The Domesticated Primate

This interview with RAW was linked from RAWilsonfans.com. Ever since hearing the synopsis of The DaVinci Code and listening to the audio CDs, I've wondered why RAW isn't more popular. He makes this remark in his interview:

"I think I'm the most ripped-off artist of our time," says Wilson, seated in the living room of a modest Capitola apartment adorned with an array of pookahs, Buddhas and at least one Loch Ness monster. "People keep coming out with books 30 years after--books on things I wrote about--and they all become bestsellers.

That about says it all about the state of things as it comes to RAW's work. Oh well, RAW may very well become the literary equivalent of the Velvet Underground. Brian Eno is supposed to have said about the Velvet Underground that they only sold a few thousand albums initially, but every single person that bought the album started a band. It goes without saying that they obviously cast a huge shadow across the music landscape. I'm already seeing lots and lots of authors with a clear RAW lineage, I'm sure only more are to follow. Since Illuminatus! never went out of print AFAIK, I guess RAW's had more commercial success than VU had initially, but I think the analogy applies to his non-fiction work.