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The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead
The Wild Boys is a futuristic tale of global warfare in which a guerrilla gang of boys dedicated to freedom battles the organized armies of repressive police states. Making full use of his inimitable humor, wild imagination, and style, Burroughs creates a world that is as terrifying as it is fascinating.
193 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
About the author
William S. Burroughs
366 books6,250 followersWilliam Seward Burroughs II, (also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 278 reviews
December 23, 2008
Anybody that "likes" William S. Burroughs only says that because they want to sound like they can comprehend what in the hell he's talking about when NO ONE actually can. Or they just saw the Naked Lunch movie and thought that talking beetle type-writers are cool.
November 16, 2007
I learned that reading Burroughs on the bus makes me feel incredibly filthy and awkward from this book. It could be all the allusions to the smell of rectal mucus, or maybe I'm just weird.
February 10, 2008
I was relatively innocent when I read The Wild Boys and it gave me nightmares. The staccato, choppy plot is too disjointed to ever really allow anything to come to a close so the images tend to remain in some vestibule of the brain and come spilling out at night when your poor consciousness tries to form them into some kind of completeness.
The images themselves are sometimes gruesome and you can almost sense Burroughs' lunatic energy and all his wild imaginings spilling out on the page and being herded-somewhat unsuccessfully- into the form of a novel. Some people will have trouble with the homosexual imagery, but almost everyone will be haunted to some extent by the casual eroticization of death and cruelty-I think the Mayan sequences are some of the most persistent.
But this is not mere incoherent pornography, there is a wild, energetic beauty and an almost religious devotion to wontonly intense experience that is-along with WSB's poetic style-unforgettable.
Lynn Hoffman, author of the much-less disturbing bang BANG: A Novel and the downright soothing New Short Course in Wine,The
The images themselves are sometimes gruesome and you can almost sense Burroughs' lunatic energy and all his wild imaginings spilling out on the page and being herded-somewhat unsuccessfully- into the form of a novel. Some people will have trouble with the homosexual imagery, but almost everyone will be haunted to some extent by the casual eroticization of death and cruelty-I think the Mayan sequences are some of the most persistent.
But this is not mere incoherent pornography, there is a wild, energetic beauty and an almost religious devotion to wontonly intense experience that is-along with WSB's poetic style-unforgettable.
Lynn Hoffman, author of the much-less disturbing bang BANG: A Novel and the downright soothing New Short Course in Wine,The
July 2, 2013
This book is not for everyone - probably not for most people. It requires work and an understanding of what the Beat authors were trying to do and more specifically a grasp of Burroughs' literary aims and personal story. I recommend that those not familiar with Burroughs first read to the introduction to "Queer Beats", edited by Regina Marler. It does a nice job explaining the movement and giving a brief literary biography to Burroughs and related authors/poets; Marler also discusses the social and literary significance of the Beat movement.
The Wild Boys has no coherent story. That is not the way Burroughs writes. It is a collection of cinematic/fantasy scenes that are often visceral, pornographic, violent, surreal, brutal, beautiful, and disturbing. Images and scenes double back and are retold or re-imagined repeated. Nothing is taboo. Most of the sexual scenes are male on male, and since many come from Burroughs' memory and fantasies, they involve under-age boys and are very graphic and explicit. Burroughs creates an anti-conventional fantasy world (a queer Neverland populated with anarchistic gay lost boys) where he flips the bird to conventional mores and ideals, using his mastery of language and imagery as a weapon and a paint brush. I think that this is an amazing book and that Burroughs is a great author; I suspect that most readers will think it is trash and pornography.
The Wild Boys has no coherent story. That is not the way Burroughs writes. It is a collection of cinematic/fantasy scenes that are often visceral, pornographic, violent, surreal, brutal, beautiful, and disturbing. Images and scenes double back and are retold or re-imagined repeated. Nothing is taboo. Most of the sexual scenes are male on male, and since many come from Burroughs' memory and fantasies, they involve under-age boys and are very graphic and explicit. Burroughs creates an anti-conventional fantasy world (a queer Neverland populated with anarchistic gay lost boys) where he flips the bird to conventional mores and ideals, using his mastery of language and imagery as a weapon and a paint brush. I think that this is an amazing book and that Burroughs is a great author; I suspect that most readers will think it is trash and pornography.
February 11, 2020
Sir, we've been overrun by clawed pubescent urchins, requesting backup. Choppy, anarchic, gleefully pornographic, confrontationally off-putting. Yet satirical, clever, kinetically experimental, serially engaging in spite of itself. And completely caught up in its own desires to denial of any other readerly needs, which has its merits, even if the stuttering stop-start-repeat of the images here has a decidedly masturbatory (quite literally) aspect and associated outside boredome. With some of the play with viewpoint and camera here (the roving pan shot, the peepholes that unify disparate material) this has a Robbe-Grilletian aspect, but with a direct gay gaze that still seems daring only a decade after the censorship of Naked Lunch. For all of this, and despite the Problems in evidence throughout the weird cultural artifact that is Burroughs, this might be his best.
November 26, 2023
William S. Burroughs created the Wild Boys by repairing the severed reproductive organs of Cybele's castrated priests using petroleum adhesive. It is the responsibility of Cybele's deceased and resurrected admirers to detach their phalluses anew and use the fragments to fertilize her gardens.
July 4, 2021
Oh Billy boy, what a merry dance you lead.
It's ages since I last read any Burroughs, and even longer since I last read any Burroughs for the first time. It may seem odd that I hadn't read this before – it's one of his most celebrated, after all – but Cities Of The Red Night is such sublime perfection that I tend to keep helplessly rereading it rather than reach for anything else.
And in fact it did take me a while to get into this one. Whether the problem was with the opening chapters themselves or with my pop-lit-softened brain, I can't rightly say. But as yet another beautiful boy fondled yet another sweaty jockstrap for the 23rd time, I found myself thinking: Oh come on, this is Burroughs-by-numbers, what a yawn.
Until... BOOM, up and away it took flight.
Read it and weep. It's that combination of utter abandon and utter control that I find so mysterious and compelling. A devastated psyche, but an immaculate technique. How in hell did he do it?
Well, one way he did it was by drawing inspiration from The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (this novel's full title is The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead). Just to be clear, though: the inspiration was literary, not spiritual. Despite his association with the Naropa Institute, Burroughs (according to Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs) didn't actually give two hoots about Buddhism, except insofar as he could use its facilities – and in this case, its masterpieces – for his own ends. If I remember rightly, it was Gysin who introduced Burroughs to The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, and Gysin's own interest in it was more authentically spiritual, resulting in the textual sprawl that ultimately became The Last Museum (which I reviewed here)... but I digress.
Long story short: Burroughs was a stone cold genius, damn his eyes.
It's ages since I last read any Burroughs, and even longer since I last read any Burroughs for the first time. It may seem odd that I hadn't read this before – it's one of his most celebrated, after all – but Cities Of The Red Night is such sublime perfection that I tend to keep helplessly rereading it rather than reach for anything else.
And in fact it did take me a while to get into this one. Whether the problem was with the opening chapters themselves or with my pop-lit-softened brain, I can't rightly say. But as yet another beautiful boy fondled yet another sweaty jockstrap for the 23rd time, I found myself thinking: Oh come on, this is Burroughs-by-numbers, what a yawn.
Until... BOOM, up and away it took flight.
Souvenir post cards a violet evening sky rising from the boy's groin ... sad 1920 scraps ... dim jerky faraway stars splash the stagnant creek ... "I was waiting there" ... held a little-boy photo in his withered hand ... The boy was footsteps down the windy street a long time ago.
Read it and weep. It's that combination of utter abandon and utter control that I find so mysterious and compelling. A devastated psyche, but an immaculate technique. How in hell did he do it?
Well, one way he did it was by drawing inspiration from The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (this novel's full title is The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead). Just to be clear, though: the inspiration was literary, not spiritual. Despite his association with the Naropa Institute, Burroughs (according to Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs) didn't actually give two hoots about Buddhism, except insofar as he could use its facilities – and in this case, its masterpieces – for his own ends. If I remember rightly, it was Gysin who introduced Burroughs to The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, and Gysin's own interest in it was more authentically spiritual, resulting in the textual sprawl that ultimately became The Last Museum (which I reviewed here)... but I digress.
Long story short: Burroughs was a stone cold genius, damn his eyes.
August 19, 2011
William S Burroughs does not like women or at least he did not like his distopian fantasies to contain any flattering versions of them. I would not expect a man who shot his wife in the head accidentally while trying to shoot a shot glass off her head (while wasted I might add) to have any use for women (although it is said that he was deeply sorry and remorseful for having "accidentally" murdered his wife.) He even says so in his wild distopian world where women are eventually used as surrogates to make more wild boys and they have no need to even come remotely in contact with any awful women creatures from the time they are born. That being said I still enjoy Burroughs' writing. It is engaging and creative and perverse in a way that only Burroughs can be. This book is filled with pages and pages of raw sweaty gay male sex (but is not without its own sensitivities), war, violence, decadence and drug references. This is why I love Burroughs he just said things in a way no one else does and the fact that he does not want any women in his distopian fantasy world filled with young men who are filled with an isatiable lust for each other and a lust for violence really does not bother me one bit. This is his fantasy world not mine and I am glad he wrote it down so I could get a glimpse into it. We need books like this. Books that scare and disgust people but at the same open your mind to a new way of thinking and writing.
October 27, 2020
The phrase 'rectal mucus' appears no less than four times in this 152-page book. Just in case anyone was wondering. Are the rest of his books like this? Asking because if so I won't be reading them.
November 16, 2023
A veces parece mentira que William Burroughs estuviera alguna vez asociado a los beatniks. Uno lee los libros de errancia existencial y marcado lirismo de Kerouac y luego las novelas iconoclastas y radicales de Burroughs y parecen surgir de dos planetas distintos. Lo único que comparten, me parece, es el ánimo de deshilar la estructura narrativa de sus novelas, más allá de eso el estilo confrontativo y experimenta de Burroughs lo convierten en un caso aparte, ya no sólo dentro de los beatniks, también dentro de la literatura mundial. Porque desde Pynchon hasta Ray Loriga, escritores muy dispares y diversos, han tomado nota de ese flujo temporal de capas superpuestas, los cambios bruscos de punto de vista, la visión oblicua de algunas escenas, los pasajes oníricos intercalados con visiones fuertemente sexuales que vienen a desafiar la concepción más formal de 'buena literatura' dictada por el 'buen gusto'.
Ha sido una lectura para nada ordinaria y tampoco para nada es recomendable, porque cualquier paladar no podrá asimilar fácilmente esos largos pasajes de pornografía homosexual, la violencia hiperbólica a la que suele recurrir, así como su peculiar diegética, llena de rupturas, por lo que en general se aparta de lo ameno y accesible. En cambio sí es una parada óptima para, por un lado, gente interesada en la contracultura y, por el otro, para quienes busquen experiencias narrativas que te saquen de la zona de confort.
El libro arranca con diferentes pasajes que transcurren en Ciudad de México y Tánger, escenarios queridos por Burroughs durante sus años de autoexilio y vagabundeo por el mundo. Son escenas en las que conocemos a chicos vagabundos que conviven en entornos violentos, en los que a veces son utilzados sexualmente y que sin duda reclaman su emancipación. De forma caótica, por lo tanto conviene leer con atención a los detalles, se irá formando bien entrada la novela una especie de grupo insurgente de estos muchachos, ataviados con grandes cuchillos, taparrabos y cascos especiales, que no son más que metáforas del rechazo contra la civilización moderna, la cual entrega a los sujetos un lenguaje que enferma y corrompe, por eso estos muchachos al final también adoptan un lenguaje propio que nada tiene que ver con la lengua en la que está escrita la novela, que aún y así prueba a desafiar las convenciones y certitudes del lector.
Quien encare esta lectura debe saber que afrontará meticulosas escenas pornográficas homosexuales que por diferentes formas de pudor pueden chocar y repeler, aunque tampoco me parece que la concepción literaria de la sexualidad o la homosexualidad Burroughs sea negativa, sólo escatológica. Visto desde dentro se percibe que la sexualidad para ese grupo de chavales rebeldes adquiere propiedades místicas, incluso mágicas. Para eso basta con fijarse en ese pasaje dónde se nos explica como se resucita a un muerto y se le regresa a la vida a través de un rito sexual. Por lo tanto, no es sólo un mecanismo para repeler a la mojigatería más pudibunda, también como un medio de emancipación y elevación.
Aún a día de hoy, cincuenta años después de su publicación, esta novela William Burroughs conserva su poder subversivo y su experimentación formal continua sorprendiendo, se sabe de formas todavía más radicales, sólo que, gracias a la visión de su autor, la transgresión de su gesto todavía conserva un sentido y el conjunto resta homogenizado dentro de una novela audaz y osada, igualmente refractaria con los principios más conservadores.
Ha sido una lectura para nada ordinaria y tampoco para nada es recomendable, porque cualquier paladar no podrá asimilar fácilmente esos largos pasajes de pornografía homosexual, la violencia hiperbólica a la que suele recurrir, así como su peculiar diegética, llena de rupturas, por lo que en general se aparta de lo ameno y accesible. En cambio sí es una parada óptima para, por un lado, gente interesada en la contracultura y, por el otro, para quienes busquen experiencias narrativas que te saquen de la zona de confort.
El libro arranca con diferentes pasajes que transcurren en Ciudad de México y Tánger, escenarios queridos por Burroughs durante sus años de autoexilio y vagabundeo por el mundo. Son escenas en las que conocemos a chicos vagabundos que conviven en entornos violentos, en los que a veces son utilzados sexualmente y que sin duda reclaman su emancipación. De forma caótica, por lo tanto conviene leer con atención a los detalles, se irá formando bien entrada la novela una especie de grupo insurgente de estos muchachos, ataviados con grandes cuchillos, taparrabos y cascos especiales, que no son más que metáforas del rechazo contra la civilización moderna, la cual entrega a los sujetos un lenguaje que enferma y corrompe, por eso estos muchachos al final también adoptan un lenguaje propio que nada tiene que ver con la lengua en la que está escrita la novela, que aún y así prueba a desafiar las convenciones y certitudes del lector.
Quien encare esta lectura debe saber que afrontará meticulosas escenas pornográficas homosexuales que por diferentes formas de pudor pueden chocar y repeler, aunque tampoco me parece que la concepción literaria de la sexualidad o la homosexualidad Burroughs sea negativa, sólo escatológica. Visto desde dentro se percibe que la sexualidad para ese grupo de chavales rebeldes adquiere propiedades místicas, incluso mágicas. Para eso basta con fijarse en ese pasaje dónde se nos explica como se resucita a un muerto y se le regresa a la vida a través de un rito sexual. Por lo tanto, no es sólo un mecanismo para repeler a la mojigatería más pudibunda, también como un medio de emancipación y elevación.
Aún a día de hoy, cincuenta años después de su publicación, esta novela William Burroughs conserva su poder subversivo y su experimentación formal continua sorprendiendo, se sabe de formas todavía más radicales, sólo que, gracias a la visión de su autor, la transgresión de su gesto todavía conserva un sentido y el conjunto resta homogenizado dentro de una novela audaz y osada, igualmente refractaria con los principios más conservadores.
October 30, 2022
I had never seen this cover, but it’s hilarious! My vision of futuristic dystopian youth gangs doesn’t look so 1950s wholesome—but I can only guess what Burroughs had in mind.
I prefer his late trilogy and his early work, but The Wild Boys is dark and satirical, and not too cut-up, like the mid-career Nova Express trilogy.
I prefer his late trilogy and his early work, but The Wild Boys is dark and satirical, and not too cut-up, like the mid-career Nova Express trilogy.
December 30, 2018
That’s a Burroughs novel alright. I could list some adjectives right now to give you a sense of what I mean by that exactly. Simply put: this novel is twisted, crazy, fucked-up, weird, sexually explicit, extreme, simultaneously unreadable and entertaining, funny, disturbing, raw, wild, satirical, avant-garde, surreal, and plenty more.
Burroughs’s unconventional semi-dystopian vision is repetitive and occasionally vaguely annoying, but it’s also filled to the brim with brilliance and state-of-the-art mindfuckery, leading the reader down a pit of unfiltered insanity. Alongside its political satire, literary experimentation, and rebellious spirit are sometimes gross and always explicit descriptions of hardcore homoerotic sexual fantasies that delve into the most bizarre corners of human sexuality and intermingle with surrealistic imagery and the implementation of Burroughs’s famous “cut-up” style, making these strange, fascinating fantasies all the more dizzying to read. Being rather used to heavily bizarre and explicit sexual content in literature (in large part thanks to the other Burroughs works I have read), not much in The Wild Boys truly shocked me; however, this numbness to the content’s shock value did not stop the memorability and insanity of these sequences from having an impact. Getting a glimpse inside the perverted and ingenious mind of William S. Burroughs is always a treat, overtly shocking or not, and this novel does not disappoint. It manages to mix surprisingly linear and plot-oriented chapters with sections of confusing, dreamlike madness with little sense beyond sexual desire or drug induced creativity driving them. It’s not his masterpiece, but it is a worthy entry in his bibliography that is a must-read for those who are as in love with experimental and transgressive fiction as I am.
Burroughs’s unconventional semi-dystopian vision is repetitive and occasionally vaguely annoying, but it’s also filled to the brim with brilliance and state-of-the-art mindfuckery, leading the reader down a pit of unfiltered insanity. Alongside its political satire, literary experimentation, and rebellious spirit are sometimes gross and always explicit descriptions of hardcore homoerotic sexual fantasies that delve into the most bizarre corners of human sexuality and intermingle with surrealistic imagery and the implementation of Burroughs’s famous “cut-up” style, making these strange, fascinating fantasies all the more dizzying to read. Being rather used to heavily bizarre and explicit sexual content in literature (in large part thanks to the other Burroughs works I have read), not much in The Wild Boys truly shocked me; however, this numbness to the content’s shock value did not stop the memorability and insanity of these sequences from having an impact. Getting a glimpse inside the perverted and ingenious mind of William S. Burroughs is always a treat, overtly shocking or not, and this novel does not disappoint. It manages to mix surprisingly linear and plot-oriented chapters with sections of confusing, dreamlike madness with little sense beyond sexual desire or drug induced creativity driving them. It’s not his masterpiece, but it is a worthy entry in his bibliography that is a must-read for those who are as in love with experimental and transgressive fiction as I am.
October 4, 2014
So I'd been wanting to read something by William S. Burroughs for a while because his name hold such gravitas in my mind... but his writing... well... its pornographic and I nearly didn't finish the book. Definitely would not recommend. Just because something is provocative does not mean that it is worth reading.
February 13, 2024
If authors had literal superpowers, Burroughs would have the ability to transport you into the most unearthly and hideous worlds. He would lock the door, turn up the lights, and make the key disappear. Figuratively, he has been doing this to me for years. The Wild Boys is a great example of his prowess and zeal to gift the world monstrous visions.
This book (and most of his other ones) are for a very specific type of reader: one who is in it for the "ride", for the adrenaline, the visual symbolism, the powerfully unsettling prose, and the mindfuck of it all. You don't read him, you "experience" him. I tend to always find something fascinating about his writing - In The Wild Boys, one of the strongholds of the Wild Boys (the group of rebellious, anarchic, sex-crazed feral teens) is North Africa... my region of origin and one of the most conservative and sexually restrictive areas in the world. Granted, he wrote this in a different time, but to imagine the goings-on of this book in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Mali, and other countries is a mindfuck in and of itself.
At times, I felt overstimulated... things got overindulgent and too pornographic. But other than that, Burroughs-wise, it's almost as good as it gets!
This book (and most of his other ones) are for a very specific type of reader: one who is in it for the "ride", for the adrenaline, the visual symbolism, the powerfully unsettling prose, and the mindfuck of it all. You don't read him, you "experience" him. I tend to always find something fascinating about his writing - In The Wild Boys, one of the strongholds of the Wild Boys (the group of rebellious, anarchic, sex-crazed feral teens) is North Africa... my region of origin and one of the most conservative and sexually restrictive areas in the world. Granted, he wrote this in a different time, but to imagine the goings-on of this book in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Mali, and other countries is a mindfuck in and of itself.
At times, I felt overstimulated... things got overindulgent and too pornographic. But other than that, Burroughs-wise, it's almost as good as it gets!
May 2, 2018
Man, I did this already, where did I leave it? I'm not doing it again. Beautiful, but abstract. If you dig semi-non-representational art, prose-as-poetry, dreams that someone else dreams for you, check this out. If you like a little more concrete structure, check out his older more linear work.
If you're in love with language, check out ANY and ALL THE Burroughs.
If you're in love with language, check out ANY and ALL THE Burroughs.
March 4, 2008
I used to think of this as the last of Burroughs' 5 cut-up novels. It's probably more appropriate to think of it as the 1st of the homoerotic adventure novels. Or something. Anyway, it's great! I read it when I was a research volunteer for a NASA study re space stn living. No shit. This was at the Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins University/Hospital in Baltimore. I was living in a simulated space stn environment for 15 days w/ 2 other guys. It was mainly an experiment in behavior modification designed to produce routines that wd prevent astronauts from going crazy in a restricted environment. I took "The Wild Boys" into the study w/ me particularly b/c of its anti-control theme. After the study was over, I was interviewed by a reporter for the Johns Hopkins Magazine (or some such). I remember talking about Duchamp & I probably sd a lotof things that were a bit too weird for Hopkins. This wd've been the 1st time I was ever interviewed. The article was squelched - perhaps this was an early instance of my being censored by the press? "The Wild Boys" is probably Burroughs's clearest novelistic depicition of feral revolutionaries.
December 11, 2008
The thought of William S. Burroughs is sometimes better than his actual fiction: picture if you will a man who combines brilliant science fiction with National Geographic pictorials of Amazon tribes, no women, no men, just crazy insane boys who love to kill and jerk off combined with creaky old 1940's boyish Fu Manchu pulp adventure crap. The concept is pretty nuts but the execution is, well, almost as creaky and tiresome as Fu Manchu himself.
Read
June 15, 2022not 100% sure what went down but i think there was gay sex
August 27, 2023
Flux, torrent, symbols scattered and infinitely deep dots left for the reader to connect, sometimes the dots are so deep and self-referencing they read like the ramblings of a delusional mind, are they meaningful at all?
Our aim is total chaos.The sentences are stringed like thoughts, sometimes coherent other times disjointed; shuffling words around producing different meanings. Poetic experimentalism giving a dream quality to pain and intimacy. Curiously, when the prose doesn't make sense as whole, patterns emerge. It's a detective work of sorts to collect the reference points, a) there's always a boy, an american boy, alienated, full of desires, impulses, sickness; b) wild creativity, pulp magazines and science fiction concepts; c) death; d) framed by the dichotomy between two worlds, one young, lustful, free, the other one militarized, wasteful, hypocritical.
We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems.
We don’t want to hear any more family talk, mother talk, father talk, cop talk, priest talk, country talk or party talk. To put it country simple we have heard enough bullshit.
There are Bowery suits that appear to be stained with urine and vomit which on closer inspection turn out to be intricate embroideries of fine gold thread.The book is mostly creative, (the sex scenes can still get very repetitive), in its depictions of violent acts and orgies. At first it can be difficult to see the tears under the dirt, but it's there, a silent frustration, fruit of forbidden desire. Death in that context is a passing, not an end. This is, after all, a Book of the dead as in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Burroughs is explicit in his intentions to extract and distillate some form of spirituality from all this blood and cum. A Queer book of the dead. Idealizing life to achieve a meaningful release.
Rather like fairyland isn’t it except for the smell of gasoline and burning flesh.Even with its manic feel and furious language, it's not hard to sympathize with these wild boys, it's not hard at all, which is frightening and intoxicating, as if Burroughs was daring the reader to dream a chaos of their own making. We've all been wild boys at some point, even if only in dreams, even if only in fiction
October 20, 2023
Ok so while this may not be have been as entirely obscure as his Nova Trilogy... still...
The novel deals in class striations, showing the falsely luxurious estates of the wealthy, overflowing in gluttony and the like, all compared to groups of (or like) The Wild Boys who live lives attempting to find pleasures in whatever they can, no matter how vile. Yet, in their vileness, they are hurting no one but themselves. They find pleasure in the things they cause among themselves, but eventually see the disparity between them and the gluttons.
They fight back, as all the lower class will, yet, "A highly placed narcotics official tells a grim President: "The wild-boy thing is a cult based on drugs, depravity, and violence more dangerous than the hydrogen bomb." Because the bomb is not a threat to these gluttons, class warfare and a realization of the oppression is their true downfall.
The novel deals in class striations, showing the falsely luxurious estates of the wealthy, overflowing in gluttony and the like, all compared to groups of (or like) The Wild Boys who live lives attempting to find pleasures in whatever they can, no matter how vile. Yet, in their vileness, they are hurting no one but themselves. They find pleasure in the things they cause among themselves, but eventually see the disparity between them and the gluttons.
They fight back, as all the lower class will, yet, "A highly placed narcotics official tells a grim President: "The wild-boy thing is a cult based on drugs, depravity, and violence more dangerous than the hydrogen bomb." Because the bomb is not a threat to these gluttons, class warfare and a realization of the oppression is their true downfall.
February 12, 2017
The description for this book doesn't prepare the reader in any way of what to expect. I found Wild Boys to be a porno masquerading as a novel. Burroughs had a nice joke on everyone - I guess because of the experimental writing style he got away with this smut.
I was reminded of J.G. Ballard, specifically Crash, which I also disliked. But if you liked Crash, this book would be right up your alley.
There is so much sex between and among young teenage boys it reads like a wish fulfillment of a grandscale erotic fantasy. Even when it seems like Burroughs is actually going to elaborate on a plot, he traps you right back into the same sex scene he has already written 50 times.
The plot was threadbare. Character development? Nonexistent. Sure he has an interesting concept of roving bands of homosexual teens causing havoc - rebellion against conservative values I surmise - yet all Burroughs wants to write about are butts, butts, and more butts. You have been warned!
I was reminded of J.G. Ballard, specifically Crash, which I also disliked. But if you liked Crash, this book would be right up your alley.
There is so much sex between and among young teenage boys it reads like a wish fulfillment of a grandscale erotic fantasy. Even when it seems like Burroughs is actually going to elaborate on a plot, he traps you right back into the same sex scene he has already written 50 times.
The plot was threadbare. Character development? Nonexistent. Sure he has an interesting concept of roving bands of homosexual teens causing havoc - rebellion against conservative values I surmise - yet all Burroughs wants to write about are butts, butts, and more butts. You have been warned!
July 9, 2019
Nick finished reading the novel and smiled. He carefully closed the book and placed it on the nightstand. He smoked a bowl of hashish and went to the window and looked out. There was Bill walking down the sidewalk in an old movie 1920s silent black and white windblown streets sprinklers on a golf course. He looked like a sheep-killing dog.
Nick opened the window and waved. He was wearing a jockstrap and sandals. "Come on up. I just finished THE WILD BOYS."
"All right. Got any hash?"
"Sure."
Years later, Bill comes through the door. "Did you like the novel Nick?"
"Yes I did. Now get on the bed Bill and take off your clothes."
"What about the hash Nick?"
Nick walked over to where Bill was on the bed, his crotch getting stiff. Machine gun rattles over the city placed it on the nightstand in an old movie down the sidewalk dim jerky faraway stars cream over the asshole night.
Nick opened the window and waved. He was wearing a jockstrap and sandals. "Come on up. I just finished THE WILD BOYS."
"All right. Got any hash?"
"Sure."
Years later, Bill comes through the door. "Did you like the novel Nick?"
"Yes I did. Now get on the bed Bill and take off your clothes."
"What about the hash Nick?"
Nick walked over to where Bill was on the bed, his crotch getting stiff. Machine gun rattles over the city placed it on the nightstand in an old movie down the sidewalk dim jerky faraway stars cream over the asshole night.
September 27, 2018
What a ride! How many books give you cinematic, psychedelic, bombastic queerness and also leave you with a deeper appreciation of structure and punctuation? Not many, I'll say. Covered in depth on the Bad Books for Bad People podcast: http://badbooksbadpeople.com/episode-...
June 18, 2008
He teaches me how to write. And who could read better porn than "The Frisco Kid"?
January 10, 2024
I do not have a clue what happened. I couldn't tell you a single character's name. The narrative was so fragmented that it lost all sense of narrative progression and instead read as a fever dream.
Read
February 26, 2024I support gay rights and gay wrongs
Read
August 15, 2021I give this book the honor of not rating it, as I feel like I do not understand fully Burroughs' vision. I believe this is the closest I've come to accidentally reading pornography.
September 25, 2014
Particolarissimo romanzo di sperimentazione linguistica e tematica, Ragazzi selvaggi è un romanzo in racconti (tipica forma narrativa di Burroughs), in cui l'autore, alla ricerca di un nuovo indirizzo espressivo, si discosta progressivamente dalla tecnica del cut-up e dalle atmosfere surreali della tossicodipendenza, recuperando un po' lo stile dei suoi primi scritti e trovando infine nuove stravaganti forme espressive.
La prima sensazione è quella di un'opera in fieri, che di pagina in pagina muta aspetto, muta stile, tema, un'opera continua di auto-riscrittura. A ben vedere, però, questa sua particolare caratteristica non tradisce l'ingenuità di un'opera in corso di definizione, ma risulta essere proprio il suo punto di forza, un romanzo dinamico che trae forza dalla sua irruenza verbale.
Gran parte dei romanzi del periodo Nova (a cominciare da Pasto Nudo) sono caratterizzati dalla centralità dell'esperienza della tossicodipendenza, che trasfigura la realtà permettendo al protagonista/narratore/autore di squarciale il velo di Maya e scorgere l'orrore della realtà in sé. Con questo romanzo Burroughs inaugura un'era diversa: la tossicodipendenza finisce in secondo piano, mentre acquista centralità l'omosessualità (secondo elemento del binomio burroughsiano per eccellenza). I ragazzi selvaggi sono, dunque, ragazzi omosessuali (saltuariamente tossicodipendenti), che si presentano come mutazione e possibile evoluzione morale del genere umano. Il richiamo, fortissimo ed evidentissimo, è al cruciale periodo di contestazione studentesca che fa proprio da setting alla stesura del libro. Ricorrendo poi a una fantascienza più limpida, Burroughs immagina una vera e propria guerra globale tra il vecchio sistema e il caotico spirito dionisiaco dei ragazzi selvaggi.
Impressionante è la vitalità che trasuda questo libro, ancora oggi: anche svilito, derubricato, abusato, lo spirito della contestazione travolge il lettore, tutt'altro che eco di altri tempi. Notevole è la cura nel dettaglio, sintomo di una riscoperta lucidità che però deve forzarsi tra le maglie dell'intrico stilistico di Burroughs (non ama parlare chiaro, davvero). C'è una forte critica sociale, brillante e variopinta, che assume i colori della parodia, della satira, e del pamphlet.
Altrettanto significativa è la ricerca espressiva. Archiviata (ma non troppo) la tecnica collage del cut-up, Burroughs elabora dei brevissimi capitoletti intermedi chiamati Peep Show, con delle forme di scrittura parecchio singolari e che non sto qui a cercare di spiegarvi perché davvero non ne sono in grado.
La prima sensazione è quella di un'opera in fieri, che di pagina in pagina muta aspetto, muta stile, tema, un'opera continua di auto-riscrittura. A ben vedere, però, questa sua particolare caratteristica non tradisce l'ingenuità di un'opera in corso di definizione, ma risulta essere proprio il suo punto di forza, un romanzo dinamico che trae forza dalla sua irruenza verbale.
Gran parte dei romanzi del periodo Nova (a cominciare da Pasto Nudo) sono caratterizzati dalla centralità dell'esperienza della tossicodipendenza, che trasfigura la realtà permettendo al protagonista/narratore/autore di squarciale il velo di Maya e scorgere l'orrore della realtà in sé. Con questo romanzo Burroughs inaugura un'era diversa: la tossicodipendenza finisce in secondo piano, mentre acquista centralità l'omosessualità (secondo elemento del binomio burroughsiano per eccellenza). I ragazzi selvaggi sono, dunque, ragazzi omosessuali (saltuariamente tossicodipendenti), che si presentano come mutazione e possibile evoluzione morale del genere umano. Il richiamo, fortissimo ed evidentissimo, è al cruciale periodo di contestazione studentesca che fa proprio da setting alla stesura del libro. Ricorrendo poi a una fantascienza più limpida, Burroughs immagina una vera e propria guerra globale tra il vecchio sistema e il caotico spirito dionisiaco dei ragazzi selvaggi.
Impressionante è la vitalità che trasuda questo libro, ancora oggi: anche svilito, derubricato, abusato, lo spirito della contestazione travolge il lettore, tutt'altro che eco di altri tempi. Notevole è la cura nel dettaglio, sintomo di una riscoperta lucidità che però deve forzarsi tra le maglie dell'intrico stilistico di Burroughs (non ama parlare chiaro, davvero). C'è una forte critica sociale, brillante e variopinta, che assume i colori della parodia, della satira, e del pamphlet.
Altrettanto significativa è la ricerca espressiva. Archiviata (ma non troppo) la tecnica collage del cut-up, Burroughs elabora dei brevissimi capitoletti intermedi chiamati Peep Show, con delle forme di scrittura parecchio singolari e che non sto qui a cercare di spiegarvi perché davvero non ne sono in grado.
April 14, 2012
Ummm....where do I start? Like Interzone, this was a very confusing novel with some parts written in his trademark cut-up style and very stream-of-consciousness and not written in a strict time sequence but there were parts that I did enjoy, especially those sections in which Burroughs' dry Missourian sense of humour shines through. This book is intensively visual and reading this was more like watching a word-movie in my head. I think if you can figure out what is going on in this story (and there IS a central story going on here....kind of!) then it would be more enjoyable. I might read this again sometime to get a better understanding of what took place but only because it is a short book.
Personally, I preferred Junky and the Western Lands but this one was okay. Anyone at all homophobic though should steer well clear of this one - plenty of talk about spurting cocks and anal mucous.
The actual wild boys who appear more in the latter part of the novel reminded me of some of the characters in Cities of the Red Night and for this reason I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for something more original from Old Bill. Still, this guy really was a 'literary outlaw', a 'revolutionary of the pen' so-to-speak. If you haven't ready Junky yet, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it as it is fantastic. Read that one first, then Naked Lunch, then the final trilogy that starts with Cities of the Red Night. They were my personal favourites. Then, if you have time, have a go at this one but it is not what I would classify as 'essential reading'.
Personally, I preferred Junky and the Western Lands but this one was okay. Anyone at all homophobic though should steer well clear of this one - plenty of talk about spurting cocks and anal mucous.
The actual wild boys who appear more in the latter part of the novel reminded me of some of the characters in Cities of the Red Night and for this reason I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for something more original from Old Bill. Still, this guy really was a 'literary outlaw', a 'revolutionary of the pen' so-to-speak. If you haven't ready Junky yet, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it as it is fantastic. Read that one first, then Naked Lunch, then the final trilogy that starts with Cities of the Red Night. They were my personal favourites. Then, if you have time, have a go at this one but it is not what I would classify as 'essential reading'.
September 1, 2014
I would probably have thought that this book was a lot more innovative, if I had read it when it was first published, but from the perspective of 2014, it just feels like an overlong music video. Lots of flash cuts, heavy handed symbolic imagery and eroticism. It has an intention to shock, but almost half a century after its first publication, we have all been shocked so many times by both real and fictional extreme behaviors that it is all just a bit ho hum. I liked Queer a lot better because it was a human story about longing, loss, desire and alienation. There was humanity there beneath the inhumanity. In this one, the deliberate numbing of emotion and impersonal extremism left me cold.
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