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Product Description
My Education is Burroughs's last novel, first published two years before his death in 1997. It is a book of dreams, collected over several decades and as close to a memoir as we will see. The dreams cover themes from the mundane and ordinary - conversations with his friends Allen Ginsberg or Ian Sommerville, feeding his cats, procuring drugs or sex - to the erotic, bizarre and visionary. Always a rich source of imagery in Burroughs's own fiction, in this book dreams become a direct and powerful force in themselves.
About the Author
William S. Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in St Louis. In work and in life Burroughs expressed a lifelong subversion of the morality, politics and economics of modern America. To escape those conditions, and in particular his treatment as a homosexual and a drug-user, Burroughs left his homeland in 1950, and soon after began writing. By the time of his death he was widely recognised as one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the twentieth century. His numerous books include Naked Lunch, Junky, Queer, Nova Express, Interzone, The Wild Boys, The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. After living in Mexico City, Tangier, Paris, and London, Burroughs finally returned to America in 1974. He died in 1997.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For those who are in any way familiar with Burrough's seminal writing, the hallucinogenic and dream-like qualities in many of the sequences in books such as 'Naked Lunch,' etc., will already have been noted. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that Burroughs drew much of his inspiration from actual dreams, spawned in the ever-turning and enigmatic mind of the great writer.
Here, then, is a collection of Burroughs' dream journals, in which he recorded, over the course of a number of years, his dreams.
Typically strange, and full of bizarre and potent imagery, this book provides an insight into the inspiration for many of the passages which appeared in his manifold full-length novels. Furthermore, it provides further proof, if any was required, that Burroughs really did live his work.
More accessible, both in terms of structure and prose style, than much of his work, this is a truly fascinating read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A True Book of Dreams
31 July 1997
Format:Hardcover
The criticisms of this book commonly state that it is disjointed and detached. Finally, a book of dreams that doesn't pursue some interconnection of the dreams or a relation of them to reality. There are recurring themes, but as in the dreams every person has, they are recurring dreams, and they do not suppose a greater meaning than being dreams. This book let's your mind dream along with Burroughs. Some parts are detailed, and others are totally vague... so much like a dream, you feel a little hazy when you put it down..
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A tourbook of the Land of the Dead
5 Jun 2003
Format:Paperback
This really isn't a novel. It is much more than that. This is where Burroughs got so many of the images for his life time of work. You see, this is a tour book of The Land of the Dead, or as he also called it, The Place of Dead Roads. While he subtitles this work _A Book of Dreams_ he is careful to point out that these are a very special sort of dream. They are dreams that are more real than waking life. Indeed, the author speculates if the dreaming city isn't really his true home, his true life- far more real than Lawrence, Kansas.
You can't expect to read a book like this in the same way that you would read an ordinary book. You must unfocus your mind, in the same way that you must unfocus your eyes to truly SEE some abstract art. Only then will the images begin to flow and transport you. That is because this book is a conscious act of magic, as the old magician knew when he crafted it....
See if the Land of the Dead doesn't start to seem very familiar to you. I know I immediately recognised the place he was describing. It is a place where the dead, the sleeping, the magical travellers all meet. That is why the landscape and architecture are such a tangle, why there are no clear distinctions between public and private places. It is a mad, mixed, consensus "reality." That is also why flight is possible there. You see, in such a place gravity isn't a law- it is an opinion....
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
One of his best novels.
10 Aug 2002
Format:Paperback
I think this was a very interesting concept to record 5 years worth of dreams and then put them into a book. Some of the images and characters Burroughs comes up with are so vivid and so realistic that when I read this I actually felt like I was with Burroughs during this subconcious journey.
I liked how he used his dreams as education, and how he realized the importance of his dreams; a very Freudian quality. I think that this book represented finally coming to terms with your past, and accepting vicissitude (or change) that others tend to shy away from. This book is a very important addition to Burroughs' extensive body of work, and undoubtedly one of his best books. And often times it's overlooked because it's in the shadow of the Naked Lunch and the Soft Machine.
I liked how he used his dreams as education, and how he realized the importance of his dreams; a very Freudian quality. I think that this book represented finally coming to terms with your past, and accepting vicissitude (or change) that others tend to shy away from. This book is a very important addition to Burroughs' extensive body of work, and undoubtedly one of his best books. And often times it's overlooked because it's in the shadow of the Naked Lunch and the Soft Machine.
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