Queering the moderns Book

I picked this up on a whim probably because my partner is so immersed in queer and gender theory as of late, and Burroughs on my mind being the relatively recent 50th anniversary of Naked Lunch and the release of the William S. Burroughs: A Man Within film.

And I couldn’t put it down. Usually I find critical analysis of Burroughs’ work blah. Russell’s book fills a lacuna that definitely need filled considering Burrough’s, as Russell calls it, problematic relationship with gay culture.

Never one accept any standard narrative, including the gay community’s, Burroughs’ hawkishness and political incorrectness alienates him from most politcal or aesthetic blocs. Hombre insivible indeed. Russell though clearly demonstrates the dialog between gay culture and Burroughs oevre. As gay culture changed so did Burroughs work with the most striking shift being before and after Stonewall and the subsequent sea change in gay consciousness. The book also works as a de facto primer on gay history in America as Russell mirrors Burroughs’ work against it.

Outside the issues of gay identity central to the book, Russell has some other great insights to Burroughs’ work. First, Burroughs' large debt to Scientology. If this surprises you, read Queer Burroughs. Second, Russell’s acknowledgement that Cronenberg’s adaption / bio-pic hybrid of Naked Lunch is a failure precisely because of Cronenberg’s disinterest/misunderstanding/ignorance of gay issues in Burroughs’ work. A recent double feature screening of A Man Within and Naked Lunch made me realize the same thing shortly before reading Russell. This is a splinter that pains any viewing Cronenberg’s film for me. And apparently for Russell too as he goes of out his way to shoehorn this point into the text early on though really any mention of Cronenberg’s film is unnecessary for his program. Let’s just take some pop shots while we have the floor? Okay – I will! Errr, I mean I did!

This book was great but I'm giving it four stars instead of five because of Russell's willful exclusion of the herion issue. For all of the analysis of Burroughs' obsession with bodily possession from without, with loss of bodily control, Burroughs' history of herion addiction (and the nature thereof) deserved a larger nod [pun?] than it got. I understand why Russell left it out but maybe it should have been addressed early to get it out of the way. Maybe it is even more important than a knock on David Cronenberg.

I should read the Wild Boys tetralogy again.

"His essentialist assumptions over issues of gender place him at odds with the prevalent trend of queer, gender, and postmodern theory. While this does not justify Burroughs'exclusion from the queer canon, it does indicate the extend to which his inclusion would be politically problematic and could only ever be regarded as a historical recuperation of a novelist whose work expresses desires that the contemporary gay movement has long since sought to distance itself from... Perhaps it is too much to expect of an author whose career as a gay novelist spans McCarthy, the Mattachine Society, Stonewall, the Gay Liberation Front, the clone scene, AIDS, and the emergence of the discourses of postmodernity."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I can't someone out there stop me from using the world "de facto" in review?