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Jan 27, 2012

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it:

Here's the thing that puzzles me about this book: why was it not published until 1985 while the far, far more offensive Naked Lunch was published (not without obstacles) in 1959? One idea is that Burroughs put the manuscript for Queer away for many years and chose not to revisit it because it reminded him of a extremely terrible time in his life, the time surrounding the well-known (and unfortunately adapted to the screen) accidental killing of his wife during a drunken game of William Tell (a More...

20 comments like (31 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2011

mark rated it:

seriously, Lee, will you give it a rest? stop trying to get into the pants of that straight guy. get some dignity. Lee, i hate to tell you this, but you make me a little sick. not only are you pointless, you are desperate. that is highly unattractive. you surround yourself with the same decay that is present in your world-view. and when that isn't enough, you seek out even more decay, until the novel becomes a travelogue of depressing decay, decay, decay. all the while trying pathetically to suc More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Tal rated it:

Lee, Chapter 4: "Got an idea for a new dish. Take a live pig and throw it into a very hot oven so the pig is roasted outside and when you cut into it, it's still alive and twitching inside. Or, if we run a dramatic joint, a screaming pig covered with burning brandy rushes out of the kitchen and dies right by your chair. You can reach down and pull off the crispy, crackly ears and eat them with your cocktails."

Junky is tougher, and Naked Lunch is weirder, but this is the bes More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2008

Cameron rated it:

Decay pervades this novel. I thought it was merely that I had purchased a fairly old yet never used book and that was where the sense of decrepitude emanates, but then I realized it is the odorous imagery Burroughs' invokes of Mexico City and sundry South American locales. From the bars to the characters, the feeling that some elegance has been shatteringly lost, some refinement irrevocably misplaced leaks from the text. This thrilling (if noxious) interplay of word and action lends itself we More...

2 comments like

Nov 08, 2011

Mark rated it:

This was the third book selected for the guys book club here in Mexico and it was a real interesting read. Definitely from a genre that I haven’t had any exposure too and i enjoyed learning more about William S. BurroughsBurroughs and Jack KerouacKerouac (who I regularly site as one of my favorites). Those guys moved to Mexico and just, well...they must have had some crazy stories. Definitely pushing the envelope.

Rambling at parts and too discombobulated (undoubtedly due to “Henry More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 25, 2011

Rev. Mysterium rated it:

This is an interesting look into the heart and hormones of William S. Burroughs. In many ways it is quite sad how being a member of a counter-culture group back in an era where the homophobia and persecution of those who were not WASP's was violent and deadly stunted the expression and romantic feelings of a gay man. It is equally as sad, how little this nation has changed with his hatred and judgement of people.

You come away with a feeling of bleak sadness for Burroughs that all o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 18, 2011

Sezen rated it:

Kitabin anakarakterinin lakirdilarini sagdan soldan tanidigi zavalli, edilgen bir bar arkadasiymis gibi dinlerken hic tanimadiginiz, aslinda merak da etmediginiz birisinin lakirdilarini da dinlerken buluyorsunuz kendinizi. Peki bu densiz kim? Cevirmen. Cevirmenin (ya da cevirmenlerin) Moda anilari, cevirmenin ingilizcesini sevdigi icin cevirmedigi argo sozcukler, cevirmenin once bizi ilgilendirecegine karar verip acikladigi sonra gerisini merak etmeyecegimize karar verip bunu cekinmeden soyleyip More...

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Aug 05, 2011

Colin N. rated it:

"Queer" picks up essentially where "Junky" ends, with the protagonist, Burroughs alter-ego Bill Lee, in Mexico City. Having cut down on his junk habit, Lee wanders from bar to bar, drinking and talking. He becomes ever-more infatuated with Allerton, a young man who he has a relationship with, but who shares little of the obsessive ardour that Lee feels. In his attempts to get people, and especially Allerton, to pay attention to him, Lee begins telling various fantastic sto More...

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Feb 21, 2011

Jillian rated it:

Often funny and touching, this is my favorite Burroughs book. A reader will feel sympathy for the devil in the protagonist of Lee, despite the fact that he wants to find a drug to turn boys into sex slaves. Seriously, he is that pathetic and sad.

Two of my favorite quotes that show the softer, gentlemanly side of Burroughs are found here:

1. "The rudeness of many Americans depressed him, a rudeness based on a solid ignorance of the whole concept of manners, and the pro More...

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Oct 18, 2010

John rated it:

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. L More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2011

Ryan rated it:

It is odd to me that "Queer" does not seem to have a bigger place in the "gay" canon of literature. The image it renders,of loss and longing of a universally human kind, is not only some of the richest I have read but also some of the most accurate. The way that Lee clings to Allerton, despite the latter's lukewarm feelings, is something that anyone who has desperately searched for stability in their life and relate to. Burroughs conveys a great sense of loss and disorientat More...

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Feb 12, 2009

Calvin rated it:

I've thought over the years that I am not very well read and that I have a small capacity for older and classical literature. I think that being *able* to finish the book is a testament to a) the readability of the book, and b) some reading ability on my part.

The book itself was unremarkable but only because I am from the time that I am from. The book, in a historical context, is probably quite something to behold; the main character is "a man afflicted with both acute heroin More...

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Dec 19, 2011

Michael rated it:

This was a selection in the book club that I am in here in Vallarta. Third one so far and we are 0-3 on good books so far. The conversation at our get-togethers has been great though, so that has redeemed our choices (including my own).

I think this book would have been more interesting if I lived in Ecuador, not Mexico, as I feel it spends more time exploring that setting than the Mexico City one.

The one quality I did enjoy, at times, in this book was its detailed de More...

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Sep 28, 2008

Lavinia rated it:

Read it from curiosity, knowing that he was on of the important figures of the beat generation. Not impressed.

***
citita mai mult de curiozitate, stiind ca e un reprezentant destul de marcant al generatiei beat. neimpresionata in mod deosebit.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Christina Marie rated it:

I plowed through Burroughs's Queer. Now I'm in a haze of junk and sex aftermath. While Junky showed how an addict's mind functions while getting off the stuff, Queer shows the life of recovering addicts. Apparently, recovering addicts go to Mexico, where law is obsolete and drugs are still prevalent. Then, from Mexico, they travel to South America in search of the trippy psychadelic mind-reading Yage. This book most likely does not apply to all addicts, in whatever stage of recovery or use they More...

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Sep 04, 2010

Matt rated it:

I think the title of this book is a bit of a misnomer, and it appeals to everyone, regardless of sexuality. Why? Because everyone has been in the situation where they find themselves pining over, or maybe even loving someone, who doesn't reciprocate emotionally. The fact that Burroughs is gay, is irrelevent, because the hurt and sadness is real, and everyone has felt it. I found myself really identifying with Lee in this way, more so than I could in Junkie ... and Allerton read like a Bret E More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Emma rated it:

I vowed that I would read Burroughs chronologically. I picked up Queer almost an hour after finishing Junky and I am in awe. First, I would recommend, if you aren't a Burroughs enthusiast, to take advantage of the introduction. Penguin's 25th anniversary edition has an introduction by Oliver Harris that is crucial when taking on any of Burrough's work. In Queer you notice the shift of narrative writing to the more abstract and surreal style Burrough's claims to fame. It is a masterpiece and it's More...

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Sep 15, 2011

Marie rated it:

Beautifully written and surprisingly moving with a relatively straightforward, lateral narrative, Queer was not as challenging a read as I expected. Set in Mexico City, the reader is introduced to a host of quirky, bar lingering characters before being whisked off to Panama then Ecuador, where the main character, Lee, takes his (uninterested) love interest, Allerton, on a fruitless quest for the drug, Yage. For me, the story lost direction when they travelled to South America. But, it is a thour More...

1 comment like

Aug 01, 2010

kafka4prez rated it:

Whenever I read Burroughs I wonder how anyone can be so irreverent and scandalous and poetic. Then I think, "Ah, to be independently wealthy." The book has all the markings of a highly-marketed bunch of beat jabbering. In fact, it's a very thin bunch of wonderful beat jabbering with a story to match the marketing. Queer certainly does feel like the kind of self therapy a guy like Burroughs would employ to clear his conscience of that last ill-fated game of William Tell. If only my own More...

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Dec 12, 2010

Kristen rated it:

I have a passionate hatred for William Burroughs. I think even his fans have to concede that he's a degenerate piece of shit. I admit my prior experience with him consists of 5 pages of Naked Lunch and a couple biographies of various sorts, none of which fail to mention the pedophilia and him murdering his wife (I'm from Detroit, don't think for a second I buy his bullshit story), not that I'd hold that against him when rating this book.

I went into this book expecting it to be ab More...

16 comments like (17 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2011

Hannah rated it:

I think I like the idea of Beat better than I like the writing

The blurb said this laid Burroughs' soul bare. I haven't read much else of his to know how this compares - but this didn't strike me as particularly warm. If this is Burroughs spilling his guts then God only knows how removed the rest of his stuff is.

The style is pleasingly paired-down, but almost to the point of bragging/alienating his less cool readers: He mentions that the protagonist, William Lee, is having a b More...

0 comments like

Apr 15, 2011

Adam rated it:

Book Review Template
Final Verdict: 3.5 out of 4.0
YTD: 20

Plot/Story:
3 – Plot/Story is interesting & believable.

William S. Burroughs’s Queer is a story about American ex-patriots, living in Mexico during the 1960s. Most of the ex-pats are male, and most seem to be homosexual or to have homosexual “tendencies.” What is interesting about Queer is that it was one of Burroughs's earlier works, but one of his last published. The reason for this is that the book is More...

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Nov 25, 2009

Corrine rated it:

Ok so I have to say this one got better reviews from my friends than I can clearly give it. What can I say. I guess the musings of an aged, frustrated older guy just doesn't inspire me overly so. A good read for sure, but it didn't really change my life. I think the important thing here is to remember the time in which it was written - not published - and then it's more appreciable. Forward for it's time to be sure. Recommend.

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Feb 18, 2010

Joe rated it:

Queer continues the story Burroughs began in Junkie and also provides a great deal of background to the "letters" compiled in The Yage Letters. These three books taken together tell the story Burroughs wanted to tell before he went to Tangier and wrote Naked Lunch. If you are interested in Burrough's early work, you may eventually want to read Queer and The Yage Letters but the best of these books by far is Junkie.

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May 01, 2010

Chris rated it:

Oddly compelling, SHORT, odd little book about Burroughs' time in run-down bars in Mexico City, the book culminates in an odd trek to South America in search of mind-reading herbs (?). Throughout the book, Burroughs is trying to romance/ sex-up a "straight" guy who is, I dunno, not so straight, maybe? Interesting to read about the old times when a person could be a bar-bum on basically no money at all.

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Sep 11, 2009

Alarra rated it:

Burroughs is a fascinating writer, very immediate, and somehow both succint (in conveying strong emotion) and rambly. He didn't really finish writing Queer since it wouldn't have been published uncensored at the time he wrote it, and it shows in the trailing last third, but it's a pretty interesting look at a subsection of queer culture at the time in Mexico City, and a sad tale of unrequited love/lust.

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Dec 15, 2011

Alex rated it:

This book wasn't published until after Burroughs had already achieved fame. It's a very sad and lonely, embarrassing even, tale of intense longing. The main character deals with his sexual rejection with loud, maudlin, drunken soliloquies that tend to empty the rooms of the very people he wants desperately to attract. Burroughs does this with thorough accuracy and the reader can almost taste the Naked Lunch that follows.

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Feb 22, 2008

Sam rated it:

This is pulp fiction at its finest, and the perfect companion to Burroughs better known "Junky." I have always loved the introduction to the 1985 re-issue: "When I lived in Mexico City at the end of the 1940's, it was a city of one million people, with clear sparkling air and the sky that special shade of blue that goes so well with circling vultures, blood and sand -- the raw menacing pitiless Mexican blue." If you are turned off by his post-Naked Lunch writing style, one More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 04, 2010

Cana rated it:

not bad, a continuance of Burroughs story after Junky... I love Burroughs's style of writing and I always enjoy just sitting down and 'listen to him speak'. So grotesquely honest and so poetic at the same time. Thank you W.S.B. for the chance to look back into the world of the US 1930-40s without the typical fearful censorship of the 1950s.

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Mar 06, 2009

Joanna rated it:

I really really enjoyed this book. I'm not a huge follower of WSB so I was really surprised by how much affection I ended up having for this book. It both had me in stitches and in tears following Lee's exploits in South America, unrequited love and addiction. The introduction is also really fantastic as it is the first thing I have ever read where WSB talks about killing his wife and how that influenced the writing of this novel. It's a quick read and the language is unbeatable.

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