With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker

By Victor Bockris and William S. Burroughs

Book Overview

Burroughs, the eccentric, brilliant artist who burned the bridge with logic and wrote the classic Naked Lunch, has a court recorder in Victor Bockris. Bockris has collected into a cogent whole the man's most brilliant moments of conversation, thinking, and interview repartee. This fascinating material, gleaned from the fertile time at Burroughs's New York headquarters, the Bunker (which was located on the Bowery, three blocks from CBGB), encompasses the years 1974 to 1980, and also includes a 1991 Burroughs interview from Interview magazine. The Beats' devotion to subjective experience has left readers with a profound amount of objective material to analyze and debate. Choice public and private utterances, hallucinatory and prescient diatribes such as these, remain rich sources of literary history. As Americans we find the Beats' approach to life romantic, even heroic. Tearing the walls down in the name of freedom and spirituality strikes a particularly pilgrimesque chord. With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker is a fascinating compendium of Burroughs-speak, so complete it can be considered a credo.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312147678
• ISBN13: 9780312147679
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

rediscover burroughs

I picked this book up after reading a few other biograpies by Bockris, and, although I can say that I am bored by Burroughs the writer, I am facinated by Burroughs the man. Always interesting and funny, you don't have to be a fan of William Burroughs' writing to be intrigued by his personality and intelligence.

the man who is the sharpest knife in the drawer...

The usual cold-fish attitude so closely associated with Burroughs is bowled over by a brilliant, funny-funny man who, through some divine intervention is seemingly unaffected by his "habits". This book is far better than a biography written by some wanna-be author who ran out the day before the interview and bought Naked Lunch. Observe the happenings and processes Burroughs goes through during his creative process and revel in the true glory of Bill Burroughs