Style vs. Content

While reading "The Ticket That Exploded" I have come to realize that Burroughs' cut-up style of writing is much easier to pay attention to than the content of the actual story. I have come to this realization not because the cut-up style is necessarily appealing to me but because I cannot seem to connect the content of one chapter to the next, thus leaving my memory of what I have read as a mash up of words that rarely connect themselves in my brain.  I do not consider myself a good reader, maybe the trouble I am experiencing in this book has to do with my skill level but I have also considered that Burroughs had no problem with, or possibly even intended to write a book that turned the reader away from the content to focus on his writing style. 

After finishing a couple chapters I set the book down and tried to remember what I had just read.  I knew that the content of what I absorbed had to do with ejaculation, sperm, gilled frog boys, anal penetration, touch and sensations and a few other keywords, but past those I had come out of it with no cohesive story line or content that was relevant or meant anything to me.  At that point I read the reviews on the back of the book to try and figure out why this book is required for english 238 or even regarded as worthwhile. Many of the reviews on the back cover of the book praise William S. Burroughs for his writing and his cut-up style, but one review stuck out to me. It reads, "Burroughs seems to revel in a new medium...a medium totally fantastic, spaceless, timeless, in which the normal sentence is fractured, the cosmic tries to push its way through the bawdry, and the author shakes the reader as a dog shakes a rat," -Anthony Burgess.  This review makes a lot of sense to me as it is essentially saying because Burroughs style is new (cut-up), the reader is forced to push themselves through the reading that is often obscene. After all is said and done Burroughs is in control of the reader like a dog who holds a rat in its mouth; there is no hope for the reader, except for the possibility that Burroughs will let us live through this horrible experience only to be left on the ground battered with images of anal penetration filling our heads.

Perhaps suggesting there is no hope for the reader to understand is taking it too far, but I believe that Burroughs' intention, to some degree, is to turn the reader away from his subject matter so the reader can only focus on his 'brilliant' writing style.  Burroughs accomplishes the distraction away from the story line in many ways, one of which is writing more of odd sexual situations, such as anally inserted eggs that ejaculate frog tadpoles, than anything else.  By writing of subjects that turn most people away in disgust Burroughs develops a fear, or in some cases a hate of the subject matter in the reader.  If a reader develops this disgust in comprehending what Burroughs is writing, they will be turned off to his content and focus more on his unique writing style.  Another way in which Burroughs turns his reader away from comprehension and towards paying attention to the way he writes is through writing chapters that do not seem to connect to each other.  It is difficult to read different sections of the book that do not relate and try to tie them together on ones own.  After reading three sections that do not relate it is easier for the reader to change the focus of their reading away from comprehension and towards William S. Burroughs writing style.  If the difficulty in connecting ideas and sections can only be achieved by few, the rest of the readers are left with a concentration on his writing style.  If this is what Burroughs hoped for and accomplished than I accept that this idea is truly brilliant.  

Again I do not consider myself very good at reading comprehension so perhaps there is a cohesive set of ideas that tie together to make a story. Even if there is a story and a meaning, the difficulty in achieving comprehension of this book leaves me focused on Burroughs writing style, be it brilliant and innovative or not. 

My other thought is that Burroughs wanted to push the boundaries of what could be published.  Maybe he got his kicks through having publishers read and publish his grotesque ideas about sex and men. 

More Morel Thoughts

One line in the book that I felt linked directly to the idea of "Invention of Morel" and the movie "Groundhog Day" being somewhat similar was when the says, "Even if we left tomorrow, we would be here eternally, repeating consecutively the moments of this week"(76). When I read this I instantly thought of Bill Murray stuck in his endless February 2nd. I don't have much more to go with that one since we discussed it in class.

After reading the narrators findings on the projections that not only the people were recorded and projected but also the state of the buildings at the time of recording are projected I found some faults in his ideas of what to do with the projections. The narrator writes, "It is impossible to open the doors-even the unlocked ones-(because if they were closed when the scene was recorded, they must be closed when it is projected)"(79).  This poses quite a few problems for the practical use of these recordings.  Because a successful projection depends on the surroundings of the projections being exactly the same as they were when recoded, Morel's machine brings up many problems of limited use. First of all, these projections can only properly function in a completely unchanging, and predictable environment.  If the projections were to keep trying to function while there were changing variables it would bring up problems.  At the simplest level of change, the projections would be interacting in a time when perhaps the weather is not the same as when the images were recorded.  The narrator even observes this when he recalls that the images danced on the grassy hill during a rain storm as if it weren't there.  These small levels of change do not pose a threat to the success of the enduring projections, however when you get into longer term, bigger changes more problems occur. One example is if an image is recorded walking on a beach that is eroded or under water during time of projection, what becomes of that projected person? Are they simply projected walking on the water or is the ground projected over a moving ocean? This thought brings into play so many problems of projected images, overlying other images and eventually overlying the real earth.  To a living observer, they would not be able to tell what was real and what was a projection, making life almost impossible. Could a living person eat projected food? If so why not make unlimited supplies of food that was there in the past. Could cars run on projected fuel? Maybe only if the fuel was projected as running through an engine. The possibilities of this invention are limited but if it were possible to work out the kinks it would make the possibilities endless.

The last bit of this book that troubles me is when writing about the limited life of the projections the narrator mentions that a projections eternity is based completely on the functioning of a real machine. He also writes, "And what if Morel had thought to photograph the motors"(91).  This idea of making safety back ups of back ups of what is perceived as life is dangerous, because it makes such a clutter of information that it would be difficult to follow. Not only would this be near impossible to manage but to make a recording of a machine that is projecting you would need a manual operator to make sure that the back up machine records and stops at the correct times.  I can think about all of this and try to follow Morel and the narrator's ideas but in the end all it does is blow my mind. 

"Invention of Morel"

This book has created some odd highs and lows in my thinking and interest in the story. From the beginning to page 47 the ideas presented and the mystery in it were very entertaining and kept me on my toes, but from page 47 to around page seventy the book lost my interest. This may have been due to the fact that I wasn't thinking about it completely or just not into it but I believe my disinterest was pricked at the point where the narrator explains his reasoning for what may be happening on the island (bottom of page 52).  Being presented with several explanations for what is going on blocks the reader's creativity in their own idea of what is going on.  Realizing the book still had 30 pages to save itself I kept reading and it did exactly that.  After the page fifty to page seventy section that left me in stagnant thought the book picked up quickly to a point where I would read a couple lines and then think about everything coming together, not only in the book but in class as well.  

After finishing the book and coming back to what the narrator wrote on page 52 I have a hard time understanding why he is still caught up on spending time with Faustine. He explains, "I do not believe that a dream should necessarily be taken for reality, or reality for madness"(52). Doesn't this quote mean that at the point where the narrator figured out that everything he knew of Faustine was a projection of what once was, he should have not taken this reality as simply madness but realized it is merely a dream.  Dreams, although sometimes seemingly nonsensical and out there can also be the brain recreating recent events and 'projecting' them in our sleep.  Although this idea is somewhat a stretch, the similarities between dreams and Morel's projections are there.  If the narrator had realized this perhaps he would have not taken the projections as reality, in other words not taken a dream for reality. Thinking about it more putting Morel's projections under the same umbrella  dreams is not correct.  Although the projections have similar characteristics to dreams, they are simply living history.  Because these projections are nearly dreams now, it does not discredit the fact that the images or projections being shown were in fact once real.  After coming around to this thought that the projections are more than a dream but living history, I understand that the narrator is hung up on the idea that what he sees of Faustine was once real. Because of this it is just as reasonable that he is hung up on Faustine, as it is for one of us to yearn for reliving a memorable weekend.   Thats it for now...classtime.

Commence Nanotext Blog

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