Chris's review
Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk (50th Anniversary Edition) by William S. Burroughs
This is my first Burroughs, wanting to ease in before taking on Naked Lunch or other heavy hitters.
Wow, I ripped through this throughly quick and enjoyable account of the world of a H junkie in post-war America and Mexico. Burroughs does his best to not take any setimential stance or give away too much biographical information or political leanings. This made more than clear is this edition which outlines the various minor changes of Junk to Junkie to Junky. Any line that started to stray to far from an objective point of view got snipped, no matter how insightful into Burroughs or his time.
It's also interesting to place this book in the context of On the Road and You Can't Win. Kerouac gives ample time to his friendship with Burroughs in his novel, yet Jack is entirely missing from Junky (along with MAJOR biographical events of his own), same goes for Allen Ginsberg. However, Burroughs quickly mentions Jack Black's You Can't Win impact...more
Wow, I ripped through this throughly quick and enjoyable account of the world of a H junkie in post-war America and Mexico. Burroughs does his best to not take any setimential stance or give away too much biographical information or political leanings. This made more than clear is this edition which outlines the various minor changes of Junk to Junkie to Junky. Any line that started to stray to far from an objective point of view got snipped, no matter how insightful into Burroughs or his time.
It's also interesting to place this book in the context of On the Road and You Can't Win. Kerouac gives ample time to his friendship with Burroughs in his novel, yet Jack is entirely missing from Junky (along with MAJOR biographical events of his own), same goes for Allen Ginsberg. However, Burroughs quickly mentions Jack Black's You Can't Win impact...more
