The Soft Machine – William Burroughs

The Soft Machine – William Burroughs
Having read and enjoyed Naked Lunch, Queer and Junkie manymany years ago, I was interested to go back to Burroughs and see if he was as good as I remember. It turns out...not.

This is pretty adolescent stuff, and the shock value of using the words “rectum” and “jissom” ad nauseum wears very thin very quickly. It may be that those other books are simply better, but I am disinclined to spend time going back and finding out.

Here’s a representative sample:

Smile of idiot death spasms – slow vegetable decay filmed his amber flesh – always there when the egg cracks and the white juice spurts from ruptured apines – from his mouth floated coal gas and violets – The boy dropped his rusty black pants – delicate musk of soiled linen – clothes stiff with oil on the red tile floor – naked and sullen his street boy senses darted around the room for scraps of advantage.