Customer Reviews

Brion Gysin: Here To Go

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A great piece to have, I recommend it to anyone interested in Brion Gysin, as well as for any serious reader of W.S. Burroughs. The conversations are comprehensive, Terry Wilson is obviously not just some rube who happened to speak with Gysin. It covers philosophy, art, life, music, permutations, cut-ups, religion, nearly everything across the board, with some excellent stories by Mr. Gysin appearing throughout. It's a shame that so little information about this man is readily available. Undoubtedly one of the most important artists/people of the 20th century. Now all we need is for The Third Mind to be reissued, along with everything else. (Anyone heard of a guy named "Flash Allen"? Supposedly there is a film called "Brion Gysin" made by him, but there seems to be no information about this anywhere.)

a.n.

(the book also has hard to find excerpts by Mr. Gysin and Mr. Burroughs from no longer extant writings as well as photographs)
(I gave it 4 stars because some of the calligraphy is noticeably pixelated, which gave it an amateurish kind of look, though the photographs do not have the same problem)

I discovered Brion Gysin in the late 1980s through my interest in the band Psychic TV. In the summer of 1987, after my freshman year of college, my roommate and I flew from Detroit out to Portland Oregon to transport a car from there back to the East Coast. While in Portland I purchased a copy of this book from a little music shop called the Ooze. My friend and I then took turns reading it aloud to each other as we drove.

While I have little recollection of the specific content of the book itself, I know that my copy of it is one of the only books still on my shelves that was made to be ragged and worn from reading and re-reading it back in those days. For years I had a dream machine set up in my room, and I feel I owe much of my brain's wiring to the influence of Brion Gysin.

If you are interested in the so-called "beat generation" but want to go to a different place than all the drugs and drifter stuff will take you, then I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book and get to work.

I came across this book (and to Gysin himself) through my interest in William Burroughs. Many who read this book will do so for this reason, as Burroughs cites Gysin as one of the primary influences on his life. This is basically a book of interviews with book excerpts thrown in. It doesn't seem to be organised with any great system, and nor does Gysin's thought seem to be easily pigeonholed. (As he says himself in this book) Some of the conversations and ideas in here are extremely interesting, however. Gysin has a fairly unique take on humanity. He calls himself a monumental misanthrope, claiming that man is a 'bad animal.' At the same time, he seems to be a severe misogynist, having no time for women. Despite this, there is something appealing about this book. Gysin is an extreme critic of Western civilisation, preferring indigenous cultures.

This is worth reading for two reasons.

1. To learn more about Burroughs' muse and greatest influence.
2. To learn about the worldview of Gysin himself, who is nothing if not interesting.

This book serves as in introduction to the thought of Gysin, which I imagine would be better explicated in other, more recent books on him. There is a recent biography I am interested in reading, as well as a collection of Gysin's paintings (which are interesting in themselves). 'Here to Go' is also an attractive, well presented volume. I can recommend it wholeheartedly.

A title that was lost to Savoy during the Savoy Books Ltd raids and eventual collapse of 1981. The book was conceived, commissioned, and co-edited by Michael Butterworth, who was left uncredited by Terry Wilson. WSB wrote the introduction. Butterworth commissioned a first interview for his small press magazine Wordworks, but other interviews followed after Butterworth conceived the idea of publishing a book based on Gysin's life and ideas similar to the Third Mind, a book Gysin co-wrote with Burroughs compiling their cut-ups and collaborations. Genesis P Orridge who published it in RE/Search finally found the book. The book covers such topics as the cut-up discovery, mirror-staring (a step leading to personality switching), drugs, sex, days in Northern Africa, Hassan I Sabbah, transcendentalism, viruses, and space travel. Claimed to be far superior to Bockris's book, Here to Go presents both artists with more insight and less heavy-handed pedantry. Wilson writes with many positive qualities that stand out, leaving the readers curious for more. A good introduction into the minds of two fascinating artists.