Reckless Disregard

Read William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch when I was a teenager, 17, I think. Wasn't too impressed with the so-called cut-up writing style, kind of a psychological chop suey mishmash of the unconscious, free association, and the darkest impulses. 

This guy has major and multiple psychosis is what I concluded, as reading his book was akin to strolling down an unknown and trashy alley, not so much scared as disgusted. Meanings are illusive or imagined as one has to re-read passages to gain some clue about what was at hand. 

The hallucinatory flavor of this peculiar and disjointed writing becomes more an annoyance of vague references and harsh imagery, shock for its own sake, colored with a victim mentality that seems to ignore any semblance of responsibility. 

Understanding is scarce, and it all becomes a mental distraction of tedious plodding thru twisted and tortured paragraphs of madness, mindless indulgence, drug addiction, and pitifully gruesome self-loathing. Could be I'm not smart enough to get Burroughs, or this psychotic Beat Generation author's narrative. But, I did find it all surprisingly depressing. 

Then, few years later, I see him in the headlines, a tragic "accident" had happened. Burroughs, his author wife Joan Vollmer, both drunk at their Mexico City apartment party, were whimsically playing a version of 'William Tell' with a champagne glass. Burroughs shot her in front of their two small children, she died hours later at the age of 28.  

He soon fled back to America, as his wealthy brother paid off the judges and prosecutors in Mexico to gain his release. After continually changing his defense story, along with his bribed friends as witnesses, Burrough's was eventually convicted "in absentia" of manslaughter. 

The film Beat (2000) is a biographical account of their relationship. Her death is also portrayed in the 1991 film Naked Lunch. Burroughs sordid, trainwreck life, and moderate literary fame, are both inexplicable, and evil in nature.