Can someone explain the idea of the 'routine', as used by William S Burroughs. I noticed it in 'Queer' and as I'm now reading Naked Lunch it seems particularly important. Is it his way of blurring the line between truth/fiction? Is it just a weird mannerism of his?
What's your take on Burroughs's 'routine'
I don't know honestly but I thought it was neat to read NL and then read Queer and see the weirdness in its embryonic form.
>>7352846
Definitely agree. Junky was really straight forward and I thought Queer would be the same. I think on its own Queer wouldn't be that great, but reading it knowing the context, and knowing how the style would later develop was pretty cool.
Patti Smith was so fucking hot, goddamn.
>someone asks question about theme from a relatively popular writer
>nobody posts
good work /lit/, keep making john green memes and frog posting
Burroughs' routines are vignettes that are sort of like comedy sketches: self-contained little scenes, usually funny. He would sometimes send these to his friends in letters, or else act them in order to get the voices etc. right.
>>7353196
Pretty accurate. My take is that they're meant to be like a drawn out similie or something. Like instead of just saying 'this whole situtation was weighing down on Lee like a lead balloon', burroughs will make Lee tell some elaborate tale about a chess grandmaster eating pieces and being run out of town. Like, the scene he depicts is not 'literally' a part of the action, but it adds a certain idea to the reader's mind, and this helps to frame the scene.
Most of Naked Lunch's more ridiculous events can be read in this way, as a sort of metaphor/extreme hyperbole. Perhaps there isn't actually men being hung from the roof and forcibly masturbated, but it's a cool idea.
Queer was one text I found difficult to read because I don't think his routines were as developed yet. Take the scene where Lee acts like he's an oilman and talks about how you know where to drill for oil and how to get funding for your oil well. I mean, it's kinda cool and integrated pretty well into the text but it is somewhat jarring and isn't as ridiculous as some of his later routines, and consequently is in a sort of uncanny valley.
In queer they're his desperate attempts to make Allerton fall for him. Almost like little love letters. What's a better thing to do for your lover than alleviate their worldly anxieties with an absurd comedy sketch?
I think what's weirding you out is the way in which they taper off towards the end. He sets up the initial part of what seems to be a joke then slowly it disintegrates into this fractured gray lump where he ends up just muttering to himself. I read somewhere about what this was all about but i've forgotten.. if i were to guess it was simply a parody of desire: the build up towards the punchline followed by the gray neutral drift or exhaustion of possibility experienced after climax. it's in a similar vein to the hangmen and their ejaculations except the parody is in the actual delivery, in the medium.
>>7352908
she looked like gollum
>>7352844
>the idea of the 'routine'
...jesus, why does academic writing always infect people with autism? It's just some shit he wrote - it sounds so dorky to talk about it this way.
>>7352908
>>7353276
Would tossle
>>7352844
>>7353251
>desperate attempts to make Allerton fall for him
this, at first, then they became attempts to make Ginsberg fall in love w/ him. in one letter to Ginsberg, Burroughs says, "maybe the new book is just letters to you," so he produced the Yage Letters and Naked Lunch. routines are a big part of Burroughs' development as a writer, and Naked Lunch and everything he wrote after that makes a lot more sense once one has this information. I recommend Word Virus by Grauerholz and Call Me Burroughs by Miles, if you want to read more about the man himself.
>>7352844
The Aristocrats without the punchline.
>>7353268
if you aren't interested in examining literature, why are you here?
