As the title suggests, 'A William Burroughs Reader' attempts to analyse the writings, uncover the deeper meanings, and point out some of the finer points you may have missed the first time around reading Burroughs. It is also useful to the uninitiated, those who perhaps have wanted to read Burroughs, but don't know where to start, or have tried and failed and feel that they are somehow missing the point (which may be true in some cases). In order to better demonstrate to the reader, old and new, the author (or Editor as he is credited in this book) John Carter has included substantial extracts of text, many edited and re-arranged - in many ways mirroring Burroughs own cut-up technique.
Therefore this book, in weight of text, is as much the work of William Burroughs as it is John Carter.
I've listened to, and watched countless Burroughs interviews and documentaries over the years, but I still found Carter's insights valuable, and re-reading Burroughs texts in a new light was at times revealing; even if at times it can get a little repetative. For example:
page 17 contains a fairly long 20-odd line quote from the chapter 'Doctors and Scientists'; only to then repeat and expand on it again just 40 pages later!
The balance of the book is also not very even, with 104 pages dedicated to Naked Lunch alone, then just 36 to Soft Machine, 27 pages on The Ticket that Exploded, and 19 on Nova Express. Only 12 pages on The Wild Boys, 19 on Exterminator!, 24 on The Third Man. Then we get 59 pages on Cities of the Red Night, with 28 on Book II. I guess that Naked Lunch is one of Burroughs' best known works, so the author probably had more to say; then again it is the one most people have read, so perhaps that is why it felt like it was dragging on a bit for me, as I was more interested in books I may not have read yet.
It has certainly whet my apatite to want to now seek out some of the more obscure Burroughs books that I have not read. ( )