Magick Matters

“Mosaic of Juxtaposition: William S. Burroughs’ Narrative Revolution” by Michael Sean Bolton

"William S. Burroughs' experimental narratives, from the 1959 publication of Naked Lunch through the late trilogy of the 1980s, have provided readers with intriguing challenges and, for some, disheartening frustrations. Yet, these novels continue to generate new interest and inspire new insights among an increasing and evolving readership. This book addresses the unique characteristics of Burroughs' narrative style in order to discover strategies for engaging and navigating these demanding novels. Bolton advises, "Burroughs' subversive themes and randomizing techniques do not amount to unmitigated attacks on conventions, as many critics suggest, but constitute part of a careful strategy for effecting transformations in his readers". Utilizing various poststructuralist theories, as well as recent theories in electronic...>>

“Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs” by Ted Morgan

"With a new preface as well as a final chapter on William S. Burroughs’s last years, the acclaimed Literary Outlaw is the only existing full biography of an extraordinary figure. Anarchist, heroin addict, alcoholic, and brilliant writer, Burroughs was the patron saint of the Beats. His avant-garde masterpiece Naked Lunch shook up the literary world with its graphic descriptions of drug abuse and illicit sex—and resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling on obscenity. Burroughs continued to revolutionize literature with novels like The Soft Machine and to shock with the events in his life, such as the accidental shooting of his wife, which haunted him until his death. Ted Morgan captures the man, his...>>

“Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs” by William S. Burroughs

"Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns -- literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity, his love for his cats -- permeate the book. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most personal work Burroughs has ever written, a final reckoning with his life and regrets, and his reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen...>>

“The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs” by William S. Burroughs

"William Burroughs’ work was dedicated to an assault upon language, traditional values and all agents of control. Produced at a time when he was at his most extreme and messianic, The Job lays out his abrasive, incisive, paranoiac, maddened and maddening worldview in interviews interspersed with stories and other writing. On the Beat movement, the importance of the cut-up technique, the press, Scientology, capital punishment, drugs, good and evil, the destruction of nations, Deadly Orgone Radiation and whether violence just in words is violence enough – Burroughs’ insights show why he was one of the most influential writers and one of the sharpest, most startling and strangest minds of his generation."...>>

“The Adding Machine: Selected Essays” by William S. Burroughs

"Acclaimed by Norman Mailer more than twenty years ago as "possibly the only American writer of genius," William S. Burroughs has produced a body of work unique in our time. In these scintillating essays, he writes wittily and wisely about himself, his interests, his influences, his friends and foes. He offers candid and not always flattering assessments of such diverse writers as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Samuel Beckett, and Marcel Proust. He ruminates on science and the often dubious paths into which it seems intent on leading us, whether into outer or inner space. He reviews his reviewers, explains his famous "cut-up" method, and discusses...>>