Burroughs

The excerpts from Naked Lunch, the poems, and the interview were my first formal introductions to William S. Burroughs (excluding an admittedly fuzzy knowledge of the Beat Generation). The excerpts themselves were not what I was expecting, but the interview component was just as surprising in certain ways.

It was only after reading the interview and watching some clips of him on YouTube that the sense of him I got (his mannerisms, the cadence of his voice) filled the writing and made it connect more for me. On their own, the excerpts and poems were certainly interesting, challenging, a exciting. But with my half-formed idea of Burroughs in my mind, my impression of them and some of my understanding in a lesser sense shifted.

What really struck me, though, was this quote from the interview:

"Well, the situation has changed radically, say from what it was in the 1920s when I was a child; you could describe that as a pretty hard-core matriarchal society. Now, the picture is much more complicated with the pill and the sexual revolution and Women's Lib, which allegedly is undermining the matriarchal system. That is, at least that's what they say they're doing, that they want women to be treated like everyone else and not have special prerogatives simply because they're women...You see, the southern part of the United States was always the stronghold of matriarchy, the concept of the 'Southern belle' and the Southern woman. And that is still in existence, but it's on the way out, undoubtedly."

The concept of a matriarchal society, specifically in the United States, is just a really hard concept for me to wrap my head around. I'd love to know what exactly Burroughs meant by a "matriarchal" society when he answered this question all those years ago. I was a little surprised, to be honest. It didn't really gel with my idea of what a "Beat" poet would say - but then, I don't know much about that group of writers or much about him certainly not where gender comes into play. Burroughs quote prompted me to do a little more digging on good ol' Google, where I found a few interesting articles and one Google Book that talked about sexism in the Beat Generation - which has made me eager to read more of their work which I, I must admit, have always had a sort of aversion to for whatever reason.

I guess my idea of "transgressive" authors was of anyone railing against "conservative" ideals. But then, I guess I got caught up because obviously what I perceive to be a "conservative" ideal - in this case sexism and misogyny - is not actually a conservative ideal and can be a part of any one's beliefs, regardless of how subversive they may be in other areas. If anything this was a reminder that I should, you know, be ever and always aware of the complexities of the authors and novels we're going to be reading this semester. And probably just people in general. That, too. Nothing is ever just black or white or grey - which is a good thing.

If you haven't gotten a chance to see and/or hear him in action, here's a video of Burroughs talking about other beat poets: