Book Review: "Queer" by William S. Burroughs

“The rudeness of many Americans depressed him, a rudeness based on a solid ignorance of the whole concept of manners, and on the proposition that for social purposes, all people are more or less equal and interchangeable.”

- Queer by William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs is one of the authors every arts student reads in university and then, afterwards, kind of forgets about. That was me as well. I read a few works by Burroughs when attending my arts-based university lectures and then aptly forgot he existed in the world of the beats. His writing simply didn't interest me anymore (it didn't really interest me before, I was just reading him because all the bohemian kids were) and it is safe to say that for most of his works, people eventually just grow out of them. They no longer interest people who understand his degeneracy and he ceases to be 'controversial' to anyone over 19. He just becomes shock value for shock value's sake.

Books like 'Naked Lunch' no longer appeal to someone who can no longer afford to pretend to be a bohemian. However, the book 'Queer', as I was to discover, is actually quite different to his other novels. This one actually had a readable story and produced some form of substance (though it was not a lot). With some radical themes, it does do the job of being interesting for a while.

William Lee is a gay man who is traversing the world of people who dislike gay people and other people, who cannot tell whether Lee is actually gay or just pretending to be. He meets a man named Eugene Allerton and frequents a bar called Ship Ahoy with him as he recounts his tumultuous time in Mexico City. This book was actually a fairly interesting one with a premise that might not go into a lot of depth about the mind and soul but has all of the kinds of trippiness that takes me back to my university days. I can't decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing to be honest. I am just going to play it safe and take it as a bad thing.

Be that as it may, I was utterly engrossed in this book on the entire train journey from Manchester to Birmingham. I cannot tell whether that was because the book was interesting or because I had packed my laptop in my suitcase and had no other books on my person at the time. After reading two books by Derek Jarman, reading William S Burroughs is underwhelming at best. Jarman's writing is often emotional and complete with mesmerising musings on the human mind and soul whereas, at best Burroughs conjures an image of lost love through moments of sexual contact where the reader is not sure whether both sides are consenting.

Though I enjoyed this book more than I enjoy other works by Burroughs, I feel like it was still lacking in depth - which is a characteristic of all of Burroughs' novels. It is like there is nothing passed what is on the page. There is nothing to think about because the characters themselves so flawed you do not care for them. The only musing is the disgust you feel for how homosexuals are treated with a kind of reprehension. Burroughs, admittedly does this very well.

I can't tell you how many times I have tried to actually really enjoy reading Burroughs' novels. When I first read Junkie, I tried my best to like it because other people did. Admittedly, it didn't live up to what I wanted it to be. However, the book Queer, does well in its story - it is actually somewhat interesting. It is only really ruined by Burroughs' writing style. This novel would have been better probably written by other members of the beat movement. It feels too emotional and sentimental at times to be a Burroughs' novel because of his stripped down and bland style.

All in all, I thought that this book was initially quite interesting with its use of story and recount, the character of Lee may not have been well-constructed and it somewhat does well with its question of the culture surrounding the dislike for different sexualities that pervaded through the American 1950s - but it lacks a soul. This is the wording I was looking for throughout this review: this book lacks a soul like all of Burroughs' works.