Queer: A Novel by William S. Burroughs Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Queer: A Novel
Book Review: Tear-wrenching Situation Satire
Summary: 5 Stars
William's QUEER was a stunningly perfect piece of evidence supporting the statement that "Nothing a person can write has the capacity to be untrue." As I read the book during a five-day visit to Gettysburgh University, PA, I couldn't help but laugh at the subtle similarities between Lee's sorrow, his overbearing affection for Allerton, his vulnerability, and all those elements also exhibited in modern day 'traditional' lives. QUEER is an unignorable read for the Burroughs buff and everyone else.Book Review: Tenderness in the sexual repression.
Summary: 5 Stars
This books is a very sensible story of William Burroughs with his boyfriend Allerton in the 50's in the spectral corrupted Mexico City, where queers where sexually repressed and where the repression was another tool of control.
Burroughs give a comprehensible writing, more in the genre of Junky, where this is a straightforward telling with reality transposition, and with this tender and sad story of the end of the addiction of Burroughs and his sexual orientation and love story with this young boy which goes on a trip with Burroughs and ends on a really sad ending with tears streaming down from his face in the sound of the wind down the city streets and piano music in a feel of hardcore sadness.
Book Review: WSB's most accessible novel
Summary: 4 Stars
This book scrapes greatness in its harrowing portrayal of obsessive love. Why isn't it a masterpiece? Because it doesn't so much end as just...stops. Still, a must read.Book Review: burroughs disappoints
Summary: 3 Stars
I found queer to be a dissapointment. I loved Junky, and it is one of my favorite books, but queer was a let down. It takes place after junky ends and we follow William Lee around with his fascination with Eugene Allerton and his trip to South America. But the story isn't that interesting. There is more of a plot here than there was in junky, but I found Lee's struggles with heroin much more fascinating than his obssession over the boring Allerton. queer is told from an outside narrator rather than from Lee's perspective, and as a result, the voice that helped make junky so great is missing. It just doesn't match with the standards Burroughs set when he wrote Junky. If you are a Beat scholar, then this is a book you should read (it is one of Burroughs important works) or if you study gay literature, then you should read this. If you're just looking for a good book, reread Junky...Book Review: tragedy of a drifter
Summary: 5 Stars
A book of unreciprocated feelings, and longings amplified by withdrawel and junk sickness. This is a much more intimate and personal look into the life of William Burroughs than his other stuff. It takes place after he accidentally killed his wife, and he is sobering up and facing all of the demons and guilt previously dulled by the drugs.
This book was banned for a long time, the homosexual relationships and longings aren't grotesque exaggerations with shock value in mind like some of his other stories, they are very human and almost universal innocent boyish longings for affection.
He develops these "routines", funny stories he uses that show off his sarcasm and absurd sense of humor when he wants the attention of the room. All of the stories are hilarious and really show off his talent as a writer, but the people around him generally could care less or they just don't get it. So he is trapped always in a foreign land suspicious of everyone searching endlessly for islands of sanctuary.
Burroughs claims in the introduction that just reading the words and putting it down is very painful for him, but he did it so that he could move forward. A very intense time in the life of a brilliant and fascinating character.