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elo_oza's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
jeffhall's review against another edition
3.0
Like anything by William Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night is a wild ride that doesn't give up its secrets easily. The book initially seems to be about Virus B-23, a plague that begins as a rash around a victim's private parts, giving the author leeway to incorporate quite a lot of erect penises into his narrative. Early in the novel, we are even treated to a guest appearance from Dr. Benway (of Naked Lunch fame), which seems to reinforce the idea that Cities of the Red Night shares many concerns with Burroughs' most famous work.
But as the story rolls along in its wonderfully chaotic fashion, the focus shifts to Captain Mission's legendary colony of Libertatia, with its emphasis on direct democracy and complete human freedom, which becomes the seedbed for an 18th-century arms race. And then things get really crazy, as the various sub-stories and timelines begin to invade each other and key characters become plastic both in terms of personality and physical characteristics.
At the very end of the book, Burroughs arrives at something of a denouement:
"I have blown a hole in time with a firecracker. Let others step through. Into what bigger and better firecrackers? Better weapons lead to better and better weapons, until the earth is a grenade with the fuse burning."
So in the end, Burroughs delivers a parable of humanity's destructive tendencies, not so much as any sort of warning, but rather as a simple recognition of the limits of what we can hope to accomplish as a species. Given that Cities of the Red Night is the first volume of a trilogy, I'm eager to see how Burroughs develops this further, since there is a grim finality to this first installment of the series.
But as the story rolls along in its wonderfully chaotic fashion, the focus shifts to Captain Mission's legendary colony of Libertatia, with its emphasis on direct democracy and complete human freedom, which becomes the seedbed for an 18th-century arms race. And then things get really crazy, as the various sub-stories and timelines begin to invade each other and key characters become plastic both in terms of personality and physical characteristics.
At the very end of the book, Burroughs arrives at something of a denouement:
"I have blown a hole in time with a firecracker. Let others step through. Into what bigger and better firecrackers? Better weapons lead to better and better weapons, until the earth is a grenade with the fuse burning."
So in the end, Burroughs delivers a parable of humanity's destructive tendencies, not so much as any sort of warning, but rather as a simple recognition of the limits of what we can hope to accomplish as a species. Given that Cities of the Red Night is the first volume of a trilogy, I'm eager to see how Burroughs develops this further, since there is a grim finality to this first installment of the series.
tclinrow's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
fin_simmons's review against another edition
2.0
Not enough of a thread amidst all the madness for me. The start is intriguing but it loses its way. It does explode the novel form but it is maniacal & rather deranged.
rhys_thomas_sparey's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
One of the most brilliant and ridiculous books that I have ever been fortunate enough to read!
Its incantation at the beginning frames the time-crushing plot within a neo-Sartrean rage against the machine, against the structures of control that confines and subordinates human behaviour to temporality. It is a remarkable exercise in attempting to give life to fiction, not as a reductive postmodern deconstruction of the real or unreal, or as an elaboration of some multiverse, but as the objectification of a literary interaction with the past, the present, and the future instantaneously in the chronomantic imagining of a weapon that begets piratical freedom. The novel reads linearly and thereby achieves the impossible. By evoking Lovecraft and Libertatia, Burroughs blurs the lines through which time is divided and temporal authority exerted, expanding the judiciary as much to art as to politics. Executed with Burroughs' hallmark sardonicism, distance, and indifference to absurd and hallucinogenic processes of hyperstition, Cities of the Red Night is undoubtedly the first third of his magnum opus.
Its incantation at the beginning frames the time-crushing plot within a neo-Sartrean rage against the machine, against the structures of control that confines and subordinates human behaviour to temporality. It is a remarkable exercise in attempting to give life to fiction, not as a reductive postmodern deconstruction of the real or unreal, or as an elaboration of some multiverse, but as the objectification of a literary interaction with the past, the present, and the future instantaneously in the chronomantic imagining of a weapon that begets piratical freedom. The novel reads linearly and thereby achieves the impossible. By evoking Lovecraft and Libertatia, Burroughs blurs the lines through which time is divided and temporal authority exerted, expanding the judiciary as much to art as to politics. Executed with Burroughs' hallmark sardonicism, distance, and indifference to absurd and hallucinogenic processes of hyperstition, Cities of the Red Night is undoubtedly the first third of his magnum opus.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Racial slurs, Drug abuse, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Pedophilia, Racism, and Rape
cannot_cross_water's review against another edition
5.0
Burrough's best by far - also the only book I can think of which reads basically the same backwards and forwards.
richardwells's review against another edition
4.0
I have no memory of having read this before, and I have no idea of how I may have given it four stars, but the internet doesn't lie, (does it?) If, your Honor, I did start this book in 2008, which is what "My books," indicate, I wonder why I didn't write a review. It's possible I was in some kind of fugue state inspired by the novel itself. With Burroughs, one never knows exactly what's going on.
If I were to be asked what this book is about - which I suppose is one purpose of a review - I would have to answer, "It's about 332 pages." There are plot threads that lead to conflicts, and confrontations that end up in battles large and small on battlefields, in bedrooms, and sundry other locales, but they resolve nothing, and are remarkably the same. We do get to visit a number of plague ridden cities of the red night, but they're also remarkably the same.
Wm. Burroughs has given much (most) of his writing life over to the most excessive homosexual fantasies imaginable. It would be a lie to call them homo-erotic, because they're not. Most involve hangings, rank odors, streams of feces, poisonous semen that causes flamboyant disease marked by tropically colored pustules erupting and spreading corruption and death. Burroughs is so excessive as to be almost humorous - jets of semen ending in city ruining explosions is kind of funny. And this goes on with one plot thread unravelling in the Caribbean in the mid-1800's with pirates trying to found an ideal society (that's funny;) in various world capitals in what are meant to be modern times, but read like 1950's noir as a detective hunts for a headless body - or even the head which is said to have magical destructive sexual properties; and at some point in the far future with a host of alien characters all of whom are wondrously gay.
There are no women except one of the green "Iguana twins," and she might as well not be female, there seem to be few men - there are a lot of boys, most of them lithe, light skinned, and blond and do they frolic. Burroughs is true to his vision, but occasionally, infrequently relents to pen a passage of truly lyrical prose. Perhaps made more beautiful by what surrounds it. Here's one small example, after a sexual encounter that does not end in death:
"Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star."
Pretty, huh?
There are also pages of straight forward narrative that show the hand of a fine writer, it's just that it never lasts and bingity-bang we're back into the infernal comedy - that also shows the hand of a fine writer, but one who is hard to take seriously.
Cities of the Red Night is book one of a trilogy, followed by The Place of Dark Roads (cowboy sexual violence,) and The Western Lands (Burroughs' final meditation on death and dying.) I think I'll read the third.
Liking Burroughs is probably like liking de Sade, and though I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, it's worth a read.
If I were to be asked what this book is about - which I suppose is one purpose of a review - I would have to answer, "It's about 332 pages." There are plot threads that lead to conflicts, and confrontations that end up in battles large and small on battlefields, in bedrooms, and sundry other locales, but they resolve nothing, and are remarkably the same. We do get to visit a number of plague ridden cities of the red night, but they're also remarkably the same.
Wm. Burroughs has given much (most) of his writing life over to the most excessive homosexual fantasies imaginable. It would be a lie to call them homo-erotic, because they're not. Most involve hangings, rank odors, streams of feces, poisonous semen that causes flamboyant disease marked by tropically colored pustules erupting and spreading corruption and death. Burroughs is so excessive as to be almost humorous - jets of semen ending in city ruining explosions is kind of funny. And this goes on with one plot thread unravelling in the Caribbean in the mid-1800's with pirates trying to found an ideal society (that's funny;) in various world capitals in what are meant to be modern times, but read like 1950's noir as a detective hunts for a headless body - or even the head which is said to have magical destructive sexual properties; and at some point in the far future with a host of alien characters all of whom are wondrously gay.
There are no women except one of the green "Iguana twins," and she might as well not be female, there seem to be few men - there are a lot of boys, most of them lithe, light skinned, and blond and do they frolic. Burroughs is true to his vision, but occasionally, infrequently relents to pen a passage of truly lyrical prose. Perhaps made more beautiful by what surrounds it. Here's one small example, after a sexual encounter that does not end in death:
"Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star."
Pretty, huh?
There are also pages of straight forward narrative that show the hand of a fine writer, it's just that it never lasts and bingity-bang we're back into the infernal comedy - that also shows the hand of a fine writer, but one who is hard to take seriously.
Cities of the Red Night is book one of a trilogy, followed by The Place of Dark Roads (cowboy sexual violence,) and The Western Lands (Burroughs' final meditation on death and dying.) I think I'll read the third.
Liking Burroughs is probably like liking de Sade, and though I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, it's worth a read.
oblomov's review against another edition
2.0
What the hell was that?
Cities of the Red Night is a nonsensical narrative of several time lines and characters, featuring psychic detectives (who channel the spirit world through anal sex) and a homoerotic version of Mutiny on the Bounty. There is no plot, and this is basically a slightly more structured [b: Naked Lunch|7437|Naked Lunch|William S. Burroughs|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407330990l/7437._SY75_.jpg|4055], but somehow less comprehensible or as scathing a critique on society. It swings at break neck speed from one batch of loveless sex and violence to the next, and becomes rather boring because of it.
A pornographic bullet train of bollocks and not recommended.
Cities of the Red Night is a nonsensical narrative of several time lines and characters, featuring psychic detectives (who channel the spirit world through anal sex) and a homoerotic version of Mutiny on the Bounty. There is no plot, and this is basically a slightly more structured [b: Naked Lunch|7437|Naked Lunch|William S. Burroughs|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407330990l/7437._SY75_.jpg|4055], but somehow less comprehensible or as scathing a critique on society. It swings at break neck speed from one batch of loveless sex and violence to the next, and becomes rather boring because of it.
A pornographic bullet train of bollocks and not recommended.