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/lit/ - Literature

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7024797 No.7024797 [Reply] [Original]

Do you think he's "lulz so random"? Do you believe he is profound? Tell me what you think.

>> No.7025740

>>7024797
>Do you think he's "lulz so random"?
Cut-up methods and stream of consciousness are used to convey distinct moments of ontology and sexuality. This is the opposite of random.

>Do you believe he is profound?
Read cities of the red night without an erection.

>> No.7025752

Junky

>> No.7025754

He's a guy who was aware. He was in touch with some dark stuff that addled him. Ultimately a perverted black gnostic, but a holy man still.

>> No.7025784

>>7024797
I thought he was a free thinker. In the good sense of the phrase. He reminds me of DH Lawrence and Henry Miller. Sometimes he could be very perceptive and inventive. Sometimes he could be a creepy old chicken hawk. And sometimes he could be a tinfoil crackpot (so could Lawrence and Miller.).
Plus I got lots of boners reading his creepier moments.

>> No.7025832

>>7025740
>>7025754
See I hate all this shit. Holy man? He was was degenerate drug addict who shot his wife and wrote shitty books. You probably think Jim Morrison was a poet too.

>> No.7025839

>>7025832
Thanks man. You baited me into getting more into him.

>> No.7025842

>>7025832
>degenerate
Stopped reading there.

>> No.7025847

>>7025832
hello other board
welcome to /lit/

>> No.7025862

I went through a Beat phase followed by a Burroughs phase a couple years ago. I read pretty much everything, minus two of those god awful cut-up novels, including his collected letters and a biography.
and I think he wrote some interesting stuff, just not good stuff, you know? Not my type of writer. I can see how others like him.

>> No.7025865 [DELETED] 
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7025865

>>7025847
>>7025842
>>7025839
Successfully troll'd. Thread derailed.

>> No.7025936

GOAT as far as I'm concerned. I've read all he's written, both biographies (the most recent one is really good; Literary Outlaw is OK but exaggerates to the point that sometimes it seems it's suggesting Burroughs actually had magical powers), and I continue to reread him. so insane he was the sanest man alive, and when he wasn't cutting shit up, he was insightful and really knew how to put a sentence together.

although I can see how to a lot of folks it's just
>DUDE CENTIPEDE LMAO
but I am a real schoolboy about Burroughs.

>> No.7026023

>>7025936
>>7025862

Did you guys read the Barry Miles biography? I read just over half in december before leaving it at a friend's house. Recently got it back and can't be bothered finding my place in the book and starting again, is it worthwhile?

Also, anybody here read 'And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks' ? I really enjoyed it, I guess I saw it more as a cultural artifact than anything else. Really embodies the beat idea of fitting in between high brow lit and plebian pulp

>> No.7026054
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7026054

This is a pretty good look at WSB:

http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/546/burroughs-101

>> No.7026220

>>7026023
Barry Miles' biography is great. clear, informative writing, unlike Literary Outlaw which is sort of messy and reads like just blatant idol worship at points.

Hippos was OK. more than anything I enjoyed it, like you said, as an artifact, and it is always nice to read works from the greats when they still kind of sucked.

>> No.7026252

>>7024797
Shit

no better than YA

Beat's are literally edgy YA

>> No.7026326

>>7026023
>>7026220

Other anon, and yeah, it was Barry Miles. I'm not a biography guy, but it was interesting. I knew most of the stuff in the first half from just being familiar with Burroughs.

Hippos wasn't bad. It was a really easy read, I'm pretty sure I got that done in one quick sitting. Like you said I liked it as an artifact. If anyone else had written it I would have thrown it away. Kerouac's prose was so basic, makes you glad that Cassady came around eventually.

>> No.7026477

I found him boring. I read Junky, and it's like he wrote about what could be very gripping and tension fraught episodes of drug fueled escapades in the most dry, dull way possible. It was like reading an auto biography about an an accountant or a file clerk instead of a madman.
I don't understand why he chose to make his dangerous and often incredible adventures sound so dull.