Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs [Hardcover]

William S. Burroughs (Author), James Grauerholz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2000

Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. Last Words is a complex portrait of Burroughs at the end of his life, coming to terms with aging and death. While laid out as simple diary entries of the last nine months of his life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns - his rants on U.S. drug policy, his contempt for the state of the human race, his love for his cats - permeate the book. Burroughs breaks into classic "routines" and provides frequent commentary on whatever he is reading - from high literature to low-brow thrillers. Whether occupied with the banalities of life (housekeeping, dealing with doctors) or the glories (shooting a video with U2, opening a museum show of his paintings), the "Old Man" emerges as frequently comical, sometimes meditative, and always engaged-a commentator on the state of the world and the self. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most brutally personal prose Burroughs has ever written. His reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary provide a window onto the preparations Burroughs was making for his own death - a quest for absolution marked by a profound sense of guilt and loss. Last Words is unlike anything else in the oeuvre of William S. Burroughs. It is the purest, most personal work ever presented by this writer, and a poignant portrait of the man, his life, and his creative process-one that never quit, even in the shadow of death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps the last-ever fix for devoted fans of Junky, Interzone and Naked Lunch, these pages trace the meditations, amusements, memories and obsessions of the noted Beat author, wit, actor and substance abuser during his last year of life (1996-1997). Like many other writers' journals, this one mixes lengthy plot outlines, anecdotes and arguments with much briefer drifting thoughts and images. Burroughs considers his old age with a mix of wry humor, scattershot rancor and intimate rue: "Yes, where are the snows of yesterday. And the speedballs I useta know?" Clear throughout is Burroughs's real feeling for cats, several of which he kept; the very first page laments the death, by car, of Calico ("Cat was part of me"). Another oft-repeated theme is the "Evil of the Drug War, the War Against Drugs." Burroughs's brief, violent fantasies seem sad compensations for his increasing powerlessness. Elsewhere, his technique of associations continues to unearth memorably gloomy bizarrerie: January 31, 1997, brings "a hill of 'snirt' in Dakota, where folks can quick-freeze and shatter like icicles when they go out for the mail. 'Snirt' is a thing of the spring. If you make it through the cabin fever to the 'snirt.' Winner take 'snirt.'" A final entry resurrects "What I feel for my cats, present and past," then asks, "Love? What is It? Most natural painkiller what there is." The volume's fragmentary and personal nature will make it precious to all Burroughs devotees; its patches of wit and pathos, though real, may not be enough to endear it to other readers. Burroughs's friend Grauerholz, who edited the volume, supplies a compassionate introduction; an appendix glosses references and names. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

These two books reveal the breadth of Burroughs's preoccupations and literary appeal. His last journal contains 168 entries and spans from November 1996 to three days before his death in July 1997. In it, he returns to well-worn themes like the rise of the police state, the pernicious effects of U.S. narcotics laws, and the superiority of cats over humans. Although he was in fairly good health as he was writing, his thoughts also turned frequently to death--no surprise given the recent loss of old friends like Herbert Huncke, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Calico, his favorite cat, who died four days before the journal opens. The book is sprinkled with allusions to literary figures ranging from Shakespeare to Walter de la Mare to Mario Puzzo. The Burroughs we encounter here may have lost some of his gleam, but he has not yet turned to rust. For all serious literary collections. In the latest installment of Mississippi's "Literary Conversation" series, Hibbard (English, Middle Tennessee State Univ.) collects 22 interviews spanning 35 years. They range from a playful piece by Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, first published in the Journal for the Protection of All Beings (1961), to "Grandpa from Hell," an interview that appeared in the L.A. Weekly in 1996. Sources for the interviews include Esquire, Penthouse, and Rolling Stone as well as scholarly journals like Modern Language Studies--a diversity that reflects Burroughs's status as both a serious literary figure and a popular icon. Like most collections of interviews, Hibbard's contains a good deal of repetition, but his chronological arrangement provides a clear window into Burroughs's changing consciousness over half a lifetime. For public and academic libraries.
-William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st edition (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116574
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116574
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing look into the mind of Burroughs, February 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

It is hard to evaluate journal entries, because they are not coherent, and they were originally intended for an audience of one, rather than a large circulation readership. I think "Last Words" is a very interesting look into the mind of one of the most controversial writers of the 20th Century. Burroughs recalls various moments from his life, his favorite pieces of literature, the grocery store novels he was reading, the love of his cats, his hatred of "the war on drugs" and secular humanists, and his reaction to the death of Allen Ginsberg. Owing to the fact that he was 82 years old when he wrote these entries, sometimes they are very disjointed and repetitive, which does not come as much of a shock, considering that many of his greatest novels were disjointed and repetitive. I think the last words in his journal are very optimistic and semi-profound. This book is definitely recommended to Burroughs' fans, and to fans of the Beat genre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Listening To His Last Words, January 8, 2001

By 

Dan Waber (Kokomo, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

This was a very welcome addition to my library. I wouldn't say that it provides a capstone to his works, it's not that kind of greatness, but it did leave me feeling closer to the man...and that's really what I was seeking. Seeing inside the process, as well as getting a feel for the pulse of his last days were both accomplished very well by the book. I'll read it again, and again, whenever one of his novels awes me and I need to revisit the human who created such superhuman texts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice tribute., May 2, 2000

By 

Jeanne Lightly - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

This book offers a nice tribute to William S. Burroughs, who was one of the most important figures of twentieth century literature. His most famous book is probably Naked Lunch which is a satire written in a series of routines. But whether you begin with Junkie, Naked Lunch or any of the others he was a man who spoke the TRUTH with a compassion and insight achieved by few others as to the state of the modern age. His words are designed to infiltrate the mind, fight the virus with itself, searching out and consuming attitudes of control impregnated by the biologic and social programming of our lives.