A lot of people (even some who were personally acquainted with WSB, and should know better) feel that Burroughs was just being ironic when he talked about guns, Scientology, etc., or that his professed interest in those subjects was a metaphor for something else. (What, exactly?) Presumably they don't know that Burroughs's obsession with Scientology drove away his boyfriend Ian Sommerville, or that the Naked Lunch author was deadly serious about gun ownership and the individual's right to self-defense.

Not that there isn't legitimate cause for confusion, especially since WSB's biographers rarely underscore the fact that some of his opinions changed over time. It has become de rigueur to portray him as an eccentric genius whose positions were etched in stone, but this excessive deference is just silly...especially since Burroughs himself said, "I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy." For the record, he did recant on Scientology (see My Education: A Book of Dreams), and admitted that apomorphine had not been a miracle cure for his junk habit (Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs).

You may be wondering how any of this is relevant to The Job, Daniel Odier's book-length interview session with Burroughs. The point is that these interviews represent WSB at a specific moment in time--the late '60s/early '70s--and should not be interpreted as the expression of a monolithic, unchanging philosophy. In one breath he says something that makes sense ("You see, the whole concept of a nation depends on the hostility of another nation on the other side of a line"); in the next he gives out with utter nonsense (riots can be started with tape recordings). For the layman this will prove frustrating, but The Job contains enough valid observations to make it worth a read for Burroughs aficionados.

Just how valid, and eerily prescient, could his observations be? Try this one on for size: "Any serious attempt to enforce (state and federal drug laws in the U.S.) would entail a computerized invasion of privacy, a total police terror, a police machine that would pull the entire population into its orbit of violators, police, custody, courts, defense, probation and parole. Just tell the machine to enforce all laws by whatever means and the machine will sweep us to the disaster of a computerized police state." ( )

If counter-culture types applied as much skepticism and critical analysis to their own ideas as they do towards anything arising from The Establishment, they would be a lot more interesting.

Instead, you get bores like Burroughs, who lectures confidently on subjects he knows nothing about (lasers! used to push people into oncoming laundry trucks! and to transmit thought!) and who has fallen for every crackpot theory from the 50s and 60s. Scientology? Check. Wilhelm Reich? Check. The Mayans? Check.

Dissenters of this stripe are no better than Evangelicals: they've made up their mind as to what ought to be true, and whatever disagrees with or contradicts that is either the naive beliefs of the unenlightened, or the outright lies of enemy propaganda. Science? Nah, that's just a bunch of guys in lab coats working for a shadow bureacracy. The real spirit of free inquiry discovers truth from within, man.

It's a pity so many people get turned onto this crap when they're too young and inexperienced to know better.


But eh, whatever works for ya. Yes, I'm sure a "Cambridge dentist" actually "extracted teeth with no other anaesthetic than music through headphones." They used to do that in the frontier days, only without the music.

And that "cut-up method" for whch Burroughs is famous couldn't possibly be producing spurious connections of no inherent value. Wait, doesn't page 173 note that "man tends to find pattern and picture where objectively there is none"?

You can't look too closely at any of Burroughs' stuff, or it all starts to fall apart. ( )

This is, for me, the peak of Burroughs' articulation of his philosophy. All of the incredible ideas that he'd put into his novels that may've seemed a bit unclear b/c of the fantasticness of their presentation are presented here in a straight discursive form. Here's a sample of some classic Burroughs from page 75:

"Q: Any comments on the assassination of Robert Kennedy?

"A: It seems likely that the assassination was arranged by the far right, and that the arrangers are now taking this opportunity to pass anti-gun laws, and disarm the nation for the fascist takeover. That will certainly occur, if America is involved in a war with China. As to how such assassinations are arranged, there are very definite techniques for doing this. Assassins often hear voices telling them to kill. Are these voices necessarily imaginary? Directional mikes can project voices. Top secret research on lasers is concerned with sending thoughts."

As usual, Burroughs mixes fairly astute political observation (Bobby Kennedy probably was killed thru ultra-right machinations upset by his anti-mafia & pro-civil rights activities) w/ a projective sense of where technologies might be heading (making people hear voices is something discussed at greater lengths in later bks - such as "Paranoid Women Collect Their Thoughts"). As for "anti-gun laws"? Well I'm not really w/ Burroughs on this one AND we didn't got to war w/ China. "Fascist takeover"? Sometimes I think that w/ the assassinations of JFK, MLK, Robert Kennedy, & Malcolm X - & the placement of Johnson in office as the president the succession of Texas & southern presidents since (exemplified by the Reagan/Bush era of the last 28 yrs) that the South got their revenge for losing the Civil War & that that's been a form of fascist takeover.

At any rate, if you're interested in Burroughs as a social critic & a philosopher, read this bk above any others. This is a great compliment to the novels. ( )

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No one should read any books by Burroughs unless you have read the books about drugs by Huxley and Leary and several other authors of the Beat Generation. Perhaps «The Yage Letters» and «The Job» are the best introduction to Burroughs after having read that other stuff. Mind you, William S. Burroughs holds a PhD, but his drug use and wild fantasy are flabbergasting. Many ideas expressed in this book are mind boggling to totally incomprehensible. ( )