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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was the most conventional Burroughs novel I’ve ever read, and that made this a pretty quick read. It was painful to read about his experience of unreciprocated queer desire, but this made the narrative voice more personal than the voice of Naked Lunch or Exterminator (the only other two WSB works I’ve read.) I have a difficult time with surrealism, but some of Lee’s routines were quite funny. I’m hoping to read Junky next, re-read Naked Lunch, and then delve into some of WSB’s more challenging novels (the Nova/cut-up trilogy, for starters.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The book has layers. There is not much going on in terms of plot but there are layers and complexity to the characters. This book is about longing and its parallels with addiction.
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fucking gross pedophile. I wonder how much of my liking his later books was just me being an edgy teen. There is no substance here, no introspection.
At some point he has a sexual fantasy while staring at some 13 year olds and he decries the "ignoramuses who dare to moralise". Fuck him!
Not a single member of the beat generation was worth shit.
At some point he has a sexual fantasy while staring at some 13 year olds and he decries the "ignoramuses who dare to moralise". Fuck him!
Not a single member of the beat generation was worth shit.
William Lee is sharp, lonely, drugged, and pathetic. An isolated manipulator at heart, his exploitative infatuation with Allerton truly reveals just how much male queerness was borne out of the fires of misogyny. And perhaps, we see another form of the “male loneliness epidemic” here, directed not at women, but other vulnerable young men. Whoever can be cheated and enticed.
The man who is alone and who cannot feed off of sex and his own desirability is a pity-inducing and dangerous thing.
“‘I’m not queer,” he thought. ‘I’m disembodied.’” (86)
Burroughs reveals truths of queer nonconformity through perversion and abuse, rather than through more interesting, possible lenses—and to me, it’s a cop out. The lines above are fascinating, beautiful—but they are the result of a 40 year old man’s sexual fantasy about a group of young boys, mere children. The novel treats merciless depravity as a legitimizing force for queer identity, which I found cheap and cliche.
This novel was more mild than Naked Lunch, but less palatable. Despite some of the accouterments of style and moments of acuity, I found Burroughs as wholly disappointing as Bukowski.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Had to let something start and finish as I transcend into a new decade. Started days before turning 30, ended days into being 30.
What more appropriate than my first experience with a William S. Burroughs novel?
What more appropriate than my first experience with a William S. Burroughs novel?