Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Dr. Eugene Felikson
My gf recently started reading a copy of William S. Burroughs' Junkie which a friend at work loaned her.
Guess she didnt realize I had a copy alongside both Queer and Naked Lunch sitting on the bookshelf in my basement. I've read both Junkie and Naked Lunch, but dont remember much.
Am I wrong in thinking that Burroughs is overrated? Like "ooo look at me I can rearrange sentences in nonsensical orders and I'm hooked on drugs and also gay woohoo"
Compared to like Vonnegut or someone, isnt Burroughs mostly read by pretentious twits?
What about Pynchon? Is he in the same boat or is Gravity's Rainbow actually enlightening? Was Burroughs' Naked Lunch even all that good? I'm certain the majority of it went over my head when I was like 17.
*continues making his way through Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind*
|
Junkie isn't experimental at all and would be enjoyed by anyone who likes Bukowski or Hubert Selby. Queer's kind of the same but has a bit at the end where it starts to weird out. I re-read Naked Lunch last year and loved it, maybe more than I ever did before. It has its experimental bits but nowhere near as much as some of his later books. And besides, the point about Burroughs attracting pretentious people could just as easily apply to the Velvets. They were also into experimentation, drugs and sexual deviancy and obviously attracted their fair share of posers, but obviously plenty of other people, too, who genuinely love what they did.