what are you reading now?

[Mr. Tea]

Cities of the Red Night. Strange reading Burroughs writing like this after being so familiar with Naked Lunch and the cut ups. Reads a bit like Ballard's Crystal World atm and doesn't feel as fresh and exciting as something like Nova Express.

I loved this when I read it a few years ago. Should read it again.

 

[craner]

i'll go and look it up - i just remember @luka teasing you about how long it was taking you to write

When you say "teasing", do you actually mean "tormenting"?

 

[IdleRich]

Hadn't planned to Jenks, I love the novel though.

It's my favourite of the Balzac books I've read.

 

[IdleRich]

I liked Cities of the Red Night... for me it was interesting enough in what it did with form, but, the form wasn't so abstract as to completely overwhelm an interesting story. Though, it occurs to me that maybe I should read Burroughs again cos really I've not read him since about 2,000.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I liked Cities of the Red Night... for me it was interesting enough in what it did with form, but, the form wasn't so abstract as to completely overwhelm an interesting story.

I bought The Soft Machine around the same time, and got a bit bogged down in what seem like, to be honest, page after page of smacked-out drug nonsense and random buggery. I mean, I can see how it was new and daring and necessary in 1960, but I did much prefer the more traditionally narrative-led (while obviously still weird as hell) CotRN.

 

[luka]

i'll go and look it up - i just remember @luka teasing you about how long it was taking you to write

it came out several years after he first mentioned it to me.

 

[luka]

I liked Cities of the Red Night... for me it was interesting enough in what it did with form, but, the form wasn't so abstract as to completely overwhelm an interesting story. Though, it occurs to me that maybe I should read Burroughs again cos really I've not read him since about 2,000.

there is no form is there? mind you im always oblivious to form. it's not something i ever notice.

 

[craner]

it came out several years after he first mentioned it to me.

That's true, but I didn't spend several years writing it. I spent several years in an alcoholic fog not writing anything at all apart from posts on Choon of the Day.

 

[luka]

That's true, but I didn't spend several years writing it. I spent several years in an alcoholic fog not writing anything at all apart from posts on Choon of the Day.

the good old days

 

[IdleRich]

there is no form is there? mind you im always oblivious to form. it's not something i ever notice.

Wouldn't having no form be a form in itself? I don't really remember it at all though so this is all so vague...

 

[luka]

only if having no balls would be a pair of balls in itself

 

[woops]

what's become quite popular recently is the so-called "uncategorisable" book usually between journalism and autobiography

 

[woops]

only if having no balls would be a pair of balls in itself

oi it takes a lot of balls to have no balls.

 

[version]

It's written in fragments, but chapter-sized fragments rather than the kind of fragmentation you get in the earlier stuff where it's on a sentence-by-sentence level.

You'll get a short chapter/section on a doctor in the jungle then he'll jump to a chapter on a pirate captain then one on a board meeting between a group of scientists. It's got the overall structure of something like Nova Express, but the sentences are straight rather than cut up.

 

[luka]

what's become quite popular recently is the so-called "uncategorisable" book usually between journalism and autobiography

its called having no imagination but wanting to write a book anyway

 

[woops]

its called having no imagination but wanting to write a book anyway

formerly known as travel writing, which fed into the "psychogeography" "revival" of a few years ago

 

[IdleRich]

its called having no imagination but wanting to write a book anyway

I dunno, I think it's like anything, if you're good you will make it good, but if you are trying to use it to disguise the fact you have nothing to say then people will through it easily enough.

 

[woops]

I dunno, I think it's like anything, if you're good you will make it good, but if you are trying to use it to disguise the fact you have nothing to say then people will through it easily enough.

quiet rich we're trying to issue blanket dismissals with extreme prejudice your reasonability and nuance is not required

 

[IdleRich]

Sorry, I'll shut up then.

 

[woops]

you're like an enabler of bad literature