Word Virus: The William S Burroughs Reader, edited by Grauerholz and Silverberg, c. 1998

In progress.

My hunch is that I would not enjoy reading any of Burroughs' writing, but he may represent an important element of postmodern writing. So, with that, I will read a bit and see if I enjoy any of it. I will probably enjoy the biographical notes, the analysis, but I probably would not enjoy the original works, and I know I don't agree with Burroughs' worldview.

But here we go, into the swamp.

The four seminal figures of the first Beat circle: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Herbert Huncke.

From page xxvii:

In the age that coined the word "togetherness" as a synonym for family values, the Beats, each in his own style, mounted the first open, sustained assault in American history on the masculine role as heterosexual spouse, father, and grown-up provider. In the midst of the Cold War crusade against all deviations from the masculine form, in the era that could almost be said to have invented the idea of classified information, they openly addressed homosexuality, bisexuality, and masturbation in their work, declassifying the secrets of the male body, making sexuality as complex as individual identify, and pushing their chosen forms to new limits in the process.

Born in St Louis, a few years after "the beginning of 'the American century.'"

Paternal grandfather: invented the Burroughs adding machine.
Burroughs' father: saved his fortunate; at age 13 held on to a few shares when the company bought the shares from the rest of the family members; made a fortune selling those shares just three weeks before the market crash in 1929;
Burroughs' father, Mortimer: one brother, two sisters

• brother Horace, morphine addict; committed suicide in 1915
• older sister Jenny wandered drunk in St Louis; vanished in Seattle
• younger sister Helen, married and moved to Colorado
• the family disintegrated

Mortimer married Laura Lee, interesting in her own right; flower arranging illustrations for Coca-Cola
Laura's brother, a Princeton alum, invented "public relations" as we now know it; polished the images of diverse individuals from John D. Rockefeller Sr to Adolf Hitler; died of a brain tumor before he saw what the Nazis did
Mortimer and Laura's first child, "Mort," born 1911
William Seward Burrough II, born 1914, in St Louis, as noted above
probably sexually abused by babysitter's boyfriend when he was four years old
loved reading pulp fiction from age 8
wrote by age 15
introduced to morphine at age 13 following a burn to his hand; vowed that he would smoke opium when he grew up
New Mexico boarding school, Gore Vidal, school master A. J. Connell (sexual importunities); boarding school eventually acquired by the Manhattan Project; Burroughs always hated Oppenheimer
diary included descriptions of torrid affair with male lover(s)
Harvard University; bisexual experiences early
fascinated with guns; fascination for all weapons and techniques of self-defense and mastery over others, even as a young boy
graduated from Harvard, 1936; American Literature
followed with grand tour of Europe; was in Austria and saw rise of Hitler
married a German Jew, so she could flee to America; she did; they separated immediately; friends for a long time, but divorced nine years later
Burroughs to Columbia University (NYC), psychology; but soon back to Cambridge, 1938, to study anthropology; he was all of 24; roommates were Alan Calvert and his best friend from St Louis, Kells Elvins, smart and good-looking -- irresistible to women; married three in his short life; Burroughs attracted to Kells but probably never sexually consummated
Elvins important to Burroughs writing: the baton --- through Nashe, Sterne, Swift, Voltaire, and Petronius to Aristophanes
"The figure of 'pure glittering shamelessness,' exemplified by the boat captain's rushing into the first lifeboat in woman's clothing, would be a touchstone of all Burroughs' work."