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Rating:  -
This book has been sitting on my library shelves for a couple of years untouched. Since it was William Burroughs, and looked like a fairly quick read, I decided to pick it up. Burroughs is one of the seminal American authors of the underground gay experience, right? I thought it would be like reading Alan Hollinghurst on cocaine - something I was looking forward to.
But I was highly disappointed. The novel's plot revolves around gay two heroin addicts, William Lee and Eugene Allerton. Lee's attraction to Allerton is completely and painfully unreciprocated. Despite all of Lee's attempts (which come in the form of embarrassing barside disquisitions in Mexican cantinas) to win Allerton's affections, it is all for naught. They decide to travel in search of some hallucinogenic drug which can only be obtained in the remote rainforest, and Lee promises to pay Allerton's way if he has sex with him a couple of times a week. In the end, the reader gets the impression that the quest for the drug is upset, much like Lee's wish for Allerton to love and appreciate him. The structure of the novel seems unmotivated and disinterested. It really seems to have no narrative "drive." I'm certainly not a reader that needs an action-packed novel by any stretch of the imagination, but there is nothing that compels the reader to keep reading - not even a chance of catching the two characters in licentious acts.
But for anyone out there that wants to discover Burroughs for themselves, I definitely recommend this as a first step: it is immanently readable, unlike some of Burroughs' later, more experimental fiction. For this reason, it is a perfect choice for readers who have not hitherto been introduced to some of the more difficult aspects of twentieth century fiction, like non-linear narration, that symptom of dread postmodernism.
Rating:  -
A satisfying post-Junkie novel. A quick read and a deeper look into William S. Burroughs weaknesses, sexuality, and seldom talked about murdering of his wife Joan, (interesting introduction). As an ex-junkie, reading a novel of junk sickness and the devastating love and lust that seemingly goes with it, is a great find. Not to mention I've fallen in love Burroughs' candid (and sometimes abominable) writing style that's loaded with wit and intelligence.
Rating:  -
I enjoyed reading this book. If you like Burroughs work this is a definite read.
Rating: -
This books is a very sensible story of William Burroughs with his boyfriend Allerton in the 50's in the spectral corrupted Mexico City, where queers where sexually repressed and where the repression was another tool of control.
Burroughs give a comprehensible writing, more in the genre of Junky, where this is a straightforward telling with reality transposition, and with this tender and sad story of the end of the addiction of Burroughs and his sexual orientation and love story with this young boy which goes on a trip with Burroughs and ends on a really sad ending with tears streaming down from his face in the sound of the wind down the city streets and piano music in a feel of hardcore sadness.
Rating: -
A book of unreciprocated feelings, and longings amplified by withdrawel and junk sickness. This is a much more intimate and personal look into the life of William Burroughs than his other stuff. It takes place after he accidentally killed his wife, and he is sobering up and facing all of the demons and guilt previously dulled by the drugs.
This book was banned for a long time, the homosexual relationships and longings aren't grotesque exaggerations with shock value in mind like some of his other stories, they are very human and almost universal innocent boyish longings for affection.
He develops these "routines", funny stories he uses that show off his sarcasm and absurd sense of humor when he wants the attention of the room. All of the stories are hilarious and really show off his talent as a writer, but the people around him generally could care less or they just don't get it. So he is trapped always in a foreign land suspicious of everyone searching endlessly for islands of sanctuary.
Burroughs claims in the introduction that just reading the words and putting it down is very painful for him, but he did it so that he could move forward. A very intense time in the life of a brilliant and fascinating character.
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