viernes, 24 de octubre de 2014

WILLIAM BURROUGHS Y JACQUES DERRIDA; LITERATURA PARASITARIA Y CULTURA REPLICANTE: DEL VIRUS DEL LENGUAJE A LA PSICOTOPOGRAFÍA DEL TEXTO Dr. ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA




Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca
 William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil



RESUMEN: 
 
En la obra de William Burroughs el sujeto se encuentra manipulado y transformado por los procesos de contagio. El lenguaje es un virus que se reproduce con gran facilidad y condiciona cualquier actividad humana, dando cuenta de su intoxicada naturaleza. Los textos de Burroughs proliferan sin principio ni fin como una plaga, se reproducen y alargan en sentidos imprevisibles, son el producto de una hibridación de muy diversos registros que no tienen nada que ver con una evolución literaria tradicional, sus diferentes elementos ignoran la progresión de la narración y aparecen a la deriva desestructurando las novelas de su marco temporal, de su coexistencia espacial, de su significado, y posibilitando que sea el lector quien acabe por estructurarlas según sus propios deseos. Ante esta situación vírica que Burroughs considera que impregna la existencia, el escritor entiende que nuestro fin es el caos.El caos como un espacio mítico donde reina lo híbrido, la fusión de lo contradictorio, el doble monstruoso. La función del caos en la escritura será una fascinación por los residuos, por el flujo verbal que nos lleva al hundimiento y a la perdida, por el retorno al silencio. La aspiración será “Encontrar un lenguaje endémico, caótico, que sea un lenguaje del cuerpo, que se convierta entonces en el fin reconocido de la escritura”
Dr. ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA



























EL SUJETO DE LAS ADICCIONES

ERRANCIA, La palabra Inconclusa, Nº 9 - 2014, Monográfico –Elsujeto de las adicciones–, Revista de Psicoanálisis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM. 
 
William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil

- Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “William S. Burroughs y Jacques Derrida; Literatura parasitaria y Cultura Replicante: Del virus del Lenguaje a la Psicotopografía del Texto”, En ERRANCIA, La palabra Inconclusa, Nº 9 - 2014, Monográfico –El sujeto de las adicciones–, Revista de Psicoanálisis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM.


William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil
- VÁSQUEZ ROCCA, Adolfo, “WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS Y JACQUES DERRIDA; LITERATURA PARASITARIA Y CULTURA REPLICANTE: DEL VIRUS DEL LENGUAJE A LA PSICOTOPOGRAFÍA DEL TEXTO”, En ERRANCIA, La palabra Inconclusa, Nº 9 - 2014, Monográfico –El sujeto de las adicciones–, Revista de Psicoanálisis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México UNAM.
ERRANCIA NÚMERO NUEVE
EL SUJETO DE LAS ADICCIONES


William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil
AcademiaEdu

Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca


William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil

"Emitir no puede ser nunca mas que un medio para emitir más, como la Droga. Trate usted de utilizar la droga como medio para otra cosa (...) Al emisor no le gusta la charla. El emisor no es un ser humano (...) Es el Virus Humano."

W. S. Burroughs


Desperté de la Enfermedad a los cuarenta y cinco años, sereno, cuerdo y en bastante buen estado de salud, a no ser por un hígado algo resentido y ese aspecto de llevar la carne de prestado que tienen todos los que sobreviven a la Enfermedad... La mayoría de esos supervivientes no recuerdan su delirio con detalle. Al parecer, yo tomé notas detalladas sobre la Enfermedad y el delirio.
W. S. Burroughs

La droga es el producto ideal... la mercancía definitiva. No hace falta literatura para vender. El cliente se arrastrará por una alcantarilla para suplicar que le vendan... El comerciante de droga no vende su producto al consumidor, vende el consumidor a su producto. No mejora ni simplifica su mercancía. Degrada y simplifica al cliente. Paga a sus empleados en droga.
W. S. Burroughs

La droga produce una fórmula básica de virus “maligno”: El álgebra de la necesidad. El rostro del «mal» es siempre el rostro de la necesidad total. El drogadicto es un hombre con una necesidad absoluta de droga. A partir de cierta frecuencia, la necesidad no conoce límite ni control alguno. Con palabras de necesidad total: «¿Estás dispuesto?» Sí, lo estás. Estás dispuesto a mentir, engañar, denunciar a tus amigos, robar, hacer lo que sea para satisfacer esa necesidad total. Porque estarás en un estado de enfermedad total, de posesión total, imposibilitado para hacer cualquier otra cosa. Los drogadictos son enfermos que no pueden actuar más que como actúan. Un perro rabioso no puede sino morder. Adoptar una actitud puritana no conduce a nada, salvo que se pretenda mantener el virus en funcionamiento.
W. S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil
AcademiaEdu


 
     1.- La metáfora viral.
La o                         La obra de William Burroughs es un informe sobre sus viajes a un mundo psicodélico y mutante, donde la condición del hombre está definida por sus adicciones (tanto al poder como a las drogas) y donde nuestra especie está en proceso de mutación hacía otra forma poshumana.
William S. Burroughs fue un sobreviviente. Paranoico y genial. Novelista, drogadicto e ícono cool. Aunque también su figura ostenta otras etiquetas: la de padre del punk, la de homosexual, la de pintor, la de ensayista, la de amante de las armas, la de autor postmodernista, la de figura primaria de la generación Beat, entre unas cuantas más, como místico, teórico de los medios, gurú de la ciencia ficción, etc. Cualquiera de ellas puede funcionar bien como una puerta de entrada a su mundo.
En en la obra de William Burroughs el sujeto se encuentra manipulado y transformado por los procesos de contagio. El lenguaje es un virus que se reproduce con gran facilidad y condiciona cualquier actividad humana, dando cuenta de su intoxicada naturaleza. Los textos de Burroughs proliferan sin principio ni fin como una plaga, se reproducen y alargan en sentidos imprevisibles, son el producto de una hibridación de muy diversos registros que no tienen nada que ver con una evolución literaria tradicional, sus diferentes elementos ignoran la progresión de la narración y aparecen a la deriva desestructurando las novelas de su marco temporal, de su coexistencia espacial, de su significado, y posibilitando que sea el lector quien acabe por estructurarlas según sus propios deseos.
En el contexto de esta escritura laberíntica en la que corremos el riesgo del extravío del autor perdido en el texto o por los constantes y expansivos comentarios, estamos ante la idea del texto como tejido en perpetuo urdimiento, como un tejido que se hace, se traba a mismo y deshace al sujeto en su textura: una araña tal que se disolvería ella misma en las secreciones constructivas de su tela. Así William Burroughs viene a ser el precursor de la deriva, en el sentido situ de dérive y en la definición de Lyotard de driftwork.
A partir de los textos de Burroughs es posible prever una geografía enteramente nueva, una especie de mapa de peregrinaciones en el que los lugares sagrados se han reemplazado con experiencias dromo-literarias: una verdadera ciencia de la psicotopografía.



2.- Parásitos, lectura deconstructiva e historias de amor triste
Vivimos un momento no sólo sospechoso sino también generador de otras tantas incertidumbres, como las que recaen sobre los procesos significativos. El escepticismo postmoderno, descree radicalmente ya no –como es obvio– de la verdad, sino de la posibilidad de interpretaciones validas o más bien validadas de acuerdo a un criterio externo o distinto a la ficcionalización de los relatos,1 lecturas intencionadas y maliciosas de los textos o –como bien dirá Derrida– ante sobreinterpretaciones, recuérdese que –“una buena traducción debe ser abusiva”.2 Las sospechas a este respecto son razonables, si se tiene en cuenta que la cultura actúa como una cadena de textos que por una parte se instruyen mutuamente y, por otra, están en desplazamiento constante.3
La estrategia de desplazar, diferir, des-estructurar, diseminar, son propias de una lectura deconstructiva, una lectura –en apariencia– parasitaria. La lectura deconstructiva de una obra dada sería simple y llanamente un parásito de la lectura obvia o unívoca. Como en el caso de una cita de una cita como ejemplo del tipo de cadena que pretendemos auscultar aquí. ¿Es la cita un parásito intruso dentro del cuerpo del texto principal, o es el texto interpretativo el parásito que rodea y estrangula a la cita, su anfitrión? El anfitrión alimenta al parásito y hace posible su vida pero, al mismo tiempo, es aniquilado por él tal como se acostumbra decir que la crítica mata a la literatura.4
1A modo de esbozo de una teoría literaria –de la creación de entidades ficcionales, mundos y tramas dentro del texto– podemos caracterizar la naturaleza del relato de ficción como un mundo posible ceñido a las normas constitutivas de la lógica modal. Este modelo ofrecerá las respuestas a problemas como la relación entre el mundo real y el dominio semántico del texto de ficción, o la posibilidad de hacer declaraciones sobre la función de verdad en los universos de la ficción. 
 
2DERRIDA, Jacques, La deconstrucción en las fronteras de la Filosofía: La retirada de la metáfora, Editorial Paidós, Barcelona, 1989.
3VÁSQUEZ ROCCA, Adolfo, Postmodernidad y sobreinterpretación. Lecturas paranoicas y métodos obsesivos de interpretación; En NÓMADAS. 11 | Enero-Junio.2005. Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas. UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID.http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/11/avrocca1.htm
4 MILLER, J. Hillis, "El crítico como huésped", en Deconstrucción y crítica, Siglo XXI editores, México, 2003, p. 211 – 212









 
 
 

  
          


1 Especie de “muerte celular programada”, un “suicidio” genéticamente determinado.


William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil
           
           Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

Adolfo Vásquez Rocca Doctor en Filosofía

 

 Adolfo Vasquez Rocca - Universidad Complutense de Madrid



  Doctor en Filosofía Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso y Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Profesor de la Escuela de Psicología de la UNAB. –Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de 'Reflexiones Marginales' –Revista de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras UNAM. –Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de Errancia, Revista de Psicoanálisis, Teoría Crítica y Cultura –UNAM– Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. – Director de Revista Observaciones Filosóficas. Profesor visitante en la Maestría en Filosofía de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. –Profesor Asociado al Grupo Theoria – Proyecto europeo de Investigaciones de Postgrado –UCM. Eastern Mediterranean University - Academia.edu. Académico Investigador de la Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad Andrés Bello. –Investigador Asociado de la Escuela Matríztica de Santiago –dirigida por el Dr. Humberto Maturana. Consultor Experto del Consejo Nacional de Innovación para la Competitividad (CNIC)– Ha publicado el Libro: Peter Sloterdijk; Esferas, helada cósmica y políticas de climatización, Colección Novatores, Nº 28, Editorial de la Institución Alfons el Magnànim (IAM), Valencia, España, 2008. Invitado especial a la International Conference de la Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa | Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2011.Profesor de Postgrado, Magister en Biología-Cultural, Escuela Matríztica de Santiago y Universidad Mayor 2014
       
 
 
    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adolfo Vásquez Rocca Arte y Filosofía

Doctor en Filosofía por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Postgrado Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Departamento de Filosofía IV. Profesor de Postgrado del Instituto de Filosofía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Profesor de Antropología y Estética en el Departamento de Artes y Humanidades de la Universidad Andrés Bello UNAB. Profesor de la Escuela de Periodismo y Arquitectura UNAB Santiago.  – En octubre de 2006 y 2007 es invitado por la ‘Fundación Hombre y Mundo’ y la UNAM a dictar un Ciclo de Conferencias en México.  – Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de la ‘Fundación Ética Mundial‘ de México. Director del Consejo Consultivo Internacional de ‘Konvergencias‘, Revista de Filosofía y Culturas en Diálogo, Argentina. Miembro del Conselho Editorial da Humanidades em Revista, Universidade Regional do Noroeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil y del Cuerpo Editorial de Sophia –Revista de Filosofía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador– . Director de Revista Observaciones Filosóficas. Profesor visitante en la Maestría en Filosofía de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. – Profesor visitante Florida Christian University USA y Profesor Asociado al Grupo Theoria –Proyecto europeo de Investigaciones de Postgrado– UCM.  Académico Investigador de la Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad Andrés Bello. Artista conceptual. Ha publicado el Libro: Peter Sloterdijk; Esferas, helada cósmica y políticas de climatización, Colección Novatores, Nº 28, Editorial  de la Institución Alfons el Magnànim (IAM), Valencia, España,  2008.  Invitado especial a la International Conference de la Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa | Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2011
VÁSQUEZ ROCCA, Adolfo
Doctor en Filosofía
Director de Revista Observaciones Filosóficas

Contacto



Domicilio


Valparaíso, Chile 

Adscripción Académica


Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
Universidad Andrés Bello UNAB
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Eastern Mediterranean University - Academia.edu


Trayectoria Académica

Doctor en Filosofía por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Postgrado Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Departamento de Filosofía IV, mención Filosofía Contemporánea y Estética.

Profesor de Postgrado del Instituto de Filosofía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Profesor de Antropología y Estética en el Departamento de Artes y Humanidades de la Universidad Andrés Bello UNAB. Profesor de la Escuela de Periodismo, Profesor Adjunto Escuela de Psicología y de la Facultad de Arquitectura UNAB Santiago. Profesor PEL Programa Especial de Licenciatura en Diseño, UNAB – DUOC UC.
En octubre de 2006 y 2007 es invitado por la 'Fundación Hombre y Mundo' y la UNAM a dictar un Ciclo de Conferencias en México.
Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de la 'Fundación Ética Mundial' de México. Director del Consejo Consultivo Internacional de 'Konvergencias', Revista de Filosofía y Culturas en Diálogo, Argentina.  Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de Revista Praxis. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional UNA, Costa Rica. Miembro del Conselho Editorial da Humanidades em Revista, Universidade Regional do Noroeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil y del Cuerpo Editorial de Sophia –Revista de Filosofía de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador–.  –Secretario Ejecutivo de Revista Philosophica  PUCV.

Asesor Consultivo de Enfocarte –Revista de Arte y Literatura– Cataluña / Gijón, Asturias, España. –Miembro del Consejo Editorial Internacional de 'Reflexiones Marginales' –Revista de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras UNAM. –Editor Asociado de Societarts, Revista de artes y humanidades, adscrita a la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. –Miembro del Comité Editorial de International Journal of Safety and Security in Tourism and Hospitality, publicación científica de la Universidad de Palermo. –Miembro Titular del Consejo Editorial Internacional de Errancia,  Revista de Psicoanálisis, Teoría Crítica y Cultura –UNAM– Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. –Miembro del Consejo Editorial de Revista “Campos en Ciencias Sociales”, Universidad Santo Tomás  © , Bogotá, Colombia.

Miembro de la Federación Internacional de Archivos Fílmicos (FIAF) con sede en Bruselas, Bélgica.  Director de Revista Observaciones Filosóficas. Profesor visitante en la Maestría en Filosofía de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. – Profesor visitante Florida Christian University USA y Profesor Asociado al Grupo TheoriaProyecto europeo de Investigaciones de Postgrado –UCM.  Eastern Mediterranean University - Academia.edu. Académico Investigador de la Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad Andrés Bello. –Investigador Asociado y Profesor adjunto de la Escuela Matríztica de Santiago –dirigida por el Dr. Humberto Maturana. Consultor Experto del Consejo Nacional de Innovación para la Competitividad (CNIC)– Artista conceptual. Crítico de Arte. Ha publicado el Libro: Peter Sloterdijk; Esferas, helada cósmica y políticas de climatización, Colección Novatores, Nº 28, Editorial  de la Institución Alfons el Magnànim (IAM), Valencia, España,  2008.  Invitado especial a la International Conference de la Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa | Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2011. Traducido al Francés - Publicado en la sección  Architecture de la Anthologie: Le Néant Dans la Pensée Contemporaine . Publications du Centre Français d'Iconologie Comparée CFIC, Bès Editions , París, ©  2012. Profesor de Postgrado, Magister en Biología-Cultural, Escuela Matríztica de Santiago y Universidad Mayor 2013.- 2014

ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA PHD.


Publicaciones

- Ver todas las publicaciones


(2014)


Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Lógica paraconsistente, paradojas y lecturas parasitarias: Del virus del lenguaje a las lógicas difusas, (Lewis Carroll, B. Russell, K. Gödel y W. S. Burroughs)", En EIKASIA, Revista de Filosofía, Nº 58 – 2014, Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía SAF, Oviedo, España, pp. 41– 64.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Nietzsche y Freud, negociación, culpa y crueldad: las pulsiones y sus destinos, eros y thanatos (agresividad y destructividad)”, En EIKASIA Nº 57, 2014, Revista de Filosofía, Oviedo, SAF - Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Sloterdijk: el retorno de la religión, la lucha de los monoteísmos históricos y el asedio a jerusalén; Psicopolítica de los bancos de ira, apocalipsis y relatos escatológicos; del fundamentalismo islámico a los espectros de Marx". En Revista Almiar - III Época Nº 75 - 2014, ISSN: 1696-4807, MARGEN CERO, Madrid.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Freud y Kafka: Criminales por sentimiento de culpabilidad: En torno a la crueldad, el sabotaje y la auto-destructividad humana”, En EIKASIA, Revista de la Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía SAF, Nº 55 – marzo, 2014 - ISSN 1885-5679 – Oviedo, España, pp. 73 – 92.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Zoología Política: Disturbios en el Parque Humano, Cultura de Masas y el modelo amigable de la Sociedad Literaria”, En Revista Almiar, MARGEN CERO, Madrid, III Época – Nº 73 marzo–abril, 2014.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Peter Sloterdijk: Constitución Psico-inmunitaria de la naturaleza humana, Ciencia Zoológica y Ciencia Pneumática; Deriva biotecnológica e historia espiritual de la criatura”, En Academia.edu, Manuscritos Transversales, 2014, pp. 45–66; y Cuaderno de Materiales, ISSN: 1139-4382, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Nº 26, 2014.

(2013)

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Arte Conceptual y Posconceptual. La idea como arte: Duchamp, Beuys, Cage y Fluxus", En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, Nómadas Nº 37  |  Enero-Junio 2013 (I), pp. 100 - 130.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Peter Sloterdijk: El animal acrobático, prácticas antropotécnicas y diseño de lo humano”,  En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, NÓMADAS. Nº 39 | Julio-Diciembre, 2013 (I)  pp. 100-125.
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, " Foucault; 'Los Anormales', una Genealogía de lo Monstruoso; Apuntes para una Historiografía de la Locura.",  En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, —NÓMADAS. Nº 34 – 2012 (2), pp. 403 - 420
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Sloterdijk: Neuroglobalización, estresores y prácticas psico-inmunológicas", En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, Nómadas Nº 35 | Julio-Diciembre.2012 - 2013 (I), pp. 427 - 457
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Peter Sloterdijk: Experimentos con uno mismo. Ensayos de intoxicación voluntaria y constitución psicoinmunitaria de la naturaleza humana”, REVISTA DE ANTROPOLOGÍA EXPERIMENTAL, Nº 13,  2013 -  pp. 323-340  -  ISSN: 1578-4282,  UNIVERSIDAD DE JAÉN  (España). 
Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Peter Sloterdijk: Celo de Dios, neo-expresionismo islámico y política exterior norteamericana", EIKASIA, Revista de la Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía SAF, Nº 53 – diciembre, 2013 - ISSN 1885-5679 – Oviedo, España, pp. 23 – 40.

Libros


Libro: Peter Sloterdijk; Esferas, helada cósmica y políticas de climatización, Colección Novatores, Nº 28, Editorial  de la Institución Alfons el Magnànim (IAM), Valencia, España,  2008. 221 páginas | I.S.B.N.: 978-84-7822-523-1

Libro: Rorty: el Giro narrativo de la Ética o la Filosofía como género literario [Compilación de Conferencias en México D.F.] Editorial Hombre y Mundo (H & M), México, 2009,  450 páginas I.S.B.N.: 978-3-7800-520-1



Publicaciones Catalogadas en:
DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals 

DIALNET Directorio de Publicaciones Científicas Hispanoamericanas

Publications Scientific

Biblioteket og Aarhus Universitet, Denmark | Det Humanistiske Fakultet

Biblioteca Universia Unesco - CSIC
Biblioteca UCM → Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Biblioteca Asociación Filosófica UI
Eastern Mediterranean University - Academia.edu

Publicaciones Indexadas en Revista Nómadas




VÁSQUEZ ROCCA, Adolfo, "SLOTERDIJK: NEUROGLOBALIZACIÓN, ESTRESORES Y PRÁCTICAS PSICO-INMUNOLÓGICAS", En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, Nómadas Nº 35 | Julio-Diciembre.2012 - 2013 (I), pp. 427 - 457http://www.theoria.eu/nomadas/35/adolfovrocca.pdf






Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Peter Sloterdijk: El animal acrobático, prácticas antropotécnicas y diseño de lo humano”,  En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, NÓMADAS. Nº 39 | Julio-Diciembre, 2013 (I)  pp. 100-125
http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/nomadas/39/adolfovrocca_es.pdf

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “Peter Sloterdijk: Experimentos con uno mismo. Ensayos de intoxicación voluntaria y constitución psicoinmunitaria de la naturaleza humana”, REVISTA DE ANTROPOLOGÍA EXPERIMENTAL, Nº 13,  2013 -  pp. 323-340  -  ISSN: 1578-4282,  UNIVERSIDAD DE JAÉN  (España). 
http://www.ujaen.es/huesped/rae/articulos2013/21vasquez13.pdf

Adolfo Vásquez Rocca Doctor en Filosofía

ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA PH.D. - CURRICULUM ACADÉMICO


Eastern Mediterranean University - Academia.edu
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Universidad Andrés Bello UNAB

E-mail: adolfovrocca@gmail.com

PAPELES___ MANUSCRITOS___DIARIOS__TESIS ___CUADERNOS __BORRADORES Y PRÓLOGOS___FILOSOFÍA, ARTE Y NOTAS AL MARGEN ___DR. ADOLFO VÁSQUEZ ROCCA

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "Lógica paraconsistente, paradojas y lecturas parasitarias: Del virus del lenguaje a las lógicas difusas, (Lewis Carroll, B. Russell, K. Gödel y W. S. Burroughs)", En EIKASIA, Revista de Filosofía, Nº 58 – 2014, Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía SAF, Oviedo, España, pp. 41– 64. 


Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “William Burroughs: Literatura ectoplasmoide y mutaciones antropológicas. Del virus del lenguaje a la psicotopografía del texto”, En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - Universidad Complutense de Madrid, NÓMADAS. 26 | Enero-Junio.2010 (II), pp. 251-265.  http://www.ucm.es/info/nomadas/26/avrocca2.pdf
En Qì Revista de pensamiento cultura y creación, Año VII – Nº8, 2006, pp. 118 a 124,
UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID (ESPAÑA, UE)
http://www.margencero.com/articulos/new03/burroughs.html


Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "W. Burroughs; La metáfora viral y sus mutaciones antropológicas" En Almiar MARGEN CERO, Revista Fundadora de la ASOCIACIÓN DE REVISTAS DIGITALES DE ESPAÑA - Nº  46 - 2009.

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo,  “William Burroughs. Metáfora Viral,  compulsión y  Literatura conspirativa”, En NÓMADAS, Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas - UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID, NÓMADAS.13 | Enero-Junio (2006.1) pp. 419-424
http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/nomadas/13/avrocca2.pdf

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, “La Metáfora Viral en William Burroughs; Posmodernidad, compulsión y  Literatura conspirativa”, en NÓMADAS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid,  Nº 13 (2006.1), p. 419-424, Versión digital: <http://revistas.ucm.es/cps/15786730/articulos/NOMA0606120419A.PDF>
Y En Qì Revista de pensamiento cultura y creación, Año VII – Nº 8, 2006, pp. 118 a  124, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Vásquez Rocca, Adolfo, "W. Burroughs; La metáfora viral y sus mutaciones antropológicas" En Almiar MARGEN CERO, Revista Fundadora de la ASOCIACIÓN DE REVISTAS DIGITALES DE ESPAÑA - Nº  46 - 2009.








    William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil    


BEAT WRITER'S GOT THE BEAT: William S. Burroughs Sings!

One of the most unlikely stars of the late '70s-to-early '90s punk/college rock days wasn't a musician at all, but a taciturn, elderly writer clad not in flannel shirts and Doc Martens, but a three-piece suit, hat, and cane. How a novelist with no musical background who began his career in the 1940s became so popular an alternative music figure that Kurt Cobaine backed him up on one of Cobain's last recordings is one of the odder, more fascinating footnotes in this otherwise heavily examined musical era.

William S. Burroughs is, of course, one of the most celebrated figures in 20th century literature due to his key participation in the "Beat" movement that essentially dragged American letters into the modern era, rejecting classical European/Shakespearean influences in an attempt to create a literature as unique to the U.S. as jazz is to American music. And, indeed, the cliche of the beatnik reciting stream-of-consciousness poetry over cool jazz is the first thing that pops to mind when considering the confluence of the Beats with music.

But Burroughs was never a beatnik.  He was a junkie and heroin dealer who accidentally shot and killed his wife, traveled thru Latin America and Morocco, helped popularize North African trance ritual music, dismantled literature via his "cut-up" method of chopping up and rearranging pages of writings, was put on trial for obscenity, saw his son go to prison, saw his son die, was gay in the pre-Stonewall days, and co-created a "dream machine" said to create somewhat hallucinatory experiences when activated.

In other words, he'd been thru some shit. By the late '70s, he was back in the States and started giving public readings in his now impossibly craggy, deep, world-weary voice.  This was to be his main source of income for the last years of his life. The downtown New York scene was receptive to both his writings and his voice, filled as it was with not only the weight and wisdom of a life you never led, but with an idiosyncratic rhythmic delivery. He left New York for Kansas in 1981, well on his way to becoming an icon of cool.

After a while, it wasn't enough to just listen to Burroughs read his own works, with increasingly elaborate musical backings, but to hire him to perform on other people's recordings. And that is what we have here: not Burroughs' own releases, but his various miscellaneous appearances on other bands' songs. Having Burroughs perform your music gave you instant hip cred, and gave a Bill a paycheck. As this article puts it, he was a rock star to rock stars. William S. Burroughs died in 1997, at age 83.

William S. Burroughs Sings

UPDATE 10/13: Also now up on ubu.web: http://www.ubu.com/sound/burroughs_sings.html

1. Star Me Kitten (with REM, from "Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by 'the X-Files'" - 1996)
2. Is Everybody In? (with The Doors, reciting Jim Morrison poetry, from "Stoned Immaculate: The Music of the Doors")
3. Sharkey's Night (with Laurie Anderson, from "Mister Heartbreak" - 1983)
4. What Keeps Mankind Alive (from Kurt Weill tribute album "September Songs")
5. 'T 'Aint No Sin (1920s jazz song, performed on Tom Waits' "The Black Rider" - 1993)
6. Quick Fix (w/Ministry, "Just One Fix" b-side - 1992)
7. Old Lady Sloan (w/The Eudoras, covering a song by a Lawrence, Kansas punk band from "The Mortal Micronotz Tribute!" - 1995
8. Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fub Auf Liebe Eingestellt (Falling In Love Again) - Marlene Deitrich cover, from "Dead City Radio" - 1988
 William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil




William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil



Sobrevivió a todo: a Jack Kerouac y Allen Ginsberg, a sus propios excesos de todo tipo, a la culpa, a los exilios, a los críticos. El sábado lo mató su corazón, a los 83, en Kansas City.
 
Aunque las informaciones cablegráficas repitan que murió el sábado, a los 83 años, en un cuarto de hospital de Lawrence (Kansas), los lectores de William S. Burroughs harán bien en desconfiar. Beatnik heterodoxo, perverso polimorfo, gourmet entusiasta de todas las estimulaciones del mundo, el escritor sobrevivió a demasiadas catástrofes como para que un módico ataque cardíaco obligue a escribir sobre él en pasado.

  Burroughs sobrevivió a una extensa carrera de heroinómano, emprendida intencionalmente a principios de los años '40, cuando dejó su St. Louis natal y desembarcó en Nueva York, y sólo interrumpida 20 años más tarde, en una diminuta habitación de Tánger cuando, después de pasarse un mes contemplándose su propio pie, descubrió, también intencionalmente, que se estaba muriendo. Sobrevivió a una fugaz experiencia criminal en México, cuando puso en práctica su alucinada puntería de Guillermo Tell con su mujer, Joan Vollmer Adams, y la mató con el disparo destinado al vaso de vidrio que había puesto sobre su cabeza. Sobrevivió a la culpa, al exilio (Sudamérica, Tánger) y a los procesos judiciales que le deparó a fines de los '50 su novela más famosa, Almuerzo desnudo, el más eufórico descenso a los infiernos de la droga que la

  Sobrevivió a la admirada envidia que le profesaron Jack Kerouac y Allen Ginsberg, los dos cómplices con los que fundó el movimiento beatnik. Sobrevivió a la policía, a los médicos, al anonimato y a la fama, y hasta sobrevivió a Kurt Cobain, que en 1992 lo convocó para grabar su voz mitológica en un tema del álbum The Priest They Called Him. Ironías de la literatura: en 1993, Christopher Silvester, profético editor de una antología de reportajes, concluye el prólogo a la entrevista de Burroughs dándolo por muerto... en 1996.

  Esa extraordinaria voluntad de persistencia es apenas la cara visible de la energía que consumió la vida y la obra de Burroughs: la energía de experimentar. Con su propio cuerpo, con la literatura, con la tecnología (no en vano Burroughs, ese Marshall Macluhan políticamente incorrecto, era nieto del inventor de la máquina de calcular), con las formas monstruosas que empieza a asumir el mundo contemporáneo. Ya en sus primeros libros (Yonqui y Queer, de principios de los años '50) aparece trazada la prodigiosa continuidad entre experiencia y ficción que marcaría toda su carrera. En 1959 publicó Almuerzo desnudo, la perfecta autobiografía de un heroinómano: libro radical, una biblia atroz que expande límites sin pudor y sin la menor sombra de autocompasión. Los temas: droga y sexualidad, la aleación que lo cubriría de escarnio y de prestigio. Las formas: una escritura salvaje, de una nitidez casi clínica, experta en el montaje de géneros, materiales y texturas que la literatura pocas veces se había atrevido a hacer coexistir. Este gran libro de drogón es también un gran libro de vidente que anuncia el mundo del porvenir. Un paisaje de paranoia y control planetarios. 
  Con Almuerzo desnudo nació el mito Burroughs. El resto de su obra es vasto, intrincado, a menudo ilegible. Libros como La máquina blanda, El boleto que explotó (próximo a aparecer en castellano) o Expreso Nova son nuevos atajos de un camino sin retorno, solitario y encarnizado, donde la experiencia estalla en jirones casi irreconocibles. La herencia Burroughs, sin embargo, no es libresca. Leída o no, conocida o rozada de segunda mano, su prosa y su figura fermentan desde hace décadas en los márgenes del mundo literario: en el rock (Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Soft Machine y David Bowie son algunos de sus deudores reconocidos, esto sin mencionar que U2 lo homenajea en su último video "Last nigth on heart"), en el cine (la versión Cronenberg de Almuerzo desnudo, el gurú adicto que Burroughs interpreta en Drugstore Cowboy, de Gus Van Sant), en todas aquellas regiones de la experiencia donde la vida busca transformarse en otra cosa.   



William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil


 
William S. BURROUGHS es una de las figuras más transgresoras e inclasificables de la literatura universal, hasta el punto de resultar dudosa su condición de narrador, en el sentido estricto del término (contador de historias). No cabe duda de que se trata de un escritor, puesto que su medio de expresión es el lenguaje escrito plasmado sobre papel, pero ahí acaban las certezas.
El lenguaje que utiliza está tan alejado de la norma académica como de las distintas jergas y dialectos marginales norteamericanos. Con frecuencia sazona su prosa con términos de invención propia, construcciones gramaticales imposibles o palabras desprovistas de significado pero cargadas de sonoridad. Por todo ello, puede considerarse la mayor parte de su obra como poesía en prosa, ya que su intención no está tanto en la narración como en la evocación de determinadas atmósferas y ambientes, así como estados psicológicos extremos (casi nunca sentimientos). Para este fin utiliza el lenguaje, destruyéndolo y recomponiéndolo a su gusto, siempre consciente de que se trata de un código rígido y obtuso que debe ser dinamitado y reprogramado, intentando utilizarlo como fin más que como medio de expresión, ya que esto último supondría dejarlo en el lugar que siempre ha ocupado y que le ha servido para llegar a un estado de momificación absoluta.
En este sentido, BURROUGHS, como Joyce , decide replantearse la base misma de la creación literaria, que no es otra que el propio código de comunicación. Es consciente de que un nuevo código transmite siempre nuevas ideas, y lo que es más importante: nuevas sensaciones. Para él, escribir es un acto físico de coordinación motora. Su meta es escribir más rápido de lo que se piensa, tal y como lo pretendieron los surrealistas por medio de la escritura automática. Este fin, aunque imposible, se vuelve deseable y útil como método de creación, o incluso de meditación. De la misma forma que la repetición de los “mantras” en el budismo zen es una forma de desproveer al lenguaje de su significado y limpiar la mente de todo pensamiento, ayudada por el ritmo respiratorio que dichos “mantras” imprimen al cuerpo; la escritura automática es una forma de liberarse de esa corriente de parloteo interno, encerrando los pensamientos en una hoja de papel en blanco y dejándolos fluír sin reflexionar sobre ellos. Es el monólogo interior de John Dos Passos llevado a su última consecuencia.
Esta forma de trabajo fue una de las principales aportaciones que BURROUGHS transmitió a los escritores de la generación BEAT , de la que fue maestro y antecesor directo. No resulta casual que muchos de sus integrantes mostraran interés por la meditación y las tradiciones místicas orientales (zen, taoísmo, vedanta, sufismo...)y desarrollaran un estilo hipnótico y sincopado muy influenciado por estas filosofías, así como por movimientos musicales como el jazz y el be-bop. Tanto Allen Ginsberg como Gregory Corso y, sobretodo Jack Kerouac , reflejan en sus páginas esta clase de flujo obsesivo y automático de palabras, que guarda mucha relación con el beat (golpe) que les sirvió de seña de identidad generacional. Golpes a las teclas de la máquina de escribir, golpes a la batería de jazz que confieren un ritmo diabólico y espiral a las improvisaciones, golpes de las máquinas que trabajan en lugar del hombre a partir del fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y sobretodo, golpes que les da la vida y la sociedad a todos aquellos que pretenden guiarse por su conciencia individual más que por la luz que irradia la locomotora del stablishment.
Como hemos dicho, BURROUGHS será una influencia decisiva sobre la generación beat, hasta el punto de ser considerado en ocasiones como parte integrante de la misma (algo no del todo cierto). El peculiar tratamiento que BURROUGHS hace del lenguaje lo llevará a la invención del método CUT-UP (cortar y pegar) aplicado a la narrativa, consistente en recortar un texto en múltiples fragmentos, agitarlos hasta mezclarlos aleatoriamente y, finalmente recombinarlos tal y como vayan surgiendo de los inexorables designios del azar. Dicho método ha dado lugar a novelas enteras de William Burroughs, quien lo ha llegado a utilizar durante entrevistas periodísticas por medio de la combinación de tres o más cintas magnetofónicas grabadas con distintos discursos mezlados de forma inconexa.
Este tipo de investigaciones y experimentos formales han cobrado gran importancia en la evolución de la música electrónica y las artes audiovisuales desde los sesenta hasta nuestros días (desde Stockhausen hasta el sampler digital tan utilizado en la actualidad, pasando por los videojockeys), pero no han seguido utilizándose apenas en la literatura. Esto explica por qué Burroughs ha ejercido tanta influencia sobre músicos y cineastas, tal como lo atestiguan los diversos discos-homenaje publicados por el sello belga de electrónica experimental Sub Rosa, o las múltiples colaboraciones de Burroughs con músicos ( Kurt Cobain , Ministry , U2, Laurie Anderson ...) o cineastas como Gus Van Sant y David Cronemberg .

William Seward Burroughs había nacido en el año 1914 en St. Louis (estado de Missouri) y desde muy joven se había ido formando gracias a su condición de rata de biblioteca y su esmerada educación burguesa (pertenece a una familia acomodada, su abuelo fue el fundador de una famosa marca de calculadoras, posteriormente absorbida por IBM). Estas circunstancias biográficas lo llevan a un rechazo tajante de las convenciones sociales y la moral imperante, que tan bien pudo conocer gracias a su entorno familiar conservador. Fue criado en el “american way of life” propio de la Norteamérica de entreguerras. Como suele suceder, las disidencias se gestan en el centro mismo del problema. En este sentido, BURROUGHS pertenece a una larga estirpe de burgueses automarginados y transgresores, donde se encuentran también el Marqués de Sade , Cocteau o Tomas De Quincey . Cuando uno no necesita preocuparse por subsistir puede dedicar su tiempo a replantearse conceptos morales.
Durante su juventud, estudia en distintas universidades, licenciándose en literatura inglesa en Harvard (donde conoce a T.S. Eliot ) en 1936 y cursando varios años de antropología, medicina, psicología... en diversos países (Alemania, Panamá, México...). Se casa con una judía alemana para librarla de los nazis y emprende un viaje por toda Europa. Trabaja de redactor de un periódico en St. Louis y a partir de 1938 se traslada a Chicago, donde ejercerá de exterminador de cucarachas y asistirá a un seminario de semántica impartido por Alfred Korzibsky . Se forma en profundidad en teoría psicoanalítica, parapsicología, telepatía... leyendo compulsivamente a autores contemporáneos como Wilhelm Reich , C.G. Jung , Spengler o L. Ron Hubbard y a clásicos como Zoroastro , Giordano Bruno , Paracelso ...
Junto a su interés por el mundo de la ciencia y el ocultismo, desarrolla una gran pasión por las armas, adquirida en la adolescencia durante su estancia en el Ranch School, un internado aristocrático situado en Los Álamos (Nuevo Méjico), donde poco tiempo después se realizarían las primeras pruebas atómicas y donde el joven BURROUGHS se iniciaría en las prácticas homosexuales, a la edad de 15 años.
Durante su estancia en Chicago desde 1938 hasta 1943 se introduce en el mundo del hampa y la delincuencia, condicionado por su incipiente adicción a la morfina. En 1943 se instala en Nueva York, conoce a Herbert Huncke , uno de los “héroes” suburbanos retratados por los escritores de la generación beat y heroinómano prototípico (así como genial escritor). También en esa época conoce a Allen Ginsberg y Jack Kerouac, quienes quedan fascinados por la amplia cultura y erudición de BURROUGHS, tomándolo como maestro y fuente de inspiración para sus respectivas obras literarias (en el caso concreto de Kerouac, en casi todas sus novelas aparece algún personaje basado en BURROUGHS, como el Bull Lee de “On the road”). El rol que desempeña BURROUGHS en ese momento fundacional de la “beat generation” será el de “hermano mayor” (aunque sea poco mayor que el resto), sobretodo gracias a haber vivido en diversos países y poseer una vasta cultura de los más variados temas. De este modo, BURROUGHS supera la sensación de aislamiento y malditismo que le había perseguido desde la infancia. Gracias a su influencia, Ginsberg y Kerouac leerán a autores como Hart Crane , William Butler Yeats , W.H. Auden , Blake , Kafka , Denton Welch ... y comenzarán a interesarse por la cultura oriental, por medio de obras clásicas como el Bhagavad- Gita , El Libro tibetano de los muertos , Upanisad o el Tao Te King .
A principios de los cincuenta, Kerouac le insta a retomar su afición infantil a escribir novelas. Incluso escribirán juntos una novela inédita titulada “Y los hipopótamos se cocieron en sus tanques”, que trataba de las experiencias homosexuales de un amigo común fallecido prematuramente.
Hay que decir que BURROUGHS había escrito algunas novelas en su infancia, como “La autobiografía de un lobo”, con tan sólo ocho años o “Carl Cranbury en Egipto”. En ambas se vislumbra su afición a los países exóticos como medio de alejarse del aislamiento social al que su familia lo somete tras la caída de la bolsa en 1929, hecho que provocó la ruina económica de su padre y la consiguiente vergüenza y sensación de fracaso que lleva a su familia a trasladarse a una pequeña propiedad en las afueras de St. Louis. En 1929 publica en la revista del colegio una historia titulada “Magnetismo personal” en la que aborda precozmente varias de sus obsesiones posteriores: control mental, telepatía... En torno a los diez años escribe compulsivamente historias de piratas, vaqueros, gángsters... sazonadas con abundantes duelos de pistola (un motivo repetido en varias de sus novelas adultas). En estas primeras novelas se deja sentir la influencia de un libro titulado “No puedes ganar”, autobiografía de un ladrón llamado Jack Black publicada en 1924, obra que ejercerá un enorme poder de fascinación sobre el joven BURROUGHS y que lo acercará a un mundo marginal y furtivo que años después conocería de primera mano.
PRECEDIENDO AL “BEAT”: SU PRIMERA NOVELA
En el año 1945, a pesar de su homosexualidad, se casa con una mujer llamada Joan y compra una granja en Texas. Dos años después se traslada a Nueva Orleáns, donde comienza a tener problemas con la policía, ya que la situación legal es cada vez más difícil para los morfinómanos, por lo que huye a Méjico en 1949, donde asiste a un curso sobre historia azteca y escribe sus dos primeras novelas: “Yonqui” y “Marica”. La primera de ellas saldrá publicada en EEUU en 1953, gracias a las incansables gestiones y correcciones de Allen Ginsberg. No olvidemos que este fue un libro muy incómodo para el mundo editorial estadounidense de principios de los cincuenta, tanto por su temática como por su estilo. Por esta razón sale en un formato “pulp” y firmado con el pseudónimo William Lee , dentro de la editorial Ace Books de Carl Solomon , quien obliga a BURROUGHS a escribir una nota introductoria con tono moralista para cubrirse las espaldas ante la moral bienpensante de la época.
En su debut como escritor, BURROUGHS utiliza un estilo mucho más conciso y aséptico que en la mayor parte de sus obras posteriores. Otorga prioridad a la historia más que a la forma literaria, construyendo una narración desprovista de todo elemento accesorio, casi minimal. Este estilo, propio de las novelas “pulp”, busca impactar por medio de la inmediatez del lenguaje y la contundencia de lo que se cuenta. El lector asiste a una narración en primera persona, de aspecto improvisado, lo cual otorga un aura de autenticidad a la novela, que sirve como gancho para el lector (el morbo es un elemento central en la intencionalidad de las “pulp novels”, a menudo deudoras del periodismo sensacionalista). La novela se convierte rápidamente en un hito dentro del subgénero de la autobiografía toxicómana, destacando por su tono anti-poético y marginal, distanciándose del romanticismo de De Quincey y del lirismo de “Cain's book”, escrito por Trochi algunos años después. A diferencia de dichas obras, el relato de BURROUGHS sólo se centra en el proceso adictivo mismo, obviando cualquier narración adyacente con entidad propia y tono evocador.
Cuando se publica esta primera novela, la sociedad estadounidense vive un fervor prohibicionista en torno a diversas drogas, gracias en parte a la política impulsada por Henry Anslinger desde la DEA ("drug and food administration"). El estereotipo del adicto a narcóticos cambia al tiempo que lo hacen las leyes sobre la venta de drogas, pasando del modelo integrado social y económicamente propio del s.XIX y principios del XX (representado por Coleridge o De Quincey en la literatura) al marginal perseguido, residente de los barrios pobres de las grandes urbes. El recrudecimiento de las leyes contra la venta de drogas provocará la aparición de la figura del “camello” o traficante clandestino, que a menudo vende sustancias adulteradas.
Este momento de cambio en los hábitos y en la sociología de las drogas, se ve reflejado en la novela de BURROUGHS, quien empieza su adicción durante la 2ª Guerra Mundial a base de morfina y opiáceos de farmacia y progresivamente comienza a recurrir a heroína adulterada del mercado callejero, con un precio considerablemente mayor. La novela retrata la cotidianidad del adicto y la lucha constante contra las resistencias de los médicos y farmacéuticos a dispensar narcóticos (algo impensable tan sólo veinte años antes, cuando estos mismos profesionales eran el principal grupo social de adictos y/o difusores de la adicción yatrogénica). Diversos historiadores de las sustancias psicoactivas ( Antonio Escohotado , Richard Rudgley, Sadie Plant ...) han destacado la influencia determinante de esta novela de Burroughs en la aparición del concepto de yonqui como estereotipo sociológico, muy diferenciado del adicto a opiáceos de siglos anteriores (tanto del morfinómano sanitario como del fumador de opio), cuyo ocaso queda reflejado en la novela autobiográfica “Diary of a drug fiend” (1922) de Aleister Crowley .
Cuando en la década de los setenta los sueños de los “hijos de las flores” se desvanecieron, la figura del yonqui marginal comenzó a tomar impulso en forma de las llamadas “epidemias de heroína” (en España no llegará hasta principios de los ochenta) y se reflejó notoriamente en varios fenómenos de la cultura popular norteamericana. Desde las primeras canciones de la Velvet Underground ( Heroin a la cabeza) hasta el desencanto punk, pasando por la progresiva marginalización y despolitización del movimiento underground o los filmes de Warhol , Morrisey , Anger ... todos ellos influidos de forma directa y confesa por BURROUGHS, una de las pocas figuras que resultó inmune a la iconografía del “flower power” y al movimiento hippie.
Ya en esta primera novela, escrita en torno a 1950, deja claro su falta de confianza en las ideologías políticas y en los movimientos de masas, decantándose por la descripción de su universo personal más desgarrado y sincero y consolidándose como el gran “outsider” de la literatura norteamericana del siglo XX.
Poco después de terminar “Yonqui”, BURROUGHS escribe “Marica”, utilizando el mismo estilo simple y conciso. Esta será su novela más sentimental, ya que trata de sus diversas relaciones amorosas y sexuales durante su estancia en Méjico y Panamá. En ella queda claro que su matrimonio con Joan, a pesar de los hijos en común, es más una cuestión de amistad que de amor, ya que su condición de homosexual lo lleva a acumular jóvenes amantes masculinos, a menudo interesados por el dinero que esperan sacarle al “gringo”.
EL NACIMIENTO DEL MUTANTE Y SU ALMUERZO DESNUDO
En Méjico, cuando cree haber encontrado por fin su asentamiento ideal (le fascina la extrema libertad y el mundo onírico que se vive allí, amén de la facilidad con que puede comprar morfina) sucede un accidente que marcará su destino como escritor: su mujer muere tras recibir un disparo del propio Burroughs mientras realizaban prácticas de tiro a lo Guillermo Tell en estado ebrio. Este trágico suceso lo llevará a embarcarse en una expedición antropológica a Panamá, que después continuará en solitario por Colombia, Ecuador y Perú, en busca de la ayahuasca o yagé , un poderoso enteógeno vegetal utilizado por diversas tribus latinoamericanas (en especial por los jíbaros o shuar ). El interés de Burroughs en esta sustancia procede de las alusiones que muchos antropólogos habían hecho a sus supuestas propiedades telepáticas (de hecho, uno de sus principios activos fue bautizado como telepatina).
Durante estos viajes mantiene una relación epistolar con Allen Ginsberg. Las cartas de ambos se recopilarán y saldrán publicadas con el título de “Las cartas del yagé” en 1963. En ellas se observa la profunda depresión que atraviesa BURROUGHS tras el desgraciado accidente con su esposa.
Regresa a Nueva York en 1953 para asistir como padrino al nacimiento incipiente de la “Beat generation”. Conoce a Gregory Corso , John Clellon Holmes y el resto de escritores beat. En 1954 se marcha a vivir a Tánger a causa de sus problemas con la justicia estadounidense, allí residirá hasta 1958. Estos años serán los más duros y dramáticos de su vida, a causa de su adicción cada vez mayor a la heroína. Sus vecinos se refieren a él como “el hombre invisible” a causa de su aspecto extremadamente degradado. Durante este período no es capaz de escribir más que pequeños fragmentos inconexos , algunos de ellos incorporados después a su novela “El almuerzo desnudo”, que describe su vida en esta época. Tras numerosos intentos de desintoxicación, en 1956 se somete al revolucionario tratamiento de apomorfina del doctor John Dent (1888-1962) en una clínica de Londres, con resultados positivos que le permitirán retomar enérgicamente su labor literaria. De hecho, a principios de 1957 ya casi ha finalizado la novela, que será mecanografiada por Kerouac durante una visita que le hacen él y Ginsberg a Tánger. En 1958 se traslada a París, donde reside en el “hotel beat”, llamado así por albergar a gran cantidad de escritores y pintores de vanguardia a finales de los cincuenta, y comienza a experimentar con métodos como el “cut-up” (cortado), el “fold-in” (montaje) o el “splice-in” (inserción), aplicados a la literatura y surgidos de la influencia decisiva del pintor Brion Gysin .
“El almuerzo desnudo” es considerada por muchos como la obra maestra de BURROUGHS y como una novela paradigmática en la historia de la literatura norteamericana y mundial. Publicada tras muchos problemas legales en 1959, generó un auténtico escándalo en el mundo editorial estadounidense y tuvo que afrontar diversos procesos legales por obscenidad en Los Ángeles y Boston en 1965. La novela comienza con un prólogo-ensayo en el que BURROUGHS reflexiona sobre la adicción a los opiáceos como enfermedad metabólica, los distintos métodos de desintoxicación y las abismales diferencias que existen entre las diversas sustancias ilegales, cada una de ellas con unas características históricas y farmacológicas distintas, aunque metidas en el mismo saco de represión y ausencia de libertades por el gigante estadounidense, quien exportó su criterio moralizante y prohibicionista a países con larga tradición de consumo de sustancias ajenas al país del tío Sam, por medio de coacciones y presiones económicas casi siempre motivadas por oscuros intereses de estado.
Tras el prólogo, la novela profundiza en un universo onírico, obsesivo, donde la alucinación se entremezcla con la realidad (es probable que el frecuente consumo de mayún, una forma de hachís comestible, influyera notablemente en la construcción de la atmósfera del libro). Las calles de Tánger, Chicago o Nueva York se describen con intensidad psicoanalítica por medio de contundentes imágenes monstruosas asociadas casi siempre a los personajes “freaks” que pululan por ellas. La lucha entre el poder y los desarraigados se expresa de forma hiperbólica por medio de la sensación de constante paranoia que atraviesa la novela desde su contundente comienzo:
“Siento que la pasma se me echa encima, los siento tomar posiciones ahí fuera, organizar a sus soplones del demonio, canturreando en torno a la cuchara y el cuentagotas que tiré en la estación de Washington Square”.
El autor utiliza la escritura automática y el constante monólogo interior para lanzar imágenes vertiginosas sobre el papel, que impactan con la fuerza de sus connotaciones más que por su significado literal:
“Así que vuelvo al centro por la estación de Sheridan Square por si el secreta acecha en un armario de escobas.
Ya dije que no podía durar. Sabía que andaban por allí fuera en aquelarre, preparando su magia negra pasmosa, pinchando muñecos con mi cara en Leavenworth. ”A ese no sirve de nada clavarle agujas, Mike”.
La novela carece de planteamiento, nudo o desenlace y se desarrolla en espiral a través de un torrente de sensaciones que impactan directamente en el subconsciente del lector y se graban a fuego. El propio autor lo explica de la siguiente manera:
“No pretendo imponer relato, argumento, continuidad... En la medida en que consigo un registro DIRECTO de ciertas áreas del proceso psíquico, quizá desempeñe una función concreta... no pretendo entretener”
En cuanto a la ambientación, también carece de escenario fijo. En un párrafo te encuentras en Méjico y en otro en Nueva York, sin que medie transición alguna. Este recurso permite al autor abordar una gran cantidad de ambientes y sensaciones distintas, cuyo único elemento común es el origen, la procedencia (la propia vida de BURROUGHS).
De esta forma, la no-historia que cuenta la novela es la no-historia de la vida del autor en esos años, narrada con toda la intensidad de quién la ha sentido en carne propia y se niega a filtrarla a través de ningún género o convención literaria. Por ello, muchos párrafos de la novela son pequeños ensayos microscópicos en los que no se describe ni se narra sino que se teoriza. Ensayo y novela se juntan para dar lugar a poesía en prosa, donde el lenguaje se subvierte y escapa a las convenciones.
Leyendo “El almuerzo desnudo” se comprende la fascinación de BURROUGHS por el método “cut-up”, aunque no lo haya utilizado aun en esta novela. Resulta lógica su utilización por parte de un autor que siempre ha priorizado la sugestión por encima de la narración (lo único que rompe el “cut-up” es la narración, pero a menudo incrementa la sugestión).
En ocasiones se ha considerado “El almuerzo desnudo” como una novela excesivamente densa e incoherente y es cierto que para el lector que desconozca por completo la biografía del autor o que no se haya iniciado con obras más accesibles como Yonqui o Marica, puede resultar insufrible (por incomprensible). La historia que subyace tras el marasmo onírico de la novela es la misma (o muy similar) que la narrada de forma más clara en las dos novelas antes mencionadas. Son distintas caras de la misma moneda. Las tres novelas se corresponden con el período 1945-1953, los años de más intensa adicción de BURROUGHS. El almuerzo desnudo expresa las sensaciones intangibles que acompañaron a los hechos concretos narrados en las otras dos obras, por lo que lo más adecuado puede ser leerla en último lugar, cuando ya se poseen unas coordenadas espacio-temporales, dadas en las obras precedentes. De todas formas, es necesario que el lector se abandone a la sugestión y aborde la novela como si de poesía se tratase, sin pretender encontrar un hilo argumental (lo mismo que ocurre con las películas de David Lynch o Philippe Garrel ).
DE LOS SESENTA A LOS NOVENTA, O EL TRIUNFO DEL CUT-UP
Tras su novela-hito, el profesor chiflado de la literatura abraza definitivamente las nuevas concepciones formales que surgieron del magnetismo creativo de Brion Gysin y posteriormente fueron elaboradas y regurgitadas por el escritor de St. Louis, quien las bautizó con los nombres ya mencionados ( cut-up , fold-in , splice-in y algunos más).
En 1960 se traslada a Londres, aunque con esporádicas estancias en París y Tánger. Desde allí vive distanciado del enorme revuelo que su novela “El almuerzo desnudo” está provocando en EEUU. En Edimburgo asiste a una Conferencia Internacional de escritores, donde autores como Norman Mailer le expresan una enorme admiración por su novela.
En 1965 reside en el mítico Hotel Chelsea de Nueva York, con diversos músicos y artistas de la nueva generación hippie, conoce a Andy Warhol , Larry Ryvers, Basquiat y otros muchos representantes de la pintura y poesía de la década de los sesenta. Poco después regresa a Londres, donde residirá hasta 1974, fecha de su definitivo regreso a EEUU.
Desde la publicación de “El almuerzo desnudo”, BURROUGHS comienza un proceso rápido de radicalización estilística, más acorde con su filosofía vital que el estilo pulp de sus primeras novelas. Comienza a aplicar trucos y prestidigitaciones lingüísticas con el objetivo de romper aun más la forma de sus novelas (una de sus sentencias más famosas es la contundente: “language is a virus”). Paralelamente, se vislumbra en sus nuevas obras un leve rastro ideológico, antes completamente inexistente. Comienzan a aparecer continuas referencias al PODER y a la anulación del hombre a través del CONTROL . El universo INTERZONA ha resultado fatalmente profético, un mundo globalizado donde “hablar es mentir y vivir es colaborar”, un mundo acelerado donde no queda tiempo para vivir y mucho menos para pensar. El planeta Nova, presente de forma recurrente en su trilogía “La máquina blanda” (1961), ”El tiquet que explotó” (1962) y “Expreso Nova” (1964), es una inmensa metáfora de la paranoia cibernética (recordemos la pleitesía que rindieron a BURROUGHS los exponentes de la corriente cyberpunk , léase William Gibson , Bruce Stirling y Clive Barker ). Un universo que en ocasiones posee reminiscencias de “El Proceso” de Kafka , pero desde una perspectiva más extrema y tecnológica. En el universo NOVA, las fuerzas policiales acechan en cada esquina y el individuo no está permitido.
“Las armas más poderosas han sido siempre las nuevas formas de conciencia... la Inquisición y el poder de la Iglesia en la Edad Media no fueron derribadas por una acción revolucionaria directa. Su fuerza desapareció porque la conciencia humana se desarrolló más allá de ellos”.
Los habitantes grises de Nova parecen vivir en un universo pregrabado donde la única salida está en provocar un fallo del sistema. En una sociedad binaria, dominada por el conflicto de opuestos, la unidad es revolucionaria:
“Hay varias fórmulas básicas que han mantenido a este planeta en la ignorancia y la esclavitud. La primera es el concepto de nación o país. Se dibuja una línea alrededor de un territorio y se le llama país. Lo que significa que hay que poner policía, control de aduanas, fronteras, ejércitos, y también problemas con las otras tribus del otro lado de la línea”
El chico subliminal , uno de los fantasmales habitantes de Nova, se desplaza por un mundo corrupto donde las fuerzas del orden son los criminales más peligrosos. Esta atmósfera inquietante se adelanta en más de una década a la paranoia post-hippie de los “speed-freaks” y los “hell-angels”, la caída del sueño psicodélico de retorno a la naturaleza, representado gráficamente por el dibujante de cómics Robert Crumb , quien describe la década de los sesenta como una gigantesca ola que acaba estrellándose contra las rocas del PODER y deja a su paso un rastro de destrucción (“he visto las mejores mentes de mi generación destruídas por la locura”, el impactante aullido de Allen Ginsberg resultó premonitorio para lo que ocurriría en los setenta).
Uno de los méritos de William S. BURROUGHS ha sido su capacidad de sobrevolar todas las modas y tendencias sin influirse más que por su arrolladora personalidad. Un auténtico “lobo estepario” de la era cibernética que fue capaz de publicar decenas de libros en la década de los sesenta sin acercarse por un momento a las modas de la época. La obra de BURROUGHS sigue resultando igual de atípica y visionaria en el 2004 de lo que lo fue en 1959 (lo mismo que ocurre con personajes como Timoty Leary , John Lily o James Lovelock en ciencia y filosofía o John Cage , Nico o Laurie Anderson en música).
La trilogía NOVA, leída hoy en día resulta absolutamente esclarecedora: “las técnicas esenciales de NOVA son muy simples, consisten en crear y agrabar conflictos”.
Además de la referida trilogía, BURROUGHS aprovecha la década prodigiosa para publicar infinidad de artículos teóricos y relatos en las más variopintas publicaciones contraculturales, así como algún que otro montaje teatral o poemas sueltos, como su aportación a la compilación poética “Minutes to go”, junto a Gregory Corso y Sinclair Belles . Igualmente, ofrece numerosas conferencias donde aborda los más variados temas (política, drogas, literatura...)
A principios de los setenta vive una crisis creativa en Londres, ya que lleva décadas escribiendo y sus obras casi nunca han pasado del malditismo más absoluto. Escribe el guión cinematográfico “Las últimas palabras de Dulch Schulz” (1970), las novelas “Los muchachos salvajes” (1971) y “Puerto de los santos” (1973), así como las compilaciones de relatos “Exterminador” y “Metro blanco” (ambas en 1971), todas ellas absolutos fracasos comerciales, como el resto de sus obras hasta su muerte.
A mediados de los setenta y gracias, en parte a la ayuda de el bueno de Ginsberg, comienza a ofrecer seminarios en diversas universidades norteamericanas y europeas. Ya de vuelta en EEUU, publica de forma compulsiva infinidad de obras a finales de los setenta, entre ellas destacan “La tercera mente” (1978) junto a Brion Gysin o “Doctor Benway” (1979) una suerte de remix o variación de “El almuerzo desnudo”, protagonizada por uno de sus personajes más enigmáticos.
En los ochenta publica una genial trilogía del espacio: “Ciudades de la noche roja” (1981), “El lugar de los caminos muertos” (1984) y “Las tierras de occidente” (1987). En ellas se dan citas los géneros más marcianos, desde el western surreal-cibernético a la ciencia ficción más reflexiva y ensayística. En estas obras el prolífico escritor norteamericano retoma lo mejor de su estilo aplicándolo a un nuevo tipo de historias, lo que le valió para trascender la compulsión del cut-up y retornar a un estilo más simple:
“Creo que Finnegan`s Wake ejemplifica muy bien la trampa en que puede caer la literatura experimental cuando se convierte en puramente experimental. Yo he ido así de lejos en algunos experimentos concretos y luego he retrocedido; es decir, ahora vuelvo a escribir narrativa lineal puramente convencional, pero aplicando lo que he aprendido con el cut-up y con las otras técnicas a los problemas de la escritura convencional”
Esa capacidad de reinventarse dice mucho a favor de la literatura de BURROUGHS en los años ochenta, aunque lo que él denomina “escritura convencional” no lo sea en absoluto, ni en la forma ni en el fondo. De hecho, muchos de los hallazgos expresivos alcanzados por BURROUGHS hace décadas aún no han sido asimilados ni incorporados apenas a la literatura (a diferencia de lo que ocurre con la música o las artes visuales, que llevan algún tiempo transitando por la senda burroughsiana).
Desde finales de los ochenta hasta su muerte en 1997, Burroughs publicó una enorme cantidad de novelas pero, sobretodo dedicó sus esfuerzos a la pintura, la música y el cine, grabando infinidad de discos con gente como David Bowie , Frank Zappa , Tom Waits , New Order , The Jesús & Mary Chain , Henry Rollins , Blondie y un interminable etcétera. Sus cuadros han sido utilizados como portadas de discos de Sonic Youth y su presencia ha sido requerida hasta para el spot publicitario de una multinacional de zapatillas deportivas. Ha protagonizado diversos cortos y prestado sus guiones para otros tantos (muchos de ellos de la animación más innovadora que se ha hecho en los noventa), así como numerosas películas. En definitiva, al final de su vida, el escritor maldito se convirtió en una especie de icono mediático de referencia para los hijos del punk y la nueva escena electrónica experimental, convirtiéndose en uno de los personajes con más presencia en la red INTERNET (¿interzona?). Incluso diversas universidades y entidades lo condecoraron con dudosos galardones en un vano intento por domesticar y absorver su mensaje de transgresión. Afortunadamente, hoy en día, años después de su muerte, sigue ocupando el mismo lugar inclasificable que ocupó siempre, y el tiempo le seguirá dando la razón.


William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil


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William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil






William S. Burroughs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named William Burroughs, see William Burroughs (disambiguation).

 
William S. Burroughs

Burroughs
Born William Seward Burroughs II
February 5, 1914
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died August 2, 1997 (aged 83)
Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.
Pen name William Lee
Occupation Author
Alma mater Harvard University
Genre Satire, paranoid fiction
Literary movement Beat Generation, Postmodernism
Notable works Naked Lunch (1959)
Spouse Ilse von Klapper (1937–1946)
Joan Vollmer (1946–1951)
Children William S. Burroughs, Jr.
Relatives William Seward Burroughs I, grandfather
Ivy Lee, maternal uncle



William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil



Signature
William Seward Burroughs II (/ˈbʌrz/; also known by his pen name William Lee; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".[1] His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays. Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.

He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he picked up the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of which grew into the Beat Generation, and later the 1960s counterculture.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Burroughs accidentally killed his second wife, Joan Vollmer, in 1951 in Mexico City, and was consequently convicted of manslaughter. In the introduction to Queer, a novel written in 1953 but not published until 1985, Burroughs states, "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s death ... [S]o the death of Joan brought me into contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I had no choice except to write my way out". (Queer, 1985, p.xxii). Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64).
In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France.[2] Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift",[3] a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion"[1] of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".[3]
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947–1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. He died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.

Early life and education


William S. Burroughs birthday
Burroughs was born in 1914, the younger of two sons born to Mortimer Perry Burroughs (June 16, 1885 – January 5, 1965) and Laura Hammon Lee (August 5, 1888 – October 20, 1970). The Burroughses were a prominent family of English ancestry in St. Louis, Missouri. His grandfather, William Seward Burroughs I, founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the Burroughs Corporation. Burroughs' mother was the daughter of a minister whose family claimed to be related to Robert E. Lee. His maternal uncle, Ivy Lee, was an advertising pioneer later employed as a publicist for the Rockefellers. His father ran an antique and gift shop, Cobblestone Gardens; first in St. Louis, then in Palm Beach, Florida.
As a boy, Burroughs lived on Pershing Ave. in St. Louis's Central West End. He attended John Burroughs School in St. Louis where his first published essay, "Personal Magnetism", was printed in the John Burroughs Review in 1929.[4] He then attended the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, which was stressful for him. The school was a boarding school for the wealthy, "where the spindly sons of the rich could be transformed into manly specimens".[5] Burroughs kept journals documenting an erotic attachment to another boy. According to his own account, he destroyed these later, ashamed of their content.[6] Due to the repressive context where he grew up, and from which he fled, that is, a "family where displays of affection were considered embarrassing",[7] he kept his sexual orientation concealed well into adulthood, when he became a well known homosexual writer after the publication of Naked Lunch in 1959. Some[who?] say that he was expelled from Los Alamos after taking chloral hydrate in Santa Fe with a fellow student. Yet, according to his own account, he left voluntarily: "During the Easter vacation of my second year I persuaded my family to let me stay in St. Louis."[6]

Harvard University

Burroughs finished high school at Taylor School in Clayton, Missouri, and in 1932, left home to pursue an arts degree at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House. During the summers, he worked as a cub reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, covering the police docket. He disliked the work, and refused to cover some events, like the death of a drowned child. He lost his virginity in an East St. Louis brothel that summer with a female prostitute he regularly patronized.[8] While at Harvard, Burroughs made trips to New York City and was introduced to the gay subculture there. He visited lesbian dives, piano bars, and the Harlem and Greenwich Village homosexual underground with Richard Stern, a wealthy friend from Kansas City. They would drive from Boston to New York in a reckless fashion. Once, Stern scared Burroughs so much, he asked to be let out of the vehicle.[9]
Burroughs graduated from Harvard in 1936. According to Ted Morgan's Literary Outlaw,

His parents, upon his graduation, had decided to give him a monthly allowance of $200 out of their earnings from Cobblestone Gardens, a tidy sum in those days. It was enough to keep him going, and indeed it guaranteed his survival for the next twenty-five years, arriving with welcome regularity. The allowance was a ticket to freedom; it allowed him to live where he wanted to and to forgo employment.[10]
Burroughs's parents sold the rights to his grandfather's invention and had no share in the Burroughs Corporation. Shortly before the 1929 stock market crash, they sold their stock for $200,000 (equivalent to approximately $2,746,899 in today's funds[11]).[12]

Europe

After leaving Harvard, Burroughs's formal education ended, except for brief flirtations as a graduate student of anthropology at Harvard and as a medical student in Vienna, Austria. He traveled to Europe and became involved in Austrian and Hungarian Weimar-era LGBT culture; he picked up young men in steam baths in Vienna, and moved in a circle of exiles, homosexuals, and runaways. There, he met Ilse Klapper, a Jewish woman fleeing the country's Nazi government. The two were never romantically involved, but Burroughs married her, in Croatia, against the wishes of his parents, to allow her to gain a visa to the United States. She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs, although they remained friends for many years.[13] After returning to the U.S., he held a string of uninteresting jobs. In 1939, his mental health became a concern for his parents, especially after he deliberately severed the last joint of his left little finger, right at the knuckle, to impress a man with whom he was infatuated.[14] This event made its way into his early fiction as the short story "The Finger".

Beginning of the Beats

Burroughs enlisted in the U.S. Army early in 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II. But when he was classified as a 1-A Infantry, not an officer, he became dejected. His mother recognized her son's depression and got Burroughs a civilian disability discharge—a release from duty based on the premise he should have not been allowed to enlist due to previous mental instability. After being evaluated by a family friend, who was also a neurologist at a psychiatric treatment center, Burroughs waited five months in limbo at Jefferson Barracks outside St. Louis before being discharged. During that time he met a Chicago soldier also awaiting release, and once Burroughs was free, he moved to Chicago and held a variety of jobs, including one as an exterminator. When two of his friends from St. Louis, Lucien Carr, a University of Chicago student, and David Kammerer, Carr's admirer, left for New York City, Burroughs followed.

Joan Vollmer



In 1944, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker, Kerouac's first wife.[15] Vollmer Adams was married to a GI with whom she had a young daughter, Julie Adams. Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a murder involving Lucien Carr, who had killed David Kammerer in a confrontation over Kammerer's incessant and unwanted advances. This incident inspired Burroughs and Kerouac to collaborate on a novel titled And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, completed in 1945. The two fledgling authors were unable to get it published, but the manuscript was eventually published in November 2008 by Grove Press and Penguin Books.
During this time, Burroughs began using morphine and became addicted. He eventually sold heroin in Greenwich Village to support his habit.
Vollmer also became an addict, but her drug of choice was Benzedrine, an amphetamine sold over the counter at that time. Because of her addiction and social circle, her husband immediately divorced her after returning from the war. Vollmer would become Burroughs’ common-law wife. Burroughs was soon arrested for forging a narcotics prescription and was sentenced to return to his parents' care in St. Louis. Vollmer's addiction led to a temporary psychosis which resulted in her admission to a hospital, and the custody of her child was endangered. Yet after Burroughs completed his house arrest in St. Louis, he returned to New York, released Vollmer from the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, and moved with her and her daughter to Texas. Vollmer soon became pregnant with Burroughs's child. Their son, William S. Burroughs, Jr., was born in 1947. The family moved briefly to New Orleans in 1948.

Mexico and South America

Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations. Burroughs also attended classes at the Mexico City College in 1950 studying Spanish, as well as "Mexican picture writing" (codices) and the Mayan language with R. H. Barlow.
In 1951, Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of "William Tell" at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials to release Burroughs on bail while he awaited trial for the killing, which was ruled culpable homicide.[16] Vollmer’s daughter, Julie Adams, went to live with her grandmother, and William S. Burroughs, Jr., went to St. Louis to live with his grandparents. Burroughs reported every Monday morning to the jail in Mexico City while his prominent Mexican attorney worked to resolve the case. According to James Grauerholz, two witnesses had agreed to testify that the gun had gone off accidentally while he was checking to see if it was loaded, and the ballistics experts were bribed to support this story.[17] Nevertheless, the trial was continuously delayed and Burroughs began to write what would eventually become the short novel Queer while awaiting his trial. However, when his attorney fled Mexico after his own legal problems involving a car accident and altercation with the son of a government official, Burroughs decided, according to Ted Morgan, to "skip" and return to the United States. He was convicted in absentia of homicide and was given a two-year sentence which was suspended.[18] Although Burroughs was writing before the shooting of Joan Vollmer, this event marked him and, biographers argue, his work for the rest of his life.[19]
After leaving Mexico, Burroughs drifted through South America for several months, looking for a drug called yagé, which promised the user telepathy. A book composed of letters between Burroughs and Ginsberg, The Yage Letters, was published in 1963 by City Lights Books.

Beginning of literary career

Burroughs later said that shooting Vollmer was a pivotal event in his life, and one which provoked his writing:

I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.[20]
Yet he had begun to write in 1945. Burroughs and Kerouac collaborated on And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, a mystery novel loosely based on the Carr/Kammerer situation and that was left unpublished. Years later, in the documentary What Happened to Kerouac?, Burroughs described it as "not a very distinguished work". An excerpt of this work, in which Burroughs and Kerouac wrote alternating chapters, was finally published in Word Virus,[21] a compendium of William Burroughs's writing that was published by his biographer after his death in 1997.
Before Vollmer died, Burroughs had largely completed his first two novels in Mexico, although Queer was not published until 1985. Junkie was written at the urging of Allen Ginsberg, who was instrumental in getting the work published, even as a cheap mass-market paperback.[22] Ace Books published the novel in 1953 as part of an Ace Double under the pen name William Lee, retitling it Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict (it was later republished as Junkie or Junky).[22]

Tangier

During 1953, Burroughs was at loose ends. Due to legal problems, he was unable to live in the cities towards which he was most inclined. He spent time with his parents in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York City with Allen Ginsberg. When Ginsberg refused his romantic advances,[23] Burroughs went to Rome to meet Alan Ansen on a vacation financed from his parents' continuing support. When he found Rome and Ansen’s company dreary, and inspired by Paul Bowles' fiction, he decided to head for Tangier, Morocco.[24] In a home owned by a known procurer of homosexual prostitutes for visiting American and English men, he rented a room and began to write a large body of text that he personally referred to as Interzone.[25] Burroughs lived in Tangier for several months before returning to the United States where he suffered a combination of personal indignities and financial problems. Allen Ginsberg was at the time in California and refused to see him. A. A. Wyn, the publisher of Junkie, was not forthcoming with his royalties. Burroughs’ parents were threatening to cut off his allowance.[citation needed]
To Burroughs, all signs directed a return to Tangier, a city where drugs were freely available and where financial support from his family would continue. He realized that in the Moroccan culture he had found an environment that synchronized with his temperament and afforded no hindrances to pursuing his interests and indulging in his chosen activities. In 1950, Robert Ruark had described the unbridled tenor of the Moroccan city in his syndicated column. Compared to Tangier, Ruark wrote, “Sodom was a church picnic and Gomorrah a convention of Girl Scouts.” The misogyny of the social structure also appealed to Burroughs’ innate distrust and fear of women. In Tangier, the ubiquitously veiled and shrouded woman loudly broadcast the subservient female role.[26]
He left for Tangier in November 1954 and spent the next four years there working on the fiction that would later become Naked Lunch, as well as attempting to write commercial articles about Tangier. He sent these writings to Ginsberg, his literary agent for Junkie, but none were published until 1989 when Interzone, a collection of short stories, was published. Under the strong influence of a marijuana confection known as majoun and a German-made opioid called Eukodol, Burroughs settled in to write. Eventually, Ginsberg and Kerouac, who had traveled to Tangier in 1957, helped Burroughs type, edit, and arrange these episodes into Naked Lunch.[27]

Naked Lunch

Further information: Naked Lunch
Whereas Junkie and Queer were conventional in style, Naked Lunch was his first venture into a non-linear style. After the publication of Naked Lunch, a book whose creation was to a certain extent the result of a series of contingencies, Burroughs was exposed to Brion Gysin's cut-up technique at the Beat Hotel in Paris in September 1959. He began slicing up phrases and words to create new sentences.[28] At the Beat Hotel Burroughs discovered "a port of entry" into Gysin's canvases: "I don't think I had ever seen painting until I saw the painting of Brion Gysin."[29] The two would cultivate a long-term friendship that revolved around a mutual interest in artworks and cut-up techniques. Scenes were slid together with little care for narrative. Perhaps thinking of his crazed physician, Dr. Benway, he described Naked Lunch as a book that could be cut into at any point. Although not considered science fiction, the book does seem to forecast—with eerie prescience—such later phenomena as AIDS, liposuction, autoerotic fatalities, and the crack pandemic.[30]

David Woodard and Burroughs standing in front of a dreamachine invented by Brion Gysin; Burroughs collaborated with Gysin in popularizing the literary cut-up technique, with which he wrote The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express.
Excerpts from Naked Lunch were first published in the United States in 1958. The novel was initially rejected by City Lights Books, the publisher of Ginsberg's Howl; and Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias, who had published English-language novels in France that were controversial for their subjective views of sex and anti-social characters. But Allen Ginsberg worked to get excerpts published in Black Mountain Review and Chicago Review in 1958. Irving Rosenthal, student editor of Chicago Review, a quarterly journal partially subsidized by the university, promised to publish more excerpts from Naked Lunch, but he was fired from his position in 1958 after Chicago Daily News columnist Jack Mabley called the first excerpt obscene. Rosenthal went on to publish more in his newly created literary journal Big Table No. 1; however, these copies elicited such contempt, the editors were accused of sending obscene material through the United States Mail by the United States Postmaster General, who ruled that copies could not be mailed to subscribers. New York critic John Ciardi did manage to get a copy and wrote a positive review of the work, prompting a telegram from Allen Ginsberg praising the review.[31] This controversy made Naked Lunch interesting to Girodias again, and he published the novel in 1959.[citation needed]

After the novel was published, it slowly became notorious across Europe and the United States, garnering interest from not just members of the counterculture of the 1960s, but also literary critics such as Mary McCarthy. Once published in the United States, Naked Lunch was prosecuted as obscene by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, followed by other states. In 1966, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the work "not obscene" on the basis of criteria developed largely to defend the book. The case against Burroughs's novel still stands as the last obscenity trial against a work of literature—that is, a work consisting of words only, and not including illustrations or photographs—prosecuted in the United States.
The "Word Hoard", the collection of manuscripts that produced Naked Lunch, also produced the later works The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1963). These novels feature extensive use of the cut-up technique which influenced all of Burroughs' subsequent fiction to a degree. During Burroughs' friendship and artistic collaborations with Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville, the technique was combined with images, Gysin's paintings, and sound, via Somerville's tape recorders. Burroughs was so dedicated to the cut-up method that he often defended his use of the technique before editors and publishers, most notably Dick Seaver at Grove Press in the 1960s[32] and Holt, Rinehart & Winston in the 1980s. The cut-up method, because of its random or mechanical basis for text generation, combined with the possibilities of mixing in text written by other writers, deemphasizes the traditional role of the writer as creator or originator of a string of words, while simultaneously exalting the importance of the writer's sensibility as an editor. In this sense, the cut-up method may be considered as analogous to the collage method in the visual arts.

Paris and the "Beat Hotel"

Burroughs moved into a rundown hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris in 1959 when Naked Lunch was still looking for a publisher. Tangier, with its easy access to drugs, small groups of homosexuals, growing political unrest, and odd collection of criminals, had become increasingly unhealthy for Burroughs.[33] He went to Paris to meet Ginsberg and talk with Olympia Press. In so doing, he left a brewing legal problem, which eventually transferred itself to Paris. Paul Lund, a British former career criminal and cigarette smuggler whom Burroughs met in Tangier, was arrested on suspicion of importing narcotics into France. Lund gave up Burroughs, and some evidence implicated Burroughs in the possible importation of narcotics into France. Once again, the man faced criminal charges, this time in Paris for conspiracy to import opiates, when the Moroccan authorities forwarded their investigation to French officials. Yet it was under this impending threat of criminal sanction that Maurice Girodias published Naked Lunch; the publication helped in getting Burroughs a suspended sentence, since a literary career, according to Ted Morgan, is a respected profession in France.
The "Beat Hotel" was a typical European-style rooming house hotel, with common toilets on every floor, and a small place for personal cooking in the room. Life there was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who lived in the attic room. This shabby, inexpensive hotel was populated by Gregory Corso, Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky for several months after Naked Lunch first appeared. The actual process of publication was partly a function of its "cut-up" presentation to the printer. Girodias had given Burroughs only ten days to prepare the manuscript for print galleys, and Burroughs sent over the manuscript in pieces, preparing the parts in no particular order. When it was published in this authentically random manner, Burroughs liked it better than the initial plan. International rights to the work were sold soon after, and Burroughs used the $3,000 advance from Grove Press to buy drugs (equivalent to approximately $24,271 in today's funds[11]).[34] Naked Lunch was featured in a 1959 Life magazine cover story, partly as an article that highlighted the growing Beat literary movement.
During this time Burroughs found an outlet for material otherwise rendered unpublishable in Jeff Nuttall's My Own Mag.[citation needed]

The London years

Burroughs left Paris for London in 1966 to take the cure again with Dr. Dent, a well-known English medical doctor who spearheaded a reputedly painless heroin withdrawal treatment using the drug apomorphine.[35] Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg would take this same cure in 1971, with Dr. Dent's nurse, Smitty.[36] Dent's apomorphine cure was also used to treat alcoholism, although it was held by several people who undertook it to be no more than straightforward aversion therapy. Burroughs however was convinced. Following his first cure, he wrote a detailed appreciation of apomorphine and other cures, which he submitted to The British Journal of Addiction (Vol. 53, 1956) under the title "Letter From A Master Addict To Dangerous Drugs"; this letter is appended to many editions of Naked Lunch.
Though he ultimately relapsed, Burroughs ended up working out of London for six years, traveling back to the United States on several occasions, including one time escorting his son to the Lexington Narcotics Farm and Prison after the younger Burroughs had been convicted of prescription fraud in Florida. In the "Afterword" to the compilation of his son's two previously published novels Speed and Kentucky Ham, Burroughs writes that he thought he had a "small habit" and left London quickly without any narcotics because he suspected the U.S. customs would search him very thoroughly on arrival. He claims he went through the most excruciating two months of opiate withdrawal while seeing his son through his trial and sentencing, traveling with Billy to Lexington, Kentucky from Miami to ensure his son entered the hospital he once spent time in as a volunteer admission.[37] Earlier Burroughs revisited St. Louis, Missouri, taking a large advance from Playboy to write an article about his trip back to St. Louis, one that was eventually published in The Paris Review, after Burroughs refused to alter the style for Playboy's publishers. In 1968 Burroughs joined Jean Genet, John Sack, and Terry Southern in covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention for Esquire magazine. Southern and Burroughs, who had first become acquainted in London, would remain lifelong friends and collaborators. In 1972, Burroughs and Southern unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Naked Lunch for the screen in conjunction with American game-show producer Chuck Barris.[38]
Burroughs supported himself and his addiction by publishing pieces in small literary presses. His avant-garde reputation grew internationally as the hippie counterculture discovered his earlier works. He developed a close friendship with Anthony Balch and lived with a young hustler named John Brady who continuously brought home young women despite Burroughs' protestations. In the midst of this personal turmoil, Burroughs managed to complete two works: a novel written in screen play format, The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1969); and the traditional prose-format novel The Wild Boys (1971).
In the 1960s, Burroughs joined and then left the Church of Scientology. In talking about the experience, he claimed that the techniques and philosophy of Scientology helped him and that he felt that further study into Scientology would produce great results.[39] He was skeptical of the organization itself, and felt that it fostered an environment that did not accept critical discussion.[40] His subsequent critical writings about the church and his review of Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman led to a battle of letters between Burroughs and Scientology supporters in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine.

Return to U.S.

In 1974, concerned about his friend's well-being, Allen Ginsberg gained for Burroughs a contract to teach creative writing at the City College of New York. Burroughs successfully withdrew from heroin use and moved to New York. He eventually found an apartment, affectionately dubbed "The Bunker", on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 222 Bowery. The dwelling was a partially converted YMCA gym, complete with lockers and communal showers. The building fell within New York City rent control policies that made it extremely cheap; it was only about four hundred dollars a month until 1981 when the rent control rules changed, doubling the rent overnight.[41] Burroughs added "teacher" to the list of jobs he did not like, as he lasted only a semester as a professor; he found the students uninteresting and without much creative talent. Although he needed income desperately, he turned down a teaching position at the University at Buffalo for $15,000 a semester. "The teaching gig was a lesson in never again. You were giving out all this energy and nothing was coming back."[42] His savior was the newly arrived, twenty-one-year-old book seller and Beat Generation devotee James Grauerholz, who worked for Burroughs part-time as a secretary as well as in a book store. It was Grauerholz who floated the idea of reading tours, something similar to rock and roll touring, or stand-up comedian dates in clubs across the country. Grauerholz had managed several rock bands in Kansas and took the lead in booking for Burroughs reading tours that would help support him throughout the next two decades. It raised his public profile, eventually aiding in his obtaining new publishing contracts. Through Grauerholz, Burroughs became a monthly columnist for the noted popular culture magazine Crawdaddy, for which he interviewed Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in 1975. Burroughs decided to relocate back to the United States permanently in 1976. He then began to associate with New York cultural players such as Andy Warhol, John Giorno, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and Susan Sontag, frequently entertaining them at the Bunker; he also visited venues like CBGB to watch the likes of Patti Smith perform.[43] Throughout early 1977, Burroughs collaborated with Southern and Dennis Hopper on a screen adaptation of Junky. Financed by a reclusive acquaintance of Burroughs, the project lost traction after financial problems and creative disagreements between Hopper and Burroughs.
Organized by Columbia professor Sylvère Lotringer, Giorno, and Grauerholz, the Nova Convention was a multimedia retrospective of Burroughs's work held from November 30 to December 2, 1978, at various locations throughout New York. The event included readings from Southern, Ginsberg, Smith, and Frank Zappa (who filled in at the last minute for Keith Richards, then entangled in a legal problem), in addition to panel discussions with Timothy Leary & Robert Anton Wilson and concerts featuring The B-52's, Suicide, Philip Glass, and Debbie Harry & Chris Stein.
In 1976, Billy Burroughs was eating dinner with his father and Allen Ginsberg in Boulder, Colorado, at Ginsberg’s Buddhist poetry school (Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics) at Chogyam Trungpa's Naropa University when he began to vomit blood. Burroughs senior had not seen his son for over a year and was alarmed at his appearance when Billy arrived at Ginsberg’s apartment. Although Billy had successfully published two short novels in the 1970s, and was deemed by literary critics like Ann Charters as a bona fide "second generation beat writer",[44] his brief marriage to a teenage waitress had disintegrated. Under his constant drinking, there were long periods where Billy was out of contact with any of his family or friends. The diagnosis was liver cirrhosis so complete that the only treatment was a rarely performed liver transplant operation. Fortunately, the University of Colorado Medical Center was one of two places in the nation that performed transplants under the pioneering work of Dr. Thomas Starzl. Billy underwent the procedure and beat the thirty-percent survival odds. His father spent many months in 1976 and 1977 in Colorado, helping Billy through many additional surgeries and complications. Ted Morgan’s biography asserts that their relationship was not spontaneous and lacked real warmth or intimacy. Allen Ginsberg was supportive to both Burroughs and his son throughout the long period of recovery.[45]
In London, Burroughs had begun to write what would become the first novel of a trilogy. Between 1981 and 1987, he published Cities of the Red Night (1981); The Place of Dead Roads (1983); and The Western Lands (1987). Grauerholz helped edit Cities when it was first rejected by Burroughs' long-time editor Dick Seaver at Holt Rinehart, after it was deemed too disjointed. The novel was written as a straight narrative and then chopped up into a more random pattern, leaving the reader to sort through the characters and events. This technique was definitely different from the author's earlier cut-up methods, which were organically accidental from the start. Nevertheless, the novel was reassembled and published, still without a straight linear form, but with fewer breaks in the story. The back-and-forth sway of the read replicated the theme of the trilogy; time-travel adventures where Burroughs's narrators rewrite episodes in history and thus reform mankind.[46] Reviews were mixed for Cities. Novelist and critic Anthony Burgess panned the work in Saturday Review, saying Burroughs was boring readers with repetitive episodes of pederast fantasy and sexual strangulation that lacked any comprehensible world view or theology; other reviewers, like J. G. Ballard, argued that Burroughs was shaping a new literary "mythography".[46]
In 1981, Billy Burroughs died in Florida. He had cut off contact with his father several years before, even publishing an article in Esquire magazine claiming the author had poisoned his life and revealing that he had been molested by one of his father's friends as a fourteen-year-old while visiting his father in Tangier, something that he had previously kept to himself. The liver transplant had not cured his urge to drink, and Billy suffered from serious health complications years after the operation. He had stopped taking his transplant rejection drugs and was found near the side of a Florida highway by a stranger. He died shortly afterwards. Burroughs was in New York when he heard from Allen Ginsberg of Billy's death.
Burroughs, by 1979, was once again addicted to heroin. The cheap heroin that was easily purchased outside his door on the Lower East Side "made its way" into his veins, coupled with "gifts" from the overzealous if well-intentioned admirers who frequently visited the Bunker. Although Burroughs would have episodes of being free from heroin, from this point until his death he was regularly addicted to the drug. He died in 1997 on a methadone maintenance program. In an introduction to Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs, James Grauerholz (who managed Burroughs's reading tours in the 1980s and 1990s) mentions that part of his job was to deal with the “underworld” in each city to secure the author’s needed drugs.[47]

Later years in Kansas



William S. Burroughs and James Grauerholz in the alley behind the Jazzhaus in Lawrence, Kansas (1996)

Burroughs moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1981 and lived the remainder of his life there, at 1927 Learnard Avenue. He once told a Wichita Eagle reporter that he was content to live in Kansas, saying, “The thing I like about Kansas is that it’s not nearly as violent, and it’s a helluva lot cheaper. And I can get out in the country and fish and shoot and whatnot.”[48] In 1984 he signed a seven-book deal with Viking Press after he signed with literary agent Andrew Wylie. This deal included the publication rights to the 1953 unpublished novel Queer. With this money he purchased a small bungalow for $29,000.[49] He was finally inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1983 after several attempts by Allen Ginsberg to get him accepted. He attended the induction ceremony in May 1983. Lawrence Ferlinghetti remarked the induction of Burroughs into the Academy proved Herbert Marcuse's point that capitalistic society had a great ability to incorporate its one-time outsiders.[50]
Burroughs became a counterculture figure and inspired 1970s proto punk rock band Doctors of Madness. In the 1980s he collaborated with performers ranging from Bill Laswell's Material and Laurie Anderson to Throbbing Gristle, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Ministry, and in Gus Van Sant's 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy, playing a character based on a short story he published in Exterminator!, "The "Priest" They Called Him". In 1990, he released the spoken word album Dead City Radio, with musical back-up from producers Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, and alternative rock band Sonic Youth. A collaboration with musicians Nick Cave and Tom Waits resulted in a collection of short prose, Smack My Crack, later released as a spoken word album in 1987. He also collaborated with Tom Waits and director Robert Wilson to create The Black Rider, a play which opened at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg in 1990, to critical acclaim, and was later performed all over Europe and the U.S. In 1991, with Burroughs's sanction, director David Cronenberg took on the seemingly impossible task of adapting Naked Lunch into a full-length feature film. The film opened to critical acclaim.
In 1982 in Lawrence, Kansas, Burroughs developed a painting technique whereby he created abstract compositions by placing spray paint cans some distance in front of blank surfaces, and then shooting at the paint cans with a shotgun. These splattered and shot panels and canvasses were first exhibited in the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York City in 1987. By this time he had developed a comprehensive visual art practice, using ink, spray paint, collage and unusual things such as mushrooms and plungers to apply the paint. He created file-folder paintings featuring these mediums as well as "automatic calligraphy" inspired by Brion Gysin. He originally used the folders to mix pigments before observing that they could be viewed as art in themselves.[51] Until his last years, he prolifically created visual art. Burroughs' work has since been featured in over 50 international galleries and museums including Royal Academy of the Arts, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum, ZKM Karlsruhe, Sammlung Falckenberg, New Museum, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art.[52]
In 1990 Burroughs was honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[53]
In June 1991 Burroughs underwent triple bypass surgery.[54]
He became a member of a chaos magic organization, the Illuminates of Thanateros, in 1993.[55]
Burroughs's final filmed performance was in the music video for "Last Night on Earth" by Irish rock band U2, filmed in Kansas City, Missouri, directed by Richie Smyth and also featuring Sophie Dahl.[56]

Death

Burroughs died in Lawrence, Kansas, on August 2, 1997, from complications of a heart attack he had suffered the previous day.[12] He was interred in the family plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri,[57] with a marker bearing his full name and the epitaph "American Writer". The grave lies to the right of the white granite obelisk of William Seward Burroughs I (1857–1898).

After his death

Since 1997, several posthumous collections of Burroughs's work have been published. A few months after his death, a collection of writings spanning his entire career, Word Virus, was published (according to the book's introduction, Burroughs himself approved its contents prior to his death).[21] Aside from numerous previously released pieces, Word Virus also included what was promoted as one of the few surviving fragments of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, a then-unpublished novel by Burroughs and Kerouac (ultimately, however, the complete work would be published in 2008). A collection of journal entries written during the final months of Burroughs's life was published as the book Last Words in 2000. Publication of a memoir by Burroughs entitled Evil River by Viking Press has been delayed several times; after initially being announced for a 2005 release, Web retailers such as indicated a 2007 release, complete with an ISBN number (ISBN 0670813516), but no such release has, to date, occurred.[58] In December 2007, Ohio State University Press released Everything Lost: The Latin American Journals of William S. Burroughs. Edited by Oliver Harris, the book contains transcriptions of journal entries made by Burroughs during the time of composing Queer and The Yage Letters., with cover art and review information. In addition, special editions of The Yage Letters, Naked Lunch and Junkie/Junky have been published in recent years, all containing additional material and essays on the works.
The complete Kerouac/Burroughs manuscript And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks was published for the first time in November 2008.[59]
In September 2010, Telos Publishing, a UK publisher, was scheduled to release the novel Rules of Duel, a previously unpublished late-60s collaboration between Burroughs and Graham Masterton.[60]

Literary style and periods

Burroughs's major works can be divided into four different periods. The dates refer to the time of writing, not publication, which in some cases was not until decades later:
  • Early work (early 1950s): Junkie, Queer and The Yage Letters are relatively straightforward linear narratives, written in and about Burroughs's time in Mexico City and South America.
  • The cut-up period (mid-1950s to mid-1960s): Naked Lunch is a fragmentary collection of "routines" from The Word Hoard – manuscripts written in Tangier, Paris, London, as well as of some other texts written in South America such as "The Composite City", blending into the cut-up and fold-in fiction also heavily drawn from The Word Hoard: The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded, also referred to as "The Nova Trilogy" or "the Nova Epic", self-described by Burroughs as an attempt to create "a mythology for the space age". Interzone also derives from this period.
  • Experiment and subversion (mid-1960s to mid-1970s): This period saw Burroughs continue experimental writing with increased political content and branching into multimedia such as film and sound recording. The only major novel written in this period was The Wild Boys, but he also wrote dozens of published articles, short stories, scrap books and other works, several in collaboration with Brion Gysin. The major anthologies representing work from this period are The Burroughs File, The Adding Machine and Exterminator!.
  • The Red Night trilogy (mid-1970s to mid-1980s): The books Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands came from Burroughs in a final, mature stage, creating a complete mythology.
Burroughs also produced numerous essays and a large body of autobiographical material, including a book with a detailed account of his own dreams (My Education: A Book of Dreams).

Reaction to critics and view on criticism

Several literary critics treated Burroughs's work harshly. For example Anatole Broyard and Philip Toynbee wrote devastating reviews of some of his most important books. In a short essay entitled "A Review of the Reviewers", Burroughs answers his critics in this way:

Critics constantly complain that writers are lacking in standards, yet they themselves seem to have no standards other than personal prejudice for literary criticism. (...) such standards do exist. Matthew Arnold set up three criteria for criticism: 1. What is the writer trying to do? 2. How well does he succeed in doing it? (...) 3. Does the work exhibit "high seriousness"? That is, does it touch on basic issues of good and evil, life and death and the human condition. I would also apply a fourth criterion (...) Write about what you know. More writers fail because they try to write about things they don't know than for any other reason.
—William S. Burroughs, "A Review of the Reviewers"[61]
Burroughs clearly indicates here that he prefers to be evaluated against such criteria over being reviewed based on the reviewer's personal reactions to a certain book. Always a contradictory figure, Burroughs nevertheless criticized Anatole Broyard for reading authorial intentionality into his works where there is none, which sets him at odds both with New Criticism and the old school as represented by Mathew Arnold.

Legacy


William S. Burroughs
Video, Color Laserprint by Christiaan Tonnis, 2006

Burroughs is often called one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century, most notably by Norman Mailer whose quote on Burroughs, "The only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius", appears on many Burroughs publications. Others consider his concepts and attitude more influential than his prose. Prominent admirers of Burroughs's work have included British critic and biographer Peter Ackroyd, the rock critic Lester Bangs, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the authors J. G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Jean Genet, William Gibson, Alan Moore, Kathy Acker and Ken Kesey. Burroughs had a profound influence on the German writer Carl Weissner, who in addition to being his German translator was a novelist in his own right and frequently wrote cut-up texts in a manner reminiscent of Burroughs.[62]
Burroughs continues to be named as an influence by contemporary writers of fiction. Both the New Wave and, especially, the cyberpunk schools of science fiction are indebted to him. Admirers from the late 1970s—early 1980s milieu of this subgenre include William Gibson and John Shirley, to name only two. First published in 1982, the British slipstream fiction magazine Interzone (which later evolved into a more traditional science fiction magazine) paid tribute to him with its choice of name. He is also cited as a major influence by musicians Roger Waters, Patti Smith, Genesis P-Orridge, Ian Curtis, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits and Kurt Cobain.[63]
Drugs, homosexuality and death, common among Burroughs's themes, have been taken up by Dennis Cooper, of whom Burroughs said, "Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer".[64] Cooper, in return, wrote, in his essay 'King Junk', "along with Jean Genet, John Rechy, and Ginsberg, [Burroughs] helped make homosexuality seem cool and highbrow, providing gay liberation with a delicious edge". Splatterpunk writer Poppy Z. Brite has frequently referenced this aspect of Burroughs's work. Burroughs's writing continues to be referenced years after his death; for example, a November 2004 episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation included an evil character named Dr. Benway (named for an amoral physician who appears in a number of Burroughs's works.) This is an echo of the hospital scene in the movie Repo Man, made during Burroughs's lifetime, in which both Dr. Benway and Mr. Lee (a Burroughs pen name) are paged.
Burroughs was cited by Robert Anton Wilson as the first person to notice the "23 Enigma":

I first heard of the 23 Enigma from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.
—Robert Anton Wilson, Fortean Times[65]

Appearances in media

In music


Burroughs appears on the cover of The Beatles' eighth studio album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Burroughs participated on numerous album releases by Giorno Poetry Systems, including The Nova Convention (featuring Frank Zappa, John Cage, and Philip Glass) and You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With (with John Giorno and Laurie Anderson).
He is featured in a spoken word piece entitled "Sharkey's Night" on Laurie Anderson's 1984 album Mister Heartbreak, but the longer version of this track, with additional dialogue from Burroughs, was released only on a promotional 4-track 12" Ep (Warner Bros PRO-A-2123). In addition, Burroughs provided vocal samples for the soundtrack of Anderson's 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave, and made a cameo appearance in it.
Bill Laswell's Material collaborated with Burroughs to produce the 1989 album Seven Souls, wherein Burroughs recites passages from his book The Western Lands to musical accompaniment. The album was reissued in 1997 with 3 bonus remixes. In 1998, an additional unreleased six remixes (plus one previously released) were introduced on the album The Road To The Western Lands. Spring Heel Jack's remix of the track '"The Road to the Western Lands" from this album was also included on their Oddities album from 2000.
In 1990, Island Records released Dead City Radio, a collection of readings set to a broad range of musical compositions. It was produced by Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, with musical accompaniment from John Cale, Donald Fagen, Lenny Pickett, Chris Stein, Sonic Youth, and others. The remastered edition of Sonic Youth's album Goo includes a longer version of "Dr. Benway's House", which had appeared, in shorter form, on Dead City Radio.
In 1992 he recorded "Quick Fix" with Ministry, which appeared on their single for "Just One Fix". The single featured cover art by Burroughs and a remix of the song dubbed the "W.S.B. mix". Burroughs also made an appearance in the video for "Just One Fix". The same year he also recorded the EP The "Priest" They Called Him; Burroughs reads the short story of the same name, while Kurt Cobain creates layers of guitar feedback and distortion. Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic is featured on the cover as the titular "Priest". The track on the 13th Ministry album "Thanx but No Thanx" makes use of William S. Burroughs's poem "A Thanksgiving Prayer", as read by Sgt. Major.
In 1992 Burroughs worked with The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy on Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, with the duo providing musical background and accompaniment to Burroughs's spoken readings from several of his books. A 12" Ep was released with five different remixes of the Spare Ass Annie track Words of Advice for Young People, all done by Bill Laswell.
Burroughs recites the lyrics of R.E.M.'s "Star Me Kitten" for a special version of the song on the Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files soundtrack.
Burroughs appears near the end of U2's music video "Last Night on Earth", pushing a shopping cart with a large spotlight positioned inside it. The video ends with a close up of his eyes.
Burroughs is featured on the 2000 compilation tribute album, Stoned Immaculate, on a track that pairs Jim Morrison yelping and groaning with Burroughs reading Morrison's poetry. The music was recorded by the surviving Doors members in 2000 specifically for this album.[66]

Band names

Numerous bands have found their names in Burroughs's work. The most widely known of these is Steely Dan, a group named after a dildo in Naked Lunch.[67] Also from Naked Lunch came the names Clarknova, The Mugwumps and The Insect Trust. The novel Nova Express inspired the names of Grant Hart's post-Hüsker Dü band Nova Mob, as well as Australian 1960s R&B band Nova Express.[68] British band Soft Machine took its moniker from the Burroughs novel of the same name. Alt-country band Clem Snide is named for a Burroughs character. Thin White Rope took their name from Burroughs's euphemism for ejaculation.[69]
The American extreme metal band Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky took their name from the 1989 text "Apocalypse",[70] in which Burroughs describes "art and creative expression taking a literal and physical form".[71]

In film and television


Burroughs played Opium Jones in the 1966 Conrad Rooks cult film Chappaqua, which also featured cameo roles by Allen Ginsberg, Moondog, and others. In 1968, an abbreviated—77 minutes as opposed to the original's 104 minutes—version of Benjamin Christensen's 1922 film Häxan was released, subtitled Witchcraft Through The Ages. This version, produced by Anthony Balch, featured an eclectic jazz score by Daniel Humair and expressionist narration by Burroughs.[72] He also appeared alongside Brion Gysin in a number of short films in the 1960s directed by Balch.[73] Jack Sargeant's book Naked Lens: Beat Cinema details Burroughs film work at length, covering his collaborations with Balch and Burroughs' theories of film.
Burroughs narrated part of the 1980 documentary Shamans of the Blind Country by anthropologist and filmmaker Michael Oppitz.[74] He gave a reading on Saturday Night Live on November 7, 1981, in an episode hosted by Lauren Hutton.
In 1983 director Howard Brookner released Burroughs: the Movie. The film is perhaps the definitive account of Burroughs' life and Brookner and Burroughs maintained a very close collaboration during the shooting process. The film features interviews with many of Burroughs' friends and collaborators including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith and Terry Southern.
Burroughs subsequently made cameo appearances in a number of other films and videos, such as David Blair's Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees, an elliptic story about the first Gulf War in which Burroughs plays a beekeeper, and Decoder by Klaus Maeck. He played an aging junkie priest in Gus Van Sant's 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. He also appears briefly at the beginning of Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (based on the Tom Robbins novel), in which he is seen crossing a city street; as the noise of the city rises around him he pauses in the middle of the intersection and speaks the single word "ominous". Van Sant's short film "Thanksgiving Prayer" features Burroughs reading the poem "Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986", from Tornado Alley, intercut with a collage of black and white images.
Burroughs was portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland in the 2000 film Beat, written and directed by Gary Walkow. Loosely biographical, the plot involves a car trip to Mexico City with Vollmer, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Lucien Carr, and includes a scene of Vollmer's shooting.
Burroughs is portrayed by Ben Foster in the 2013 film Kill Your Darlings, directed by John Krokidas and written by John Krokidas and Austin Bunn. The film tells the story of Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) and David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), with appearances by actors playing Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) and Kerouac (Jack Huston).[75]
Near the end of his life, recordings of Burroughs reading his short stories "A Junky's Christmas" and "Ah Pook is Here" were used on the soundtracks of two highly acclaimed animated films.[76]
Filmmakers Lars Movin and Steen Moller Rasmussen used footage of Burroughs taken during a 1983 tour of Scandinavia in the documentary Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs on the Road. A 2010 documentary, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, was made for Independent Lens on PBS.

As a fictional character

Burroughs was fictionalized in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel On the Road as "Old Bull Lee". He also makes an appearance in J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical 1991 novel The Kindness of Women. In the 2004 novel Move Under Ground, Burroughs, Kerouac, and Neal Cassady team up to defeat Cthulhu.
Burroughs appears in the first part of The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson during the 1968 Democratic Convention riots and is described as a person devoid of anger, passion, indignation, hope, or any other recognizable human emotion. He is presented as a polar opposite of Allen Ginsberg, as Ginsberg believed in everything and Burroughs believed in nothing. Wilson would recount in his Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth having interviewed both Burroughs and Ginsberg for Playboy the day the riots began, as well as his experiences with Shea during the riots, providing some detail on the creation of the fictional sequence.

Bibliography




 

William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil

Notes


  1. 2003 Penguin Modern Classics edition of Junky.
  2. Biography, The Guardian
  3. Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, Harper Perennial Modern Classics (2005). It includes an introduction by J. G. Ballard and an appendix of biography and reference to further reading: "About the author", "About the book" and "Read on".
  4. William S Burroughs Popsubculture.com Biography.
  5. Morgan, Ted, Literary Outlaw, p. 44.
  6. Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader. James Grauerholz, Ira Silverberg, Ann Douglas (eds), Grove Press, 2000, p. 21.
  7. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 26.
  8. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, papers, p. 62.
  9. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 611.
  10. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 65.
  11. Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–2014. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  12. Severo, Richard (August 3, 1997). "William S. Burroughs Dies at 83; Member of the Beat Generation Wrote 'Naked Lunch'". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-22.
  13. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, pp. 65–8.
  14. Grauerholz, James. Introduction p. xv, in William Burroughs. Interzone. New York: Viking Press, 1987.
  15. Johnson, Joyce (2012). The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac. Penguin Group. ISBN 9780670025107.
  16. Grauerholz, James. "The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs: What Really Happened?". American Studies Department, University of Kansas. lawrence.com. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
  17. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 202.
  18. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 214.
  19. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, pp. 197–198.
  20. Queer, Penguin, 1985, p. xxiii.
  21. James Grauerholz. Word Virus, New York: Grove, 1998.
  22. "William S. Borroughs." Biography.com.
  23. Bill Morgan, I Celebrate Myself, 2006, New York: Viking Press, p. 159.
  24. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, pp. 232–34.
  25. James Grauerholz writes, in Interzone, the body of text that Burroughs was working on was called Interzone, see Burroughs, William S. Interzone. "Introduction", pp. ix–xiii. New York: Viking Press, 1987.
  26. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 238.
  27. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, pp. 238–42.
  28. Miles, Barry "The Inventive Mind of Brion Gysin" in José Férez Kuri (ed) Brion Gysin: Tuning in to the Multimedia Age, London: Thames and Hudson, 2003, p.124-125.
  29. Burroughs, William S., Ports of Entry – Here is Space-Time Painting, p.32.
  30. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 355.
  31. Ginsberg, Allen. Postcard to John Ciardi. 11 July 1959. MS. Stuart Wright Collection: Richard Ghormley Eberhart Papers. Joyner Lib., Greenville, NC.
  32. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 425.
  33. Grauerholz, James. Introduction p. xviii, in William Burroughs. Interzone. New York: Viking Press, 1987.
  34. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p.316-326.
  35. Dent, John Yerbury. Anxiety and Its Treatment. London: J. Murray, 1941.
  36. Stratton, Richard. "Keith Richards Interview 1978". High Times Reader. New York: Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books, 2004.
  37. Burroughs, William, S. "Afterword". Speed/Kentucky Ham: Two Novels. New York: Overlook Press, 1984.
  38. Lee Hill A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern.
  39. David S. Wills, "The Weird Cult: William S. Burroughs and Scientology", Beatdom Literary Journal, December 2011.
  40. Burroughs on Scientology, Los Angeles Free Press, March 6, 1970.
  41. Bockris, Victor. With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1996.
  42. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 477.
  43. Thurston Moore interview on William Burroughs
  44. Charters, Ann. "Introduction". Speed/Kentucky Ham: Two Novels. New York: Overlook Press, 1984.
  45. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, pp. 495–536.
  46. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 565.
  47. Burroughs, William. "Introduction". Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs. New York: Grove Press, 2000.
  48. "Godfather of Beat Generation was content to live last days in Kansas", Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com, April 5, 2010.
  49. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 596.
  50. Morgan, Literary Outlaw, p. 577.
  51. WILLIAM S.BURROUGHS 'Life-File' at Beak Street.
  52. "William Burroughs Biography", October Gallery.
  53. St. Louis Walk of Fame - William Burroughs, St. Louis Walk of Fame, 2008, retrieved 25 April 2013
  54. "The Life of William S. Burroughs: A timeline," Phil Cauthon, lawrence.com. July 30, 2007. Retrieved: May 24, 2010.
  55. Grant, Douglas (2003). "Magick and Photography". Ashé Journal. Rebel Satori Press. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
  56. William S. Burroughs: Overview from msn.com
  57. "William S. Burroughs". Find a Grave. Retrieved October 19, 2010.
  58. Reality Studio.org: Evil River-A Burroughs Memoir?, a 2005 discussion on the origin of this book.
  59. Chris Hastings and Beth Jones, "New Jack Kerouac book to be published, The Telegraph, March 2, 2008 . Retrieved March 3, 2008.
  60. Telos Publishing catalogue entry, accessed August 9, 2010.
  61. Burroughs, William S. The Adding Machine: Selected Essays. Arcade Publishing, 1993
  62. "In Memory of Carl Weissner". Reality Studio. 25 January 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  63. Wills, D. 'Modern Beats: Tom Waits', in Wills, D. (ed.), Beatdom, Vol. 3 (Dundee: Mauling Press, 2007) p. ????
  64. Cooper, Dennis (2003). My Loose Thread. Canongate Books. p. 1. ISBN 9781841954127.
  65. Robert Anton Wilson (May 2007). "The 23 Phenomenon". Fortean Times. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  66. Stoned Immaculate liner notes
  67. FAQ from the Official Steely Dan website
  68. Nova Express, band profile
  69. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p5634/biography
  70. Murphy, Timothy S. (1998). "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted". Wising Up the Marks: The Amodern William Burroughs. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-520-20951-6. Retrieved June 23, 2009.
  71. G., Richard (April 2009). "Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky interview". Lords of Metal. Retrieved June 23, 2009.
  72. Mark Bourne (2001). "Häxan / Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Criterion Collection". DVD Journal. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  73. U B U W E B : William S. Burroughs Films
  74. Ausgewählte Publikationen von Michael Oppitz from the website of the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zürich.
  75. "The Watchful Years, Before the Howling Began" (movie review), New York Times, October 15, 2013.
  76. Wills, David, "Naked Lunch on Film" in Beatdom, Vol. 5 (City of Recovery Press, 2009), p. 30.

References



Further reading


Published materials


  • Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk).
  • Gilmore, John. Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip. Searching for Rimbaud. Amok Books, 1997.
  • Harris, Oliver. William S. Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.
  • Johnson, Robert Earl. The Lost Years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas. Texas A&M University Press, 2006.
  • Miles, Barry. William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible, A Portrait. New York: Hyperion, 1992.
  • Sargeant, Jack. "Naked Lens: Beat Cinema" New York: Soft Skull, 2009 (third edition).
  • Schneiderman, Davis and Philip Walsh. Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization. London: Pluto Press, 2004.
  • Stevens, Michael. The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading. suicide press, Archer City, Texas 2009.
  • Wills, David S. Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the Weird Cult. Beatdom Books, London 2013.

Archival sources



External links


 William S. Burroughs By Adolfo Vásquez Rocca D.Phil

Obras

Burroughs escribió a lo largo de cuarenta años. Algunas de sus obras más relevantes son:
  • Y los hipopótamos se cocieron en sus tanques (1953), con Jack Kerouac
  • Yonqui (1953), bajo el seudónimo de Bill Lee
  • El almuerzo desnudo (1959), escrita en Tánger, un lugar que apreció singularmente.
  • La máquina blanda (1961)
  • Nova Express (1963)
  • Los chicos salvajes (1971)
  • Exterminador (1973)
  • Ciudades de la noche roja (1981)
  • El lugar de los caminos muertos (1984)
  • Queer (1985)
  • Tierras del Occidente (1987)
  • Gato Encerrado (1986)
  • El fantasma accidental
  • Las últimas palabras de Dutch Schultz
  • La revolución electrónica (1970)
  • Snack
  • Mi educación
  • El metro blanco
  • El ticket que explotó

Filmografía sobre Burroughs y sobre su obra y pensamiento

En el álbum tributo a la banda de rock estadounidense The Doors llamado Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors, del año 2000, en el tema «Is Everybody In?» aparece el escritor William Burroughs recitando poesía de Jim Morrison.
William Burroughs aparece en el vídeo del tema «Just One Fix» del grupo Ministry.
El autor aparece como personaje de cómic, con el nombre de Billy Sorrows en la obra de Juanjo Guarnido y Juan Díaz Canales, Amarillo, de la serie BlackSad.


  1. Burroughs on Scientology, Los Angeles Free Press, Mar 6, 1970.


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Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca _ Doctor en Filosofía y Teoría del Arte UCM