An Original Perspective on a Unique Artist

 William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll by Casey Rae

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll cover

This was an interesting take on Burroughs and his influence on popular culture, specifically rock music in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I appreciated reading his book before reading some other books like Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hannah and Sonic Life by Thurston Moore. Although Hannah didn’t talk about Burroughs, she did write a lot about Kurt Cobain, and Rae dedicates at least a chapter to talking about Burroughs in the 90s and Kurt Cobain. Similarly, Thurston Moore talked about meeting Burroughs with his daughter Coco, and I think that Rae brought up the same story. Overall, I liked this book. Rae discusses Burroughs’s biography, his writing career, and then goes in to talk about Burroughs and different musical movements, spending some time exploring Burroughs and Punk Rock, Bowie, and how Burroughs’s writing tied in and was influenced by music. I had also recently read two books about Bowie, and the one about Bowie’s album Low by Hugo Wilcken also mentioned some of Bowie’s interest in black magik and the cut and paste method of writing that Burroughs employed, so I really enjoyed Rae’s recounting of the interview between Bowie and Burroughs, and how these two seemingly different artists aligned in some ways and actually met. It is interesting to think about how adaptive Bowie was; people described him as like a myna bird, just taking on the influences around him. I think that Burroughs was also kind of like that—able to blend in and adapt by kind of taking in influences and making them distinctly his own. In any event, this book provided a unique insight and perspective on one of my favorite writers. I really liked learning about this different perspective to see how engaged Burroughs was with some of these musical movements, even though I don’t always think of him as a musical artist per se. Yet, Burroughs viewed media in general as a powerful tool to convey ideas and messages, and I can see how certain movements like punk rock have a similar idea, even if it might be advocating for more independent thought and pushing back against this kind of mind control. I can see how Burroughs’s ideas about music, media, and language in particular may have been shaped by the changes to popular music that he witnessed in his lifetime. Although the author uses extensive research and analysis in examining Burroughs’s  connection the popular music (and not so popular music), at times I felt that the chapters were either repetitive or not well synthesized with the overall thesis of the book. That is, there seemed to be events and ideas that re-appeared, but were introduced as a new idea or example rather than reiterated or integrated within the overall ideas about Burroughs’s influence. I kind of felt like this was a book of separate essays that were pulled together with one main focus or that the author wrote some of these pieces in different places, eventually gathering them together into one whole. It’s not such a bad thing, but I definitely think that having some kind of unifying chapter or thesis that brings these separate chapters together would have strengthened the overall work. Nevertheless, Rae has developed a unique perspective about one of the most original writers and artists of the 20^th century.