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The Process: Beat-Era Mysticism and Madness in the Sands of North Africa
Ulys O. Hanson, an African-American professor of the History of Slavery, who is in North Africa on a mysterious foundation grant, sets off across the Sahara on a series of wild adventures. He first meets Hamid, a mad Moroccan who turns him on, takes him over and teaches him to pass as a Moor. Mya, the richest woman in creation, and her seventh husband, the hereditary Bishop of the Farout Islands, also cross his path with their plans to steal the Sahara and make the stoned professor the puppet Emperor of Africa.
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 1969
43 people are currently reading
1247 people want to read
About the author
Brion Gysin
42 books90 followersJohn Clifford Brian Gysin, raised in Canada and England, was a peripheral figure in the Beat movement of the mid-20th century.
After serving is the U.S. Army during WWII, he received one of the first Fulbright Fellowships in 1949. A decade later he became closely associated with Beat writer William S. Burroughs. Their popularization of the Dadaist "cut-up technique" are the primary source of Gysin's literary fame.
After serving is the U.S. Army during WWII, he received one of the first Fulbright Fellowships in 1949. A decade later he became closely associated with Beat writer William S. Burroughs. Their popularization of the Dadaist "cut-up technique" are the primary source of Gysin's literary fame.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 3, 2012
A round and unvarnished tale filled with mystery, magic, and tons of keef. I had expected so much from the book that i was not sure if it could live up to what i had imagined. It was everything i wanted and more. This is the type of book that i want to write. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
May 13, 2007
One of the most amazing books I've ever read. It is an experience to read and most probably, life changing.
August 17, 2019
Brion Gysin is somewhat notable for being the inventor of the cut up method and the dream machine and his close friendship with William S. Burroughs. It is unfortunate that never got to be more well known as a writer. His novel The Process is an exhilarating reading experience that can make you wish his literary output had been larger.
The main character of The Process is Ulys O. Hanson, a retired African-American history professor and compulsive keef smoker who sets out from Morocco to travel the slave trading routes in the Sahara desert. Hanson, often called Hassan throughout the novel, sets off into Algeria but gets stuck in the city of Tam. It is there where he meets up with a secret society of musicians who put members into trances and seizures that induce out-of-body experiences. The Muslim police learn about his involvement with them and revoke his visa, commanding him to remain captive in Tam. He escapes and makes his way back to Tanj in Morocco to reacquaint himself with Hamid, the Moroccan friend who initiated him into the secret society’s rituals in the hill town of Jajouka.
Back in Tanj, Ulys listens to a tape recording of Hamid telling his life story. The friend, a wild and untamed boy, grew up to be a smuggler and thief. The musicians of Jajouka initiate him into their rites by having him dress as the bou jaloud, another name for the Pagan god Pan. Hamid becomes possessed by the spirit of bou jaloud and leaves Jajouka to work as a painter in the red light district where he uses his “paintbrush” to “paint all the whores”. Later in the same chapter, Hamid transforms into a whale that seduces a prostitute named Tanj and wrecks all the alleys and roads that lead to the central market before destroying that too. Thus, Hamid embodies the creative and destructive aspects of the phallus.
Thay Himmer is the next character to record his story for Ulys. After introducing himself in the Cafe de Paris, the famed Beat Generation hangout, he gives Ulys an emerald stone and tells him that the attempt to trap him in Tam was part pf a plot that gets explained more and more as the novel goes on. Thay Himmer, in an attempt to escape his white American identity, also got initiated into a secret society called Hamadcha; they initiated him during a pilgrimage where they beat him over the head with a board, made him dance until his feet bled, and nailed him to the wall of a saint’s tomb in a cave. Himmer later learned to suppress his orgasms, enabling him to have sex with his wife for several hours at a time which in turn gave him magical powers. These powers were strengthened when he received the emerald scarab from a teacher and took a vow of silence. The connection between the scarab and language is revealed near the end of the book.
Thay Himmer’s wife, Mya, is a Canadian Native American billionaire who receives a vision of ruling over the Sahara desert during a psylocibin trip in which she foresees her meeting with Ulys. Mya invests heavily in the psychotropic drug industry and begins stockpiling human pituitary glands in a stainless steel fortress built by Chinese communists and shaped like a star. It is located in the town of Tam which also happens to be a research center for the development of nuclear bombs. Mya’s plan is to possess Ulys O. Hanson with the Ghoul, a monstrous black spirit that rules as the king of the Sahara; once Ulys is possessed she can control him and reign over Africa first and then the entire world later.
If this all sounds bewildering at this point, that is because it is. But strangely, the narrative remains lucid throughout the whole book. It is may be a little heavier than Robert Anton Wilson but not as exasperating as Thomas Pynchon. The Process works on many levels at once; the story can be taken literally and symbolically at the same time. There are veiled references to real people like Francis X. Fard who embodies the ideals of the Nation of Islam with the life story of Frantz Fanon; the practice of Grammatology is an obvious reference to the Church of Scientology. If you read carefully, many of the characters are written with similar details, almost as if they are all the same people inhabiting different bodies simultaneously. There are recurring themes and images of slavery and servitude woven through the narrative and these get balanced out by accounts of telepathy, dreams, shifting planes of consciousness, alternate realities, and out of body travel which seem to embody the ideal of absolute freedom. There are so many minute threads of details and re-occurring themes that it can be like looking at a finely woven rug that spins quickly in front of flickering lights, making you hallucinate as all the colors and patterns emerge and merge into your soul. Like the works of James Joyce, The Process turns inwards on itself like a kaleidoscopic mirror that reflects back and forth to infinity.
But simply put, the whole book is about a regular person, Ulys O. Hanson, the man whose name is not Hassan; he smokes endless amounts of keef while traveling in the Sahara because he wants to find himself and become absolutely free.
And who can not relate to that?
https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/
The main character of The Process is Ulys O. Hanson, a retired African-American history professor and compulsive keef smoker who sets out from Morocco to travel the slave trading routes in the Sahara desert. Hanson, often called Hassan throughout the novel, sets off into Algeria but gets stuck in the city of Tam. It is there where he meets up with a secret society of musicians who put members into trances and seizures that induce out-of-body experiences. The Muslim police learn about his involvement with them and revoke his visa, commanding him to remain captive in Tam. He escapes and makes his way back to Tanj in Morocco to reacquaint himself with Hamid, the Moroccan friend who initiated him into the secret society’s rituals in the hill town of Jajouka.
Back in Tanj, Ulys listens to a tape recording of Hamid telling his life story. The friend, a wild and untamed boy, grew up to be a smuggler and thief. The musicians of Jajouka initiate him into their rites by having him dress as the bou jaloud, another name for the Pagan god Pan. Hamid becomes possessed by the spirit of bou jaloud and leaves Jajouka to work as a painter in the red light district where he uses his “paintbrush” to “paint all the whores”. Later in the same chapter, Hamid transforms into a whale that seduces a prostitute named Tanj and wrecks all the alleys and roads that lead to the central market before destroying that too. Thus, Hamid embodies the creative and destructive aspects of the phallus.
Thay Himmer is the next character to record his story for Ulys. After introducing himself in the Cafe de Paris, the famed Beat Generation hangout, he gives Ulys an emerald stone and tells him that the attempt to trap him in Tam was part pf a plot that gets explained more and more as the novel goes on. Thay Himmer, in an attempt to escape his white American identity, also got initiated into a secret society called Hamadcha; they initiated him during a pilgrimage where they beat him over the head with a board, made him dance until his feet bled, and nailed him to the wall of a saint’s tomb in a cave. Himmer later learned to suppress his orgasms, enabling him to have sex with his wife for several hours at a time which in turn gave him magical powers. These powers were strengthened when he received the emerald scarab from a teacher and took a vow of silence. The connection between the scarab and language is revealed near the end of the book.
Thay Himmer’s wife, Mya, is a Canadian Native American billionaire who receives a vision of ruling over the Sahara desert during a psylocibin trip in which she foresees her meeting with Ulys. Mya invests heavily in the psychotropic drug industry and begins stockpiling human pituitary glands in a stainless steel fortress built by Chinese communists and shaped like a star. It is located in the town of Tam which also happens to be a research center for the development of nuclear bombs. Mya’s plan is to possess Ulys O. Hanson with the Ghoul, a monstrous black spirit that rules as the king of the Sahara; once Ulys is possessed she can control him and reign over Africa first and then the entire world later.
If this all sounds bewildering at this point, that is because it is. But strangely, the narrative remains lucid throughout the whole book. It is may be a little heavier than Robert Anton Wilson but not as exasperating as Thomas Pynchon. The Process works on many levels at once; the story can be taken literally and symbolically at the same time. There are veiled references to real people like Francis X. Fard who embodies the ideals of the Nation of Islam with the life story of Frantz Fanon; the practice of Grammatology is an obvious reference to the Church of Scientology. If you read carefully, many of the characters are written with similar details, almost as if they are all the same people inhabiting different bodies simultaneously. There are recurring themes and images of slavery and servitude woven through the narrative and these get balanced out by accounts of telepathy, dreams, shifting planes of consciousness, alternate realities, and out of body travel which seem to embody the ideal of absolute freedom. There are so many minute threads of details and re-occurring themes that it can be like looking at a finely woven rug that spins quickly in front of flickering lights, making you hallucinate as all the colors and patterns emerge and merge into your soul. Like the works of James Joyce, The Process turns inwards on itself like a kaleidoscopic mirror that reflects back and forth to infinity.
But simply put, the whole book is about a regular person, Ulys O. Hanson, the man whose name is not Hassan; he smokes endless amounts of keef while traveling in the Sahara because he wants to find himself and become absolutely free.
And who can not relate to that?
https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/
June 17, 2023
A picaresque love letter to the freewheeling days of drugs, weird cults, and dissolute expat culture of the 1960s-70s, written in the era's waning years. Pothead professor Ulys O. Hanson is basically an author avatar, only Black American instead of white British-Canadian. (According to Robert Palmer's intro, Gysin complained about how easily he burned in the Sahara sun and felt uncomfortably conspicuous in Africa.) Hanson's fevered journey through the desert morphs into a bizarre tale of eccentric First Nations billionaires and their dedication to an ersatz Scientology. Told in multiple perspectives and utterly outlandish, it feels like a more coherent variation of the "cut-up" technique that Gysin invented and his friend William S. Burroughs popularized with his own Tangiers novels. Naked Lunch is a great book, but The Process is a great option if you want something a little more accessible (and also less graphic).
December 28, 2009
I was on a real desert-lit kick when I read this one. Similar to "The Sheltering Sky" with the idea of the Ugly American wandering around the Maghreb and falling down the interstices between cultures into a void of terror and alienation.
Read
December 28, 2024Hey it’s a ZANY adventure story from the ‘60s! Got a LID, man?!
I don’t know where I stand here – there’s some great stuff, but it all feels just so shambled together and so stoned that, while I enjoyed each section, I couldn’t really make it all cohere together. I know Gysin deserves his place in the history of art and literature, and I appreciate that this exists, but I don’t think this shaggy-camel story is for me.
I don’t know where I stand here – there’s some great stuff, but it all feels just so shambled together and so stoned that, while I enjoyed each section, I couldn’t really make it all cohere together. I know Gysin deserves his place in the history of art and literature, and I appreciate that this exists, but I don’t think this shaggy-camel story is for me.
July 17, 2015
The book started off pretty slow but once I had some free quiet time I sunk into it. The story is full of magic and if you have read anything about the life of Gysin you will know that he writes what he knows. The thing I loved was the references to Scientology (Grammatology) and the many quotes of Gysin that are simply placed in the story. I recommend this book for anyone interested in Brion Gysin or William Burroughs.
May 11, 2008
One of my few 'multiple' reads. I once dreamed of walking off into an exotic future and Gysin did it the way I wanted to. I will never hear the sound of matches in their matchbox the same way again. The pure bliss/terror of existence in its full glory. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
July 7, 2022
Like Joseph Conrad on weed. Or like Hunter S. Thompson, but with more camels. Brion Gysin is not one of the better-known members of the Beat Generation, but in fact it was he who came up with the “cut-up” technique that William S. Burroughs employed in some of his work. In addition, Gysin’s ideas about alpha waves, and his invention of the “Dreammachine” have influenced people like Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull and Iggy Pop. This novel tells of the travels in Tangiers and through the Sahara of Ulysses O. Hanson III, Fulbright scholar. On the way, there is a lot of hashish, some peyote, and dancing, music and hallucinatory trances. Try Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” as a soundtrack for this magic carpet ride.
Acquired Oct 20, 2009
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
Acquired Oct 20, 2009
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
June 9, 2024
I almost read this novel when I was 19 years old. William Burroughs said it was his favourite novel and I sought it out for that reason. I can't remember why I didn't finish it. I do recall that I thought the first chapter was wonderful. The trip across the Sahara made by Ulys O. Hanson evokes the same mystery and strangeness of the desert that one finds in the memoirs of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry or in old films about the French Foreign Legion in North Africa.
Reading the whole book 35 years later I found the first chapter to be exceptional and the following chapters not quite as good but nonetheless very interesting. Ulys retreats somewhat into the background and the narrative passes to other voices, to his companion Hamid and the oddball couple Thay Himmer and Queen Mya. Some of these later sections are a little too hippy dippy and haven't stood the test of time well. But the novel is an excellent one nonetheless, and considerably better than the other Gysin novel I have read, The Last Museum.
Reading the whole book 35 years later I found the first chapter to be exceptional and the following chapters not quite as good but nonetheless very interesting. Ulys retreats somewhat into the background and the narrative passes to other voices, to his companion Hamid and the oddball couple Thay Himmer and Queen Mya. Some of these later sections are a little too hippy dippy and haven't stood the test of time well. But the novel is an excellent one nonetheless, and considerably better than the other Gysin novel I have read, The Last Museum.
March 10, 2009
Brion Gysin is most known for collaborating with William S. Burroughs on the "cut up" method of text collage alteration, and this is his major novel, the other one being a much shorter piece called, I believe, "The Beat Hotel". The book is a hallucinatory journey across north Africa and the Sahara, with illusions passing back into reality passing back into illusions, all sort of flowing with a weird Bacchic rhythm, where we see things such as a pagan survival of the rites of Pan melded into Sufism and Islam...a very good book. Not like Burroughs and not made using the cut up method but instead one that stands on its own two feet in terms of worth.
January 27, 2011
was hoping he might practice more of what he preached, or discovered, or rediscovered (a.k.a. the cut-up method), but nevertheless a good seamless linear read.... as Burroughs said about the book, it reads itself.
Want to read
July 5, 2008I am in love with the idea that this novel may be an LSD soaked version of "The Alchemist"... can't wait to dive headlong into this one.
January 27, 2017
Sleep's Dopesmoker, but with fewer aliens and more magic.
December 28, 2017
This was one amazing but complicated novel.
I don't know quite where to start and I don't know quite what to think about this highly original and quirky tale.
I suspect that this book is part-autobiographical, trailing Gysin's restless and meandering treks throughout the Sahara with his special pouch filled with keef.
The main character Hassan, or a man who is actually not called Hassan, but Ulys O. Hanson, is a black 'Christian' man in a Muslim country and is often treated as such. It follows not only his wayward journey but the serpentine criss-crossing travels of companions or other semi-protagonists of this highly original and creative novel.
Essentially there is a plot to instal him as ruler of Africa or of the Sahara as 'the Ghoul' of the Desert but as usual nothing goes quite according to plan and things end up awry. As I read this book in tidbits and scraps whenever I had a few precious spare moments of free time, my memory of the story too is quite fragmented but this is in keeping with Gysin's style of prose. His prose is immaculate, beautiful and quite elegant. While he appears to lack some of the rigid discipline of a traditional novelist who would follow a more linear plot, he more than makes up for this deficit through by creating these sub-plots or short stories and slowly weaving them together, criss-crossing them with even greater skill and dexterity and speed and mayhem until you are reading this beautiful 'fabric' which we could describe as a novel. It's hard to explain. You just have to experience it.
There are some references to the Man of the Mountain, Hassan-i Sabbah, as well as a few moments where you can feel the evident presence / hand and/or influence of William S. Burroughs too.
However the style is Gysin's own original style of writing I believe, as far as I can see. It is different from Burroughs and in terms of quality of prose, overall narrative and just good ol entertainment, he is at least on par with Burroughs, and possibly even tops him. That's how good this book is.
As Burroughs says on the front cover to my paperback copy, "this is a book you will want to re-read".
Easily THE most underrated prose writer from the Beat Generation period and one of the must underrated artists of the 2nd half of the 20th Century - and I'll stand on Picasso's atelier table with my boots on and say that.
Highly, highly recommended.
A truly tremendous book. A leviathan of a novel.
I don't know quite where to start and I don't know quite what to think about this highly original and quirky tale.
I suspect that this book is part-autobiographical, trailing Gysin's restless and meandering treks throughout the Sahara with his special pouch filled with keef.
The main character Hassan, or a man who is actually not called Hassan, but Ulys O. Hanson, is a black 'Christian' man in a Muslim country and is often treated as such. It follows not only his wayward journey but the serpentine criss-crossing travels of companions or other semi-protagonists of this highly original and creative novel.
Essentially there is a plot to instal him as ruler of Africa or of the Sahara as 'the Ghoul' of the Desert but as usual nothing goes quite according to plan and things end up awry. As I read this book in tidbits and scraps whenever I had a few precious spare moments of free time, my memory of the story too is quite fragmented but this is in keeping with Gysin's style of prose. His prose is immaculate, beautiful and quite elegant. While he appears to lack some of the rigid discipline of a traditional novelist who would follow a more linear plot, he more than makes up for this deficit through by creating these sub-plots or short stories and slowly weaving them together, criss-crossing them with even greater skill and dexterity and speed and mayhem until you are reading this beautiful 'fabric' which we could describe as a novel. It's hard to explain. You just have to experience it.
There are some references to the Man of the Mountain, Hassan-i Sabbah, as well as a few moments where you can feel the evident presence / hand and/or influence of William S. Burroughs too.
However the style is Gysin's own original style of writing I believe, as far as I can see. It is different from Burroughs and in terms of quality of prose, overall narrative and just good ol entertainment, he is at least on par with Burroughs, and possibly even tops him. That's how good this book is.
As Burroughs says on the front cover to my paperback copy, "this is a book you will want to re-read".
Easily THE most underrated prose writer from the Beat Generation period and one of the must underrated artists of the 2nd half of the 20th Century - and I'll stand on Picasso's atelier table with my boots on and say that.
Highly, highly recommended.
A truly tremendous book. A leviathan of a novel.
October 2, 2020
Kafkaesque drug-induced meanderings on a trip across the Sahara. Hallucinatory, hilarious, tragic and full of autobiographical elements. Akin to his contemporary William S. Burroughs, a beautiful peace of Beat-generation history and in some ways a display of Gysin's cut-up method and the imaginative qualities of using his dreammachine.
"As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself."
"You had to learn to see him whole before you could see him at all."
"William Burroughs and I first went into techniques of writing, together, back in room No. 15 of the Beat Hotel during the cold Paris spring of 1958... Burroughs was more intent on Scotch-taping his photos together into one great continuum on the wall, where scenes faded and slipped into one another, than occupied with editing the monster manuscript... Naked Lunch appeared and Burroughs disappeared. He kicked his habit with Apomorphine and flew off to London to see Dr Dent, who had first turned him on to the cure. While cutting a mount for a drawing in room No. 15, I sliced through a pile of newspapers with my Stanley blade and thought of what I had said to Burroughs some six months earlier about the necessity for turning painters' techniques directly into writing. I picked up the raw words and began to piece together texts that later appeared as "First Cut-Ups" in Minutes to Go (Two Cities, Paris 1960)."
"As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself."
"You had to learn to see him whole before you could see him at all."
"William Burroughs and I first went into techniques of writing, together, back in room No. 15 of the Beat Hotel during the cold Paris spring of 1958... Burroughs was more intent on Scotch-taping his photos together into one great continuum on the wall, where scenes faded and slipped into one another, than occupied with editing the monster manuscript... Naked Lunch appeared and Burroughs disappeared. He kicked his habit with Apomorphine and flew off to London to see Dr Dent, who had first turned him on to the cure. While cutting a mount for a drawing in room No. 15, I sliced through a pile of newspapers with my Stanley blade and thought of what I had said to Burroughs some six months earlier about the necessity for turning painters' techniques directly into writing. I picked up the raw words and began to piece together texts that later appeared as "First Cut-Ups" in Minutes to Go (Two Cities, Paris 1960)."
February 19, 2018
The Process, by Brion Gysin. i don't normally write reviews but after reading this i felt compelled to do so. this has easily become one of the greatest novels that i have ever read in my lifetime. an instant favorite. For having no illustrations it is truly a visionary work of art.
Brion Gysin was also a painter and that is very evident in this novel because it is so beautifully descriptive that its like he paints pictures with words using your mind as the canvas. this is unlike anything i have ever read before.
Brion is quite an enigmatic force within the book because he is not represented by any one character but speaks through each, there is a piece of Brion within every character that you encounter in this novel.
Set between the beautiful sands of the Sahara and the dreamy streets of the Tangiers it is just as Burroughs stated, "start to read and you will find that it reads itself." i don't re-read many books but i just finished this novel and i already can't wait to read it again.
This was the first book that i have read by Brion Gysin but it will certainly not be the last. i look forward to reading more of his work like "The Last Museum", and "Living with Islam".
Brion Gysin was also a painter and that is very evident in this novel because it is so beautifully descriptive that its like he paints pictures with words using your mind as the canvas. this is unlike anything i have ever read before.
Brion is quite an enigmatic force within the book because he is not represented by any one character but speaks through each, there is a piece of Brion within every character that you encounter in this novel.
Set between the beautiful sands of the Sahara and the dreamy streets of the Tangiers it is just as Burroughs stated, "start to read and you will find that it reads itself." i don't re-read many books but i just finished this novel and i already can't wait to read it again.
This was the first book that i have read by Brion Gysin but it will certainly not be the last. i look forward to reading more of his work like "The Last Museum", and "Living with Islam".
September 19, 2025
This is a lot more fun than the misogynistic tripe Paul Bowles was pumping out, but I'm also more forgiving of its faults given the cachet of the author. Gysin delivers a greened-out, keef-addled shaggy dog story heavy with the madcap energy of 60's farces. Its cast of wild characters, obsession with Hassan-i Sabbah, and paranoiac mysticism are reminiscent of Pynchon or Robert Anton Wilson. You can definitely tell why he was destined for friendship with WSB. This probably isn't in the upper echelons of capital-L Literature, but it's danged entertaining to read. You can almost feel the sand in your mouth.
November 3, 2025
This book is a full-on brain trip — disorienting, hypnotic, and occasionally frustrating. It reads like someone’s fever dream, and I’m still not sure I fully “got” it. It reminded me a lot of the album Dopesmoker by Sleep: a long, smoky march across the desert, fueled by heroic amounts of ganja. It’s strange and sometimes brilliant, but its chaotic style made it hard to fully engage. Fascinating and unusual, and I can picture coming back to this one in a few years to see how my feelings change.
Read
September 22, 2021I was really excited about this book and for me it turned out to be a let down, I got bored with his writing style fairly quickly and lost interest in the story. Admittedly, his writing is very original and creative, in the way he uses rhythm etc.
January 31, 2018
Utter rubbish. I only completed it as part of my Cult Fiction project.
August 20, 2019
4,5/5
Criminally Underrated
Criminally Underrated
Read
September 7, 2021Had to give up I was so bored....the first book I've abandoned in a decade.
June 26, 2024
hello yes hello
March 28, 2010
What the...?!
Things I liked in the Foreword said about the author:
"You had to learn to see him whole before you could see him at all."
said by the author:
"Just look at all this lousy oatmealy skin. Not enough melanin. I've lived the best years of my life in Morocco and it can't take the sun. When I'm with Africans, I forget that I'm white. But they can't forget it. I stick out like a sore thumb."
"The Universe is spinning and what spins must appear symmetrical whether it is or not. That is the essential illusion but we are symmetrical, ourselves; ambivalent, too. This is a split univers, run between the Image and the Real Thing; one is the mirror-image of the other but the point is to tell which is which. You see that, of course; or, rather, you don't."
"As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself."
Things I liked in the Foreword said about the author:
"You had to learn to see him whole before you could see him at all."
said by the author:
"Just look at all this lousy oatmealy skin. Not enough melanin. I've lived the best years of my life in Morocco and it can't take the sun. When I'm with Africans, I forget that I'm white. But they can't forget it. I stick out like a sore thumb."
"The Universe is spinning and what spins must appear symmetrical whether it is or not. That is the essential illusion but we are symmetrical, ourselves; ambivalent, too. This is a split univers, run between the Image and the Real Thing; one is the mirror-image of the other but the point is to tell which is which. You see that, of course; or, rather, you don't."
"As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself."
October 28, 2008
This hash fueled journey takes you on a rambling trip across the deserts of Morocco. Gysin was an interesting guy. He and Burroughs were cohorts in transforming writing into magick. He also hung out with Brian Jones and took him to hear the ancient Master Musicians of Jojouka. Word has it that he had to leave Morocco after the musicians put a curse on him after some dispute.
August 27, 2016
I'm an "unshockable" person. And I felt shocked by several of the chapters in this book. Namely one near the middle, written in an Arab voice. Very beat and very cool and very much a part of the Occult Canon.
August 2, 2009
You have to read this
April 8, 2015
A fascinating tumble through the mystical wastes of the Sahara.
June 23, 2015
Not many authors can point out the hope killing tragedy of human stupidity and conformity, as brutal, precise and funny (in the darkest, most tragic way) as Kafka could.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews