/lit/ - Literature

it never gets easier


*sob*

>>3292323
Damn it. I wonder if there's some sort of dictionary a kind fellow would've created.

>>3292320
just keep reading, eventually you will get a visual perspective of what he is writing about, after that, you will be able to read pretty much everything he wrote later on.

>>3292331
ok good.

have fun with The Soft Machine.

when you understand it's concept and its basis it really isn't super hard to understand. its mainly in the language and prose and his 'cut-up' technique where it can become hard to understand

>>3292375
>the cut up technique
Guaranteed to turn two pages in to ten.

That lousy junkie just published nonsense under the pretense that it was 2deep4u so he'd have enough money to keep his habits (heroin and ass sex with children) up in tangiers or wherever he spent his time when his trust money ran out.

>>3292383
>turn two pages in to ten

So most all post-modernism then. Also he wasn't published for the majority of his career. Don't hate bro

>>3292383
>That lousy junkie just published nonsense

whether or not you enjoy burroughs, or whether you think he is intellectually dishonest or whatever, you can't deny the effect his work has had on writers.

>>3292383
Pretty much this.

Not saying he was talentless but why waste your time reading his gibberish when there are more talented and worthy writers to devote your precious time to.

If you insist on reading Burroughs you should try "Queer" and "Junky".

>>3292398
>>3292398

not trolling, could you give me some examples? i understand that he was influential insofar as he inserted himself into the modern cultural psyche but outside of that, i've read nothing that i would call derivative of or even inspired by his works

>>3292464

He was enormously influential on the entire pomo scene, from Barthelme to Pynchon to Gaddis

>>3292464
I've seen oblique references to him in some sci-fi novels. Most notably in the sprawl trilogy by william gibson, there were multiple occasions where it felt like he'd lifted Burrough's phrasing on something. And more recently I was reading crooked little vein by warren ellis that had a similar feel to Burroughs.

>>3292464
J.G. Ballard and Ken Kesey are both influenced by him. Ballard even went as far as to say Naked Lunch was, in his opinion, one of America's most important novels.

Also Norman Mailer said: 'The only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.'

>>3292479
'influential' to Pynchon? but Pynchon doesnt pull that bullshit cut-up method, he writes. where is the influence in his style? outside of the general migraine-inducing plots (is that even possible to detect??)

havent read the other two yet.

>>3292464
Pynchon is extremely derivative of Burroughs. Many parts of Gravity's Rainbow read just like they were taken out of Naked Lunch and prettied up with Pynchon's prose. Also, Alan Moore was heavily inspired by Burroughs and his use of motifs that would flow in and out of his works and as such used some of these techniques in many of his graphic novels. Between these two, you could see tons of works as derivative of Burroughs by extension.

>>3292492

You haven't read anything by him but Naked Lunch, have you?

>>3292492
Are you suggesting there's no correlation between Pynchon's fragments and Burroughs' cut-up technique?

I don't understand how you guys can consider this a difficult book. The only difficulty I had when I read it at your age was the fact that I used to get disturbingly hard during some of the sexy bits.

It's not deep, or tricky it's just genius

>>3292631
Oh man. Oh man. I got so many boners reading Burroughs. I forgot about that.

>>3292492

If you don't think that Burroughs is an influence on Pynchon, or that Pynchon didn't read Burroughs, then you're a moron.

Then again, James Bond is a massive influence on Ruggles. He's a literary magpie.

He went to a fancy dress party with Richard Farina dressed as F. Scott Fitzgerald, acknowledging his influence.

>>3292631
It's really just the slang I find hard.

>>3292426
>more talented and worthy writers

Name a writer more talented than Burroughs writing in English since WW2. I can't think of one. Nabokov maybe.

I don't know... just read it? What did people do before the internet was there to explain everything to them...

>>3292660

You need to get hep to the tea, my shivvy.

Do you even explading star in the crab nebula?

>Mr. Fairfield: . . . Your Honor, I would just like to point out to the Court that the following words are used in the book a total of 234 times on 235 pages; and I wllI spell them out rather than say them in the court

>The Court: Go ahead "and say them. We hear them probably once a week.

>Mr. Fairfield: Fuck, shit, ass, cunt, prick, asshole, cock-sucker. Two hundred thirty-four times on 235 pages!

>>3292651

Pynchon's "favourite book" is Warlock by Oakley Hall. It's a pretty good western, a proto-McCarthy.

Shame Pynchon never really wrote a western, I think he'd do a good one. Mason & Dixon doesn't count.

>>3292681
fucking idiot. a huge chunk of against the day is a western.

>>3292684

Not really, hence "never really wrote a western".

You should read more carefully.

>>3292492
>bullshit cut-up method

I don't think it is a bullshit method. It reminds me of casting cards or bones or something. Graphomancy.

It chucked up some amazing poetry.

>>3292689

Now Burroughs, Burroughs, he could write him some westerns.

With masses of underage gay fucking and intensity.

The Western Lands is almost objectively one of his best books.

He could write a wicked pirate yarn too, Oor Billy

Fuck you guys, I just started reading it and I love it.

>>3292320
Take you time with the language, but don't worry about "following" the action. Look up Burroughs reading some of his stuff (there's loads of this on youtube) and imagine secitons in his own voice - overemphatic ironcal drawl - that will bring out the humour.

Burroughs is funny and shocking, sexy and disorientating and disgusting so you should feel confused and amused and disgusted and aroused when reading him, I'd say, but above all confused.

>>3292746

I'd say it's more of a wavering between aroused and amused. If you're confused, then you're probably doing it wrong.

This is the only book to have made me feel physically uncomfortable at some points. I loved it, especially the part early on with the guy who was part bug or something

>>3292660
How is it confusing? I'd say the slang isn't even confusing..that and he breaks things down to you if he feels you'll be confused. Maybe its the fact he adopts slang from the areas hes lived in.

>>3292773
I had the same experience with In the Penal Colony but my needle phobia contributes to both

>>3292773
>>3292852
Im all for equal rights but it was the graphic buttsex that made me uncomfortable

>>3292865
>>3292773
>>3292852

>not offended by capital punishment
>graphic scenes of hanging and torture meh
>oh da buttfuckan
>America

Seriously, are you a nation of 85 year old republicans who are hanging around on the internet?

>>3292808
Excerpt:
>"Ever notice how many expressions carry over from queers to con men? Like 'raise,' letting someone know you are in the same line?
" 'Get her!'
" 'Get the Paregoric Kid giving that mark the build up!'
" 'Eager Beaver wooing him much too fast.'
"The Shoe Store Kid (he got that moniker shaking down fetishists in shoe stores) say: 'Give it to a mark with K.Y. and he will come back moaning for more.' And when the Kid spots a mark he begin to breathe heavy. HIs face swells and his lips turn purple like an Eskimo in heat. Then slow, slow he comes on the mark, palpating hime with fingers of rotten ectoplasm.

I mean, the transition to this passage I don't understand
>When he spots a mark he begins to breath heavy
>like 'raise'
wot
I mean the Kid is clearly gay doing something to the "marks" but that's all I understand really.

>>3293855
that was a mess, but obviously the extra break is the end of the paragraph.

>>3293867
>HIs face swells and his lips turn purple like an Eskimo in heat.

What's not to understand? the kid stars to get ecited and a bit disembodied when he approaches a mark - it may be for play-for-pay or he may be about to rob him/con him. Either way, he's getting the money - the algebra of need.

Burroughs is a pretty straightforward writer. It helps to remember that he wrote "routines" that he would try out on his friends to see if they were funny/entertaining/shocking. These "routines" were then cut up into novels.

Burroughs was the end-point of modernism, and the harbinger of postmodernism.

>>3292426
Oh thank god, someone gets it.

Burroughs best works came before the cut-up bullshit.

>>3292398
>Judging an author by the quality of those they influenced.

>>3294999

>being a cunt.

>>3294982

Q &J are great books, I'd rate them on a par with the later trilogy, but NL and the cut ups are his best. If he'd turned out straight confessional bits for his whole career we would not be having this discussion.

>>3293788
All those moments were precursors to sexual voyeurism regardless.

I just felt awkward reading about in depth buttfucking. That isn't my thing.

Also I'm English

>>3296250
>Also I'm English

No such fucking thing, innit m8.

can you people actually comprehend over 50% of this or finnegans wake? I mean not to brag but i'm pretty sure i'm not the dullest knife in the drawer and i can't make heads or tails of it, still a fun read but i got almost no narrative out of it

>>3297349
u r 1 cheeky cunt m8

>Not knowing the amazing sci-fi adventure novel written by Burroughs called Cities of the Red Night
>Having your taste be this influenced by /lit/

>>3297454
Cities of the red night was just an extension of naked lunch, which simply means it was a longer coil of shit.

>>3296250

Dat awkwardness.
Dat homophobia.

>>3297480
You must have not read it

>>3296250
btw i'm a girl

>>3297495
Cover to cover, come at me padre.

>>3297524

What you think your gender can shield you from homophobia you homophobe?

>>3297541
One is a confessional novel about the lengths a junky will go in order to satisfy their addiction
The other is a fantasy novel about time-travelers getting to the bottom of a germ warfare plot

Which is which?

>This thread

>>3297565
>cassady.jpg

>>3297563
>Claiming the important thing is plot
>In a Burroughs novel

Stylistically they are very similar.