The Western Lands [Paperback]

William S. Burroughs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 1988

Burroughs's eagerly awaited final novel in the trilogy begun with Cities of the Red Night and The Place of Dead Roads is a profound, revealing, and often astonishing meditation on mortality, loneliness, nuclear peril, and the inextinguishable hope for life after death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The trilogy that began with Cities of the Red Night and continued with The Place of Dead Roads is completed here, and the result is a divine comedy," wrote PW of this "remarkable achievement," concerning the search for eternal rest that is symbolized by the Western Lands of Egyptian mythology.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This novel concludes the trilogy begun in Cities of the Red Night ( LJ 11/15/80) and The Place of the Dead Roads ( LJ 2/1/84). The title refers to the place in ancient Egyptian mythology where souls journeyed in search of immortality. Characters from Burroughs's earlier works reappear; the dreamlike prosestylistically a mixture of straight-forward and surrealistic narrative, with sparse use of the cut-up method Burroughs developed with the late Brion Gysinabounds with images of violent homosexuality, man-eating insects, and rancid decay as Burroughs explores such themes as addiction, mortality, the survival of the species, and the quest for eternal life. Essential for all serious literature collections. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 7, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140094563
• ISBN-13: 978-0140094565
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Voice from the Mirror, July 19, 2008

By 

Keith Otis Edwards "Keith Otis Edwards" (Dearbron, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Western Lands (Paperback)

It's sad that since his death, the star of William S. Burroughs has been fading. But when this book was first released, I was working as the night foreman in a municipal garage in Detroit. I spent haunted Saturday nights at my desk, near the emergency phone, reading "The Western Lands" and when a worker came into the office, I'd read aloud from it. After a while, other workers came in and listened.

These man were white trash and those of the African persuasion. Some were hipsters, others were devout Christians. They could've been sleeping, they could've been goofing off, but they all seemed to understand what I was reading, and at certain passages the black guys would hoot and give each other "high fives."

Who IS this guy? they asked. They (we) all hated English class and hated being force-fed "literature." This, however, was something else.

I think poorly of literary critics, and it really matters little, in the long run, what their opinions are. What matters is that old Bill Lee wrote the obvious truth in such a way that it cut past the [horsefeathers].

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burroughs's best work. Period., July 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Western Lands (Paperback)

The Western Lands has all the scatter-brained and scatological charm that any of WSB's finest portrays, but not only is this particular story, the third installment of the Cities of the Red Night trilogy, form at its best, the content transcends anything else he's written. In his old age, WSB had an incredible emotional sadness about him, and this novel, which becomes semi-autobiographical at its end, leaves you profoundly touched in a way Naked Lunch never did and few novels ever can. The whole thing is worth reading if nothing else for the Wishing Box chapter at the work's conclusion.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a true coming to an end of an ever searching genius, August 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Western Lands (Paperback)

The trilogy to which this lucid novel belongs marked a slowing down of pace for this writer who had become so renown for his soaring and shocking books. Yet, especially in Place of the Dead Roads and Western Lands, his vision sinks in far more deeply and the sheer beauty of its imagery is the light behind the doors of perception which his previous work has kicked in. Always someone who showed no mercy to those who wanted to hide from reality and whose words were like bullets, here in the final part Burroughs grabs you by the throat by talking to you in a unexpectedly human voice of a world beyond death and humanity. He always was a poet, but here he truly sings, be it a swan song.