Understanding William S. Burroughs / Gerald Alva Miller, Jr. R.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Gerald Alva.

Series:

Understanding contemporary American literature.

Understanding contemporary American literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Burroughs, William S., 1914-1997--Criticism and interpretation.

Burroughs, William S.

Burroughs, William S., 1914-1997.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Literary criticism.

Literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2020

Other Title:

William S. Burroughs

Place of Publication:

Columbia, South Carolina : University of South Carolina Press, 2019.

Summary:

Through critical readings Gerald Alva Miller, Jr., examines the life of William S. Burroughs and the evolution of his various radical styles not just in writing but also in audio, film, and painting. Although Burroughs remains tied to the Beat Generation, his works prove more revolutionary. Miller argues that Burroughs, more than any other author, ushered in the era of both postmodern fiction and poststructural philosophy. Through this study Miller situates Burroughs within the larger countercultural movements that began in the 1950s, when his novels became influential because of their examination of various control systems (from sex and drugs to global or even intergalactic conspiracies). Understanding William S. Burroughs begins by considering his early, straightforward narratives. Despite being more stylistically conventional, they broke new ground with their depictions of junkies, gay people, and others marginalized by society. The publication of Naked Lunch shattered all literary paradigms in terms of form and content. Naked Lunch and the cut-up novels, recordings, films, and art that followed constitute one of the twentieth century's most sustained and methodical aesthetic experiments, placing Burroughs alongside Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, and Thomas Pynchon in terms of both innovation and influence. Burroughs eventually turned his attention toward imagining methods of using the control "machinery" against itself. Often considered his masterpiece, the Red Night Trilogy of the 1980s ranges across time and space, and life and death, in its quest to discover the ultimate form of freedom. His antiestablishment stance and virulent attacks on various types of oppression have caused Burroughs to remain a highly influential figure to each new generation of authors, artists, musicians, and philosophers. The hippies, punks, and cyberpunks were all heavily indebted to the man whom many people called el hombre invisible, and his works prove more relevant than ever in the twenty-first century.

Contents:

Understanding William S. Burroughs

Desire and the ugly spirit: obsession, addiction, and Jouissance in Burroughs's early fiction

The end of their forks: the microphysics of power in Naked lunch

Rub out the word: The Nova trilogy and the severing of the signifier

Rainbow jockstraps and death gods: the nomadic war machine in The Wild boys period

Out of time and into space: humanity's evolutionary potential in the "Red night" novels

Love: the final revolutionary force

Epilogue: "Minutes to go, the heat are closing in".

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781643360331 (Proquest Ebook Central)

9781643360348

9781643360331

1643360337

OCLC:

1132421439