Burroughs (Arena) - 1983 - 7/10
Penetrating, if difficult biography of William Burroughs.
Childhood, the Burroughs name, the William Tell incident, drug use, travels, sex, all check listed.
Being 1983, many interviewees were still alive (including Burroughs’ son) and they were blunt.
One memorable scene has him showing his defensive weapons in his bunker. Knives, blackjacks, and of course, guns.
College readings * were problematic for me, as listening to his prose seemed harder to decipher compared with reading.
Burroughs' growling snarl might be an acquired taste. Nonetheless, this is an excellent overview of the man a good decade before he died.
* Seeing some of the readings, I began wondering who current students listen to.
Not the corporate shills, media celebrities, or pop culture scribes. The poets, the literary masters, the underground.
Do junior and senior year intelligentsia value any literary elders enough to listen to?
Salman Rushdie? Joan Didion? Thomas Ligotti?
