version

Well-known member
I've only ever read The Soft Machine, but I've got a copy of Nova Express on the way as I've heard it's probably the best of the three and one of Burroughs' best in general. There's a recording of him reading a section of it which I listened to over and over for a while without realising it was an excerpt.

 
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version

Well-known member
Walters: What always attracted me when I first heard about that—I suppose, a lot of students at the time—it seemed to introduce a random effect, a found work, do you know what I mean? I wonder if it was so random as all that.

Burroughs: Well, how random is random? Uh…

Walters: Well, let’s put it like this. I was in a pub in Charlotte Street, of all places, in Soho, and a mate of mine had read Nova Express—this was ‘64, ‘65—was talking about this, “You must buy this book,” and started to try and explain to me his interpretation of cut-up and fold-in techniques, which he probably got wrong. And I couldn’t remember the name of the book when I got outside, and then an Express Dairy van from the Express Dairies came by, and I thought, “Express, Nova Express!” And I thought, “That’s what he’s trying to tell us. Random events can have a hidden meaning. We can get messages.” But I don’t think that’s what you see in it, is it?

Burroughs: Oh, exactly. Exactly what I see in it. These juxtapositions between what you’re thinking, if you’re walking down the street, and what you see, that was exactly what I was introducing. You see, life is a cut-up. Every time you walk down the street or look out the window, your consciousness is cut by random factors, and then you begin to realize that they’re not so random, that this is saying something to you.
 

luka

Well-known member
Well ok we'll read it over the weekend "he reads books
from the list book club"
 

luka

Well-known member
I have to get ready for work. Version see how many people you can enlist in the list book club. We start reading this weekend and we will finish by the weekend after. Get corpsey.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Do you have a job version? You seem to have infinite interests, infinite reading, infinite time on your hands.

(I'm not saying this in a finger-wagging judgemental way, btw. I'm envious.)
 

luka

Well-known member
Just sign on the dotted line corpse. About time you read something published later than the 1800s
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Perhaps I could... It's only 4 quid on Kindle.

Dismayingly, however, I have to read a lot of books about marketing for a new job. Also mandatory work pub quiz friday could destroy me for the weekend.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
Perhaps I could... It's only 4 quid on Kindle.

Dismayingly, however, I have to read a lot of books about marketing for a new job. Also mandatory work pub quiz friday could destroy me for the weekend.

how can a work pub quiz be mandatory? they should be glad you're taking the effort reading those terrible marketing books.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
i found one of those marketing books on the street once. skimmed thru it just to have some laughs my god i can't think of anything worse to read?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
how can a work pub quiz be mandatory? they should be glad you're taking the effort reading those terrible marketing books.

Different job. It's mandatory only in the sense that I'll have to put up with some bantz if I don't go.

The marketing books aren't mandatory but I want to do well at my next job.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
There's almost certainly an irony to me talking about my eagerness to do well as a marketing copywriter in a WSB thread.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I found Nova Express, The Wild Boys and Port of Saints considerably more readable than the really heavily cut-up texts, although the latter have left a sort of permanent impression on me, a sense of a space that can be entered at will. Very much in the spirit of "if you get the message, hang up the phone" - I've never really wanted to revisit The Ticket that Exploded, even though it was a kind of initiatory experience for me at the time of first reading in my late teens.
 

luka

Well-known member
Ticket that Exploded was Kpunks favourite. I think Nova Express is the best way in.

We're going to read it in a single weekend. Bash it's doors in then think profound thoughts about it.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
It took me a long time to get it through my head that WSB was quite a terrible person. Misogynist, pederast sex tourist, wife killer, conspiracy-theorising crank, someone who evaded responsibility all his life long due to family money and connections. He had a magnetic quality all the same. I treasured all the writings, including the collected letters, the dream diary, the essays ("Women: A Biological Mistake?"). He seemed like someone who had made a breakthrough of some kind; and actually, in terms of what literature is capable of, I really think he did.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
It took me a long time to get it through my head that WSB was quite a terrible person. Misogynist, pederast sex tourist, wife killer, conspiracy-theorising crank, someone who evaded responsibility all his life long due to family money and connections. He had a magnetic quality all the same. .

charisma relies on appearing amoral if not outright immoral.

you have to pretend to be a piece of shit to get people to like you, even you're a sweet boy.
 
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