The Cut Up Trilogy

You might notice I've been on a Burroughs/Beats kick lately. Me and everyone else it seems, but we'll get to that later.

I blogged about William S. Burroughs and Brion Gyson only just recently because my recent obsession with Burroughs regards his style. I am in awe. All my newfound fascination confuses me because I read "Junky" over a year ago and didn't get so into it then.

What has changed between then and now?

(8h41)

(9h43 - after dishes and cleaning up a little cat vomit)

I still can't answer my own question. Different writer speak to me at different times. When I first read Catcher in the Rye I was bowled over, nowadays I read bits from time to time with mild disinterest. As much as I still have a certain regard for Anais Nin, it is for the quantity of pages she filled in her lifetime rather than for the content of the pages.

I think what I've experienced is a common thing. Monsieur Redacteur gets it too. As you continue to read throughout your life you read better books and sometimes worse books. The ranking queue keeps adjusting below a certain number. W. Somerset Maugham, Colette, Maupaussant, and Murakami seem to be constantly at the top of my list of favourites, but after that it changes with every book I read.

So Junky didn't talk to me, but Naked Lunch did. The Cut Up Trilogy interests me. The style is almost mechanical in its assembly. The Cut Up Trilogy (also known as The Nova Trilogy) is comprised of "The Soft Machine", "The Ticket that Exploded", and "The Nova Express". Burroughs himself considered them a sort of sequel to Naked Lunch.

At the bookstore the other day there were three Burroughs books: "The Soft Macine", "The Ticket that Exploded", and "The Place of Dead Robots". Being interested in The Cut Up Trilogy I of course bought The Place of Dead Robots, which is the second book in a completely different trilogy (which includes "Cities of the Red Night" and "The Western Lands") and doesn't use the cut up method at all.

But that's okay. Maybe it's a fitting method, my reading and discovering Burroughs. One book here, one book there. Cut ups of cut up trilogies (I have Nova Express at home) and whatever else I can lay my hands on. I suppose it helps that Burroughs had such an interesting life.

I'm not entirely disappointed either. The Place of Dead Roads is written in such a way I might not have known it didn't employ the cut up method. It's not easy to read because it doesn't flow like a "story", but it is interesting. I like reading it a few pages at a time.

I don't know when I'll get over my current Burroughs fascination, but for the moment it's helping me write, which is good enough for me.