Queer

In a different world, Burroughs' second book, written in 1952, could have been the next big gay-themed American novel after The city and the pillar. But it wasn't: partly because the publisher wasn't keen, partly because Burroughs had cannibalised the already-thin manuscript to bulk up the slightly underweight text of Junky, and also partly because he obviously became disenchanted with linear narrative whilst writing it, and wanted to experiment with other techniques. The mauled manuscript was put away and eventually mislaid, and the book didn't come out until 1985, when Burroughs had just got a new seven-book deal with a different publisher and a copy of the typescript of Queer happened to surface in an archive in Liechtenstein. By show more this time gay-themed novels were no longer considered shocking by most people. At least not by the sort of people likely to pick up a book by Burroughs.

Set mostly in Mexico City, the book centres around the unrequited passion of the Burroughs-character, Lee, for a younger American, Gene Allerton (in real life Lewis Marker). Lee pursues Allerton through the bars of Mexico City, and eventually persuades him to come on a quest into South America to search for the possibly mythical drug Yage, but it's clear that Allerton, whilst sometimes willing to be bought, is rather repelled than attracted by the older man. His condition for coming on the trip south is that he won't be expected to have sex with Lee more than twice a week. The narrative of the main text peters out somewhere in the rain forest, and then we see Lee in an epilogue back in Mexico City some time later, fruitlessly trying to find out where Allerton has gone.

The main interest of the book isn't really in this rather standard and dated obsession narrative, nor in the bizarrely awkward dialogues in gay bars, but rather in the "routines," the witty, surreal and very politically-incorrect monologues Lee comes out with when he's trying to deflect attention from his own problems. They are a joy, and flag the direction in which Burroughs' writing is going. show less

Há décadas tenho uma profunda identificação com o Burroughs, começou quando vi um documentário sobre ele e li O gato por dentro (ele tinha o mesmo tipo de relaçãoque tenho com gatos), depois ele acabou influciando minha escrita ao escrever contos quando li outros livros dele.
Ler Queer no presente momento me deixou bem deprimida porque me identifiquei com a narrativa no nível projetivo, nunca fui dependente química, mas eu tinha minha fonte particular de produção de dopamina que me foi tirada no último ano, por isso esse sentimento de carência que ele descreve no livro por estar em abstinência é tão claro pra mim, depois de seis meses só agora estou saindo da minha "abstinência", o que pra ele levou um mês.
Enfim, por show more isso foi um livro especial para mim, mais um ponto de conexão com o Burroughs, que era mega aquariano como eu. show less

So I have a tricky relationship with this book.

It's one of the first pieces of queer literature that I ever read, and I read it when I was quite young. I was hungry for representation and depiction of queer characters. I had accepted myself as a queer person and was happy, but I needed validation.

I think it's one of his earlier works and isn't as well-written as some of his others. I'm not sure if it's problematic or not, I would have to reread it, but I'm not sure if I will.

I'm not sure if I will because it was difficult for me to read. The self-loathing and hatred the protagonist portrays is palpable. He looks at his sexuality as a monster or an obstacle he must overcome and the book is just riddled with tension.

If I read it correctly show more the first time, all those years ago, this character is a partial representation of how Burroughs felt about himself.

So I don't like this book, but it'll always have a place in my heart as one of the first queer pieces of literature I read. I'm glad I read it, but this might not be the best book to pick up if you're just starting with Burroughs, or looking for some uplifting LGBTIQA fiction. show less

I've always liked this book a lot: pound for pound, it's WSB's best effort as a novelist. And while Queer--like Junky--follows a linear narrative, it's a very different animal than its predecessor. The previous book is an observation of a phenomenon; this one is a study of loneliness and the painful ineptitude which dooms the main character's efforts to relieve that loneliness, and will resonate with anyone who's ever been in that position. Today, of course, the term "queer" has a specifically sociopolitical connotation, but that was not the case in the early 1950s when Burroughs wrote this novel. One does not have to be gay, nor an aficionado of gay literature, to appreciate Queer.

Burroughs became famous for the "difficult" writing of show more Naked Lunch and the cut-ups, and is still remembered for those experimental works today. But whenever I reread Queer, I'm reminded that he was a great conventional novelist when he wanted to be. If you crave more WSB in this vein, check out Interzone, a collection of his early short fiction. (See also William S. Burroughs Jr.'s Speed, a late minor classic in the Beat oeuvre. Billy died young and completed only two novels, but every fan of the father should read the son's work, too.) show less

Decay pervades this novel. I thought it was merely that I had purchased a fairly old yet never used book and that was where the sense of decrepitude emanates, but then I realized it is the odorous imagery Burroughs' invokes of Mexico City and sundry South American locales. From the bars to the characters, the feeling that some elegance has been shatteringly lost, some refinement irrevocably misplaced leaks from the text. This thrilling (if noxious) interplay of word and action lends itself well to the withdrawals the main character Lee feels from heroin and also to his unquenchable lust for younger men.
I found myself fascinated by the locales visited by Lee, oddly not irritated by his cantankerous and often somewhat crude and racist show more commentary about people and place, but rather seeing them react only to what Lee himself was generating. It was an exercise in frustration however to watch him pine for the focused subject of his lust, his diffident conquest and later travel companion Allerton, almost as if Allerton acts as a receptacle for the withdrawal symptoms Lee experiences.
In many senses of the word, 'queer' accurately describes this novel. Recalling the historical time period that Burroughs would have used this word - before the reclamation of Queer as an identifier signifying positive difference - Lee brings blatant many of the perjorative uses for it, and also the usage as a marker of something strange or out of sorts. However, taking into account the modern use of queer as a way to positively affirm an identity outside the norm, Queer presents an unglamorous but accepting depiction of a homosexual man, never really emblazoning said queerness in neon pink letters with sparkly lights, but rather showing a sympathetic (if frequently rambling) recovering junky. The queerness of the text comes more to light in Lee's eccentricities than merely in his sexual proclivities. show less

For more than three decades, while its writer's world fame increased, Queer remained unpublished because of its forthright depiction of homosexual longings. Set in the corrupt and spectral Mexico City of the forties, Queer is the story of William Lee, a man afflicted with both acute heroin withdrawal and romantic and sexual yearnings for an indifferent user named Eugene Allerton. The narrative is punctuated by Lee's outrageous "routines" — brilliant comic monologues that foreshadow Naked Lunch —yet the atmosphere is heavy with foreboding.In his extraordinary introduction, Burroughs reflects on the shattering events in his life that lay behind this work.

I borrowed this from my local library. It was such a degenerate and disturbing piece of work that it was hard for me to get into it. The plot was quite simplistic as well. I had read Naked Lunch previously as an experiment and had, after, read much Kerouac and all of Ginsberg to get into Beat Literature. However, this was not working for me- the intensity of the degeneracy was a little too far for me to enjoy it. I did not find the narrator likeable in any means and, since the narrator is meant to represent Burroughs himself, that is not a good thing.

I found myself more interested in the introduction and appendix (the supplementary materials) than the book itself. That speaks on its own.

Nevertheless, it was a character study of a show more lonely, misguided, lustful, and disturbed man. I suppose that you have to take that as you will.

2 stars- not recommended. show less