DDR: The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs

 

 

So...despite my lack of enthusiasm for Naked Lunch...which I found to be a complete waste of my time...(watch the movie instead; it's brilliant and has very little to do with the book)...I seem to have decided to continue my Burroughs Odyssey. Or maybe it's my Burroughs Iliad...sometimes it's hard to tell.

I have a nice paperback omnibus of The Nova Trilogy

of which The Soft Machine is the first third...

...but the library had an e-version of The Restored Text, so I thought I'd go with that. (Thus far all of my WSB readings have been of the Restored Variety I am a little suspicious of this  nomenclature, as in previous volumes the "restoration" seems to consist of throwing in appendices and material which had been omitted previously--none of which has seemed particularly useful or noteworthy--but nevertheless I persist, Ted.

This Restored Version has 101 pages of text, approximately 100 pages of Introduction, Notes, and Deleted Scenes. 

But before we commence with the action, check this out:

First edition:

£300.09 ($404.99) seems pretty cheap for this book. Maybe because of the lack of the original dustwrapper? I mean, check this out:

Gotta admit that if $10,000 were like $10 to me, I'd go for it. (Besides, did you see the Free Shipping???)

P.S. I jyst noticed that this wasn't the trilogy I was thinking of. Maybe the inclusion of a first edition of (The) Naked Lunch is responsible for the big price tag here.

Here's the beginning of cuts up (from the Introduction by Oliver Harris:

BTW, "Gysin" is 

Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices.

He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs. With the engineer Ian Sommerville he also invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed. It was in painting and drawing, however, that Gysin devoted his greatest efforts, creating calligraphic works inspired by cursive Japanese "grass" script and Arabic script. Burroughs later stated that "Brion Gysin was the only man I ever respected."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brion_Gysin

Day 1 (DDRD 2,842), August 13, 2025*

Read to page 41 (of 218). Though the page count is misleading, as with all e-books, I suppose. According to Amazon, the paperback version of this version of the book is 336 pages long. So I'll use the e-numbers for daily bookkeeping, but I'm claiming 336 for the whole shebang. 

This book has the strangest publishing history I've ever heard of. After the first (1961) edition, Burroughs chopped out half of the text (which was only 38,000 words long) and wrote new material so that the second edition (1966) was the same length. There was also another version in between these two, which I don't think was ever printed, and then another published version in 1968 which added 19,000 words to the text. So there are at least three...and more probably four...versions of The Soft Machine. So in this case, Restored Text is a bit of a misnomer, as there was literally no way to reconcile these different versions of the book. Overall, it seems that the direction (or at least the vector) was to reduce the amount if actual cuts up material. Sheesh. And then, of course, this Restored Text is a 4th version....

* Check it out: we're back in perfect sequential order!

P.S. I just reread the first chapter in my omnibus edition, and it seemed to be the same that I read in the Restored Text. Hmmm.

P.P.S. Burroughs like the phrase "a spot of bother." It keeps popping up. As does Walgreen's.

P.P.P.S. Read the second chapter, "Who Am I to Be Critical?" in my omnibus edition (pages 13 to 25), then immediately after read it in the Restored Text e-book edition (pages 42 to 51). Seemed the same to me except that the Restoredexist.    version started in what was the first chapter (page 11) in the omnibus. Very strange.

Also...I am by no means anything less than liberal, especially with respect to free speech and anti-censorship, but I have to say that this book is straight up pornography. Even at this early point (page 25 or 51, as you please) there have been dozens of descriptions of anal sex, masturbation, and ejaculations...the latter often accompanied by grotesque violence (hangings, gang rapes, torture). I'm going to try to stick with this book until the end, but I'm already asking myself "Why does this book even exist?"

P.P.P.P.S. Read "Public Agent" chapter x 2: pages 52 to 55 in e-version, 27 to 31 omnibus version. Pretty sure these texts were identical.

Day 2 (DDRD 2,843), August 14, 2025

Read to page 63.

"According to The New York Times, [William S. Burroughs'] literary rights — especially to Naked Lunch, Junky, and The Soft Machine — generate approximately $200,000 annually." (https://www.finance-monthly.com/how-much-was-william-s-burroughs-worth-when-he-died-the-numbers-might-surprise-you/#google_vignette)

So that's pretty impressive for a guy whose work is...shall we say challenging and relatively obscure?

Day 3 (DDRD 2,844), August 15, 2025

Read to page 70...and I'm out. Out of this book, out of William S. Burroughs. This is just unrelenting vulgar nonsense. Junky and Queer were at least a little bit interesting, and The Yage Letters had its moments, but Naked Lunch and The Soft Machine are just bullshit. It bothers me a bit to know that Burroughs spent so much time with this manuscript...which would seem to indicate that he was serious about it...but I see no redeeming value in this whatsoever, and I feel that I'm just wasting time when I could be reading something worthwhile...or at least entertaining. This is just meaningless graphic sex and cruelty.

Back to Jesus, I think.