William S. Burrough's Review

Kerouac vs. Burroughs

     Kerouac and Burroughs search for the same things in life: freedom, and purpose.  In my opinion, they both give a sense of mental instability. Kerouac, who seems to be in his friends shadows throughout his novel, demonstrates questionable behavior. He describes what he saw when Cassidy was having a sexual encounter with the same sex as “non-plussed” (307). I understand this meaning to denote confusion. Rather than find this to be repulsive or offensive (the way society would); he was just in a state of confusion, like an innocent inexperienced little boy. “I hid in the bathroom and listened. It was insane” shows Kerouac to be in a mental state of immaturity peeking through as if to experiment without actually partaking. On page 345, he dreams that he was Neal Cassidy, and then on page 349 he writes “We clasped hands and agreed to be friends forever” which leads me to believe that he searched for identity and purpose through Cassidy’s hands-on experimentation in an awkwardly immature way. Without Cassidy, he would have no sense of direction or purpose in life, kind of like a child who is still growing and learning about his identity and purpose in life and clinging on to his mentor. Kerouac relies heavily on Cassidy to feel existent. William Burroughs can be likened to Kerouac but mirrors Cassidy’s behavior more than anything. Burroughs becomes indignant to life’s relationships as he describes his connections to “Junk” and “Queer” in his short stories. He is consumed with nonconforming desire in the many forms associated with an unquenchable cure for junk and sex with little boys, which I find to be a neurosis of immaturity. It seems they condition themselves to a rebellious mental state of boyish curiosity as a coping mechanism for the adult world they somehow seem to not want to face. 

                                                         Junky without a Cause

     Burroughs provides an interesting perspective of a drug induced lifestyle that creates conflict within his own nature of existence in his Prologue of short stories.  Very similar to Ginsberg, Burroughs is also faced with some form of mental psychosis, Schizophrenia. He subjected himself to psychoanalysis which he said “removed inhibitions and anxiety” in order to live the way he wanted (49). He became a jack of all trades working odd jobs and living on the edge of life. After a car accident he describes as miraculously surviving, he changed his outlook on life and began a way of life through a “symbolic system” which after a brief period of fascination, died off into the world of insatiable desire. Which desires you may ask?

     He succumbed to drug addiction and pederasty. He would live life through the attachment of scoring a fix and scoring sex with young boys. This behavior is similar to that of Kerouac's but through a different lens. Both seem to have a sense of attachment and belonging to something or someone. Preying on little boys seems to be a disturbing factor for me and believe that his preference for such young flesh is due to the idea that he believes he can act on his desires however he pleases like a little kid. Burroughs believed that his drug addiction induced his desire and wanting for a fix; Kerouac’s fix was being in the presence of Cassidy and being on the road together. Both Kerouac and Burroughs developed a “real need for money” which I find to be more conforming that they would like to admit. Like the professor mentioned in our class discussion, they both lived in pursuit of money in order to survive what plagued them. Like young boys, the money they seeked only satisfied them momentarily having no plan for the future. They both lived in the now, which is again immature behavior. Burroughs has a way of objectifying his purpose in life. He believed that his ordinary life stopped growing which to him it meant “you start dying.” He believed that junk “teaches the user facts of general validity” insinuating that this form of “pleasure is relief” (50). 

     In the following interview he states that his perception of reality is “lessened” with junk. Can anyone explain to me what he means when he says that junk “is a way of life” if it lessens life's reality? Is there any purpose in 'seemingly' celebrating a drug addiction and extending this addiction to young boys? His work only portrays his experience in Tangiers as the Sodom and Gomorrah of his lifestyle, nothing I find deemed of expressing through literature.