Quote: backwards7 said: Today I began reading The Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs. Although he never wrote seriously until he was in his 30s, Burroughs was a natural with language, able to vividly describe a scene with just a few well chosen words.
The Wild Boys opens with a Mexican street scene, centred around the balconies of an apartment building. The queer - Joselito shaves his chest, singing discordantly as his silky hair floats upwards and settles on the food laid out on the balcony above. His mother, Dolores, runs a newspaper kiosk and possesses latent magical powers. On evil eye days she causes her customers to go mad or give birth to stillborn children. When she has the sweet eye, she puts the newspapers away and sells flowers instead. Tio Pepe attempts to spread accidents and misfortune using the power of suggestion, either by standing in the middle of crowds muttering phrases such as “charred bodies” and “fire of unknown origins” or by whispering into the ears of sleeping drunks while kicking them repeatedly in the groin. Tio Mate is an old assassin who shoots a vulture every independence day. By the end of the chapter Pepe and Mate are individually plotting to kill the dog which the blind lottery ticket seller - Tio Gordo – uses to sniff-out torn or counterfeit notes.
William Burroughs was such an original and individual writer and thinker. His work has made great ripples in popular culture that many people aren’t aware of. Together with Brian Gyson he developed the cut up style of writing and recording, whose influence can be seen in the magnetic fridge poetry kits that you can buy in bookshops today and even in the culture of sampling in music. He coined the term ‘beat’ to describe the generation of counter culture writers he is commonly associated with. He also came up with the expression: ‘Heavy metal’. The makers of the film – Blade Runner purchased the title from Burroughs, who had been using it for an unrelated screenplay. I noticed Warren Ellis borrowed his concept of Heaven and Hell as two siege engines for an early issue of Planetary.
Burroughs is really good. I have a cousin that used to loan me books to read and she got these big compilations books from this book club she was in. One of the comps was a Burroughs book that had Junkie, Queer, and Naked Lunch compiled together. Another was for Kerouac, and had On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and The Subterraneans. Good stuff.
