles Baudelaire; Arthur Rimbaud; Paul Verlaine; Algernon Swinburne; Wyndham Lewis; Vladimir Mayakovsky; Louis-Fernand Céline; Ezra Pound; Ernest Hemingway; Martin Heidegger; Jean Genet; Robert Lowell; William S. Burroughs; Jack Kerouac; Hunter S. Thompson; Amiri Baraka; Derek Walcott; Edmund White; and Roberto Bolaño.
How about Bolano?
CATULLUS CATULLUS MY GOD CATULLUS Writer of the most outrageous insult in the history of the human race: “The woman that would handle this man would as willingly lick the arsehole of a leprous hangman.”
& did anyone mention dylan thomas yet?
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