Customer Reviews

Queer

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book earlier today, and I have just finished reading it. Of course it is not hard to read a 134 page book in a few hours, but what a moving experience it was! This was the second Burroughs book that I have read, the first being Junky, and like Junky this book is straight forward and brutally honest. Lee reminds me of a high school kid pining away over the girl of his dreams. But of course Burroughs is not a kid, and he is not pining overe a girl. It is almost painful reading this book, seeing how obsessed Lee is with the man he desires. He goes out of his way several times just to be with Allerton, and one unkind word from Allerton can destroy's Lee's ego. It is really a quite sad, and quite real sight to behold.

This is a really good book that shows how much lust and desire can almost ruin a person. Also, as many have stated before, Burroughs does a wonderful job of describing 40s era Mexico city and several places in south america. Also the introduction is very awesome giving a short but poignant look at how Burroughs started writing. A good book check it out.

A brilliant, bare book of an intense, one-way homosexual relationship, and the tale of unrequited love on any level. Burrough's describes the feeling of giving yourself and getting nothing in return beautifully. A must for the loved and lost masses. A good place to begin your Burroughs reading list as it's one of his most coherent books.

A book of unreciprocated feelings, and longings amplified by withdrawel and junk sickness. This is a much more intimate and personal look into the life of William Burroughs than his other stuff. It takes place after he accidentally killed his wife, and he is sobering up and facing all of the demons and guilt previously dulled by the drugs.

This book was banned for a long time, the homosexual relationships and longings aren't grotesque exaggerations with shock value in mind like some of his other stories, they are very human and almost universal innocent boyish longings for affection.

He develops these "routines", funny stories he uses that show off his sarcasm and absurd sense of humor when he wants the attention of the room. All of the stories are hilarious and really show off his talent as a writer, but the people around him generally could care less or they just don't get it. So he is trapped always in a foreign land suspicious of everyone searching endlessly for islands of sanctuary.

Burroughs claims in the introduction that just reading the words and putting it down is very painful for him, but he did it so that he could move forward. A very intense time in the life of a brilliant and fascinating character.

Queer is an unfinished novel set in Mexico City in the late 1940s, where "Lee" (Burrough's surrogate) is trying to "kick the Chinaman all the way out". In the introduction, Burroughs, tries to explain his emotional state:

"When the cover is removed, everything that has been held in check by junk spills out. The withdrawing addict is subject to the emotional excesses of a child or an adolescent, regardless of his actual age."

Lee bares a raw neediness that is all too human; he is a grown man in the throws of a schoolboy's infatuation. He makes a fool of himself struggling to impress an indifferent youth named Allerton, who acquiesces occasionally enough to egg Lee on. However, these moments of devil-may-care outrageousness are when Burrough's incredibly dark humor steals the book. For those of a certain bent, Queer contains several "cackle-out-loud moments" in what Burroughs calls his "routines" - free association storytelling of thoroughly perverse nature. The phrase "Corn Hole Gus' Used-Slave Lot" should convey enough, without giving away the punch lines.

It seems as though this book might be about sex, but I found it to be much more about desire. For sex, but also for reciprocity. For that reason, even those who are not "queer" may well enjoy it. Burroughs' cast of characters and scenes in the early part of the book show an underside of Mexico City that is likely long gone. And don't skip the introduction. Burroughs' stories about campesinos are almost too savagely silly to believe.

This book is so sad. Borroughs constant neglection and isolation is so dramatic that we probably all feel very sad about his experiences. "Queer" is a book describing a man's search for his identity and recognition in Society. Wonderful book that really needs to be read by everyone.

Unlike those Burroughs 'fanatics,' I dig Burroughs more straight, earthy work, a la Junky, Western Lands (etc.), and of course, Queer. Queer is an excellent follow up to Junky, and yes, is very easy to read, which sometimes, like this time, works for the better. Naked Lunch is fine - funny, witty, unrelenting. Cut-ups - not necesarilly for me. Give me Junky, Queer, etc.

Burrough's earlier works are probably his best ones in my opinion. His later stuff is too abstract and too far out to make for an enjoyable read. However, this book tells a story in a simple and straight forward manner. I highly recommend this book as a good starting point to the world of William S. Burroughs. Some of the later stuff that features the infamous cut-up technique works better on his spoken word albums because that stuff is more like poetry anyway. Also, I should mention that the forward in this book is amazing and is some of my favorite writing by Burroughs.

The 1985 introduction by the author is very poignant and valuable for a clear understanding of the novel. Especially the admission that it was the accidental death of his wife by his own hand that motivated and formulated his writing. Although Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk (50th Anniversary Edition) is great, Queer reveals a more human side to his work where one can actually empathize with the main character. His descriptions of Mexico City in the late 1940s and his circle of friends, many of whom were fellow American expatriates, lend a special air of magic to the writing. The flashes of humour are always unique and refreshing, eg. the amusing story of his fantasy trip to the "Upper Ubangi." A brilliant work whose many charms I intend to delve into again and again.

This book has been sitting on my library shelves for a couple of years untouched. Since it was William Burroughs, and looked like a fairly quick read, I decided to pick it up. Burroughs is one of the seminal American authors of the underground gay experience, right? I thought it would be like reading Alan Hollinghurst on cocaine - something I was looking forward to.

But I was highly disappointed. The novel's plot revolves around gay two heroin addicts, William Lee and Eugene Allerton. Lee's attraction to Allerton is completely and painfully unreciprocated. Despite all of Lee's attempts (which come in the form of embarrassing barside disquisitions in Mexican cantinas) to win Allerton's affections, it is all for naught. They decide to travel in search of some hallucinogenic drug which can only be obtained in the remote rainforest, and Lee promises to pay Allerton's way if he has sex with him a couple of times a week. In the end, the reader gets the impression that the quest for the drug is upset, much like Lee's wish for Allerton to love and appreciate him. The structure of the novel seems unmotivated and disinterested. It really seems to have no narrative "drive." I'm certainly not a reader that needs an action-packed novel by any stretch of the imagination, but there is nothing that compels the reader to keep reading - not even a chance of catching the two characters in licentious acts.

But for anyone out there that wants to discover Burroughs for themselves, I definitely recommend this as a first step: it is immanently readable, unlike some of Burroughs' later, more experimental fiction. For this reason, it is a perfect choice for readers who have not hitherto been introduced to some of the more difficult aspects of twentieth century fiction, like non-linear narration, that symptom of dread postmodernism.

Naked Lunch is one of my favorite novels, but most of WSB's other materials never satisfied me as much. I was hesitant to give Queer a shot, but figured I'd try. Glad I did.

Technically, there's very little plot here: the narrator has gotten rid of the monkey on his back and his libido is slowly returning, so he haunts Mexico City bars hoping for a hook-up. What the book lacks in plot, it makes up in spades with odd characters and unusual dialogue, plus the wonderful descriptions WSB has that knack for knocking out.

As a Naked Lunch aficionado, I was especially surprised to see direct references to it in this, plus some chunks were lifted out of here for the Cronenberg film.

If you like Naked Lunch, give it a go. At just over 100 pages, you can probably read it in one night (like I did.)