Posted by wendy b. on May 29, 2003, at 8:39:19
In reply to Re: Burroughs suprise, posted by Snoozy on May 25, 2003, at 23:02:06
> I think he did *everything* on opium ;)
> I have a couple of his books, I don't think I've read that one though.
Sorry to butt in here, but I had some time this morning and I was scanning the boards --Burroughs was addicted to heroin, which he writes about in most of his work. The following is from his obituary in a 1997 literary mag (I don't know who wrote it):
_______W. S. Burroughs Dead at 83
William S. Burroughs, the scandal-baiting, fiercely-inventive writer widely considered an elder patriarch of beat literature, died August 2 after suffering a heart attack in Lawrence, Kansas. He was 83.
Burroughs was the last survivor among a literary triad that's generally considered to be at the heart of the beat movement: Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. (Kerouac died in 1969; Ginsberg passed away earlier this year).
Harvard-educated, Burroughs claimed the two major catalysts for his writing were his long-standing addiction to heroin and the death in 1951 of his wife, killed by an inebriated Burroughs while shooting at a glass perched atop her head.
Published in 1962, the drug-soaked and oft-censored "Naked Lunch" cemented Burroughs' reputation. His other works included "Junkie", "The Place of Dead Roads", "Queer" and the recently-issued "My Education: A Book of Dreams".
Burroughs became a pop cultural icon, inspiring the names of musical groups (Soft Machine, Steely Dan), collaborating with pop musicians and appearing in music videos and films ("Drugstore Cowboy").
"I have always seen my own work in the light of the picaresque -- a series of adventures and misadventures, horrific and comic, encountered by an antihero," Burroughs once wrote. "Much of my work is intended to be funny."
_____________________I found this summary interesting enough to clip and post on the fridge. Since I'm moving house, I'll now insert it into his biography, by Barry Miles (who knew Burroughs for 30 years) "William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible" as its book-mark.
Burroughs adored his cats, too. Was a member of the National Rifle Association, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. What an enigma...Best to you readers,
Wendy
poster:wendy b.
thread:228711
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20030426/msgs/229906.html