THOUGHT: Stealing Burroughs like Derleth stole Lovecraft

So, I've been revisiting W S Burroughs lately: I found an audiobook of The Soft Machine at the library the other week, and I've been listening to it in the car on random play (sometimes with other discs, sometimes on its own).   And I've got to say, I fucking LOVE the cut up method.    There's a lot of people who can't stand it (my delightful love partner and best friend Nalin among them), but it speaks to me in some barely-articulable way, like it's speaking directly to the part of me where dreams are made.   The thrill some people get out of poetry, I get out of cut-ups.  The surreal flashes of imagery, the non-connected moments juxtaposed at random!  It's the closest thing to actual dreaming I can feel (in a reading or writing capacity).   

I still remember when I first discovered the book Minutes to Go: it was 1993, the Baillieu Library at Melbourne Uni.  The book not only outlined the process and thoughts behind the cut-up as a compositional tool, but was also filled with examples of the cut-up (and fold-in) approach.  It blew my fucking mind.   I immediately rushed home and started making my own cut-ups (in a project that I still revisit now and then, some twenty six years later, eep).

Anyway.  Point is, I loved the cut-up then and there.   But that's not all I love about Mr Burroughs and his writing.   His deadpan descriptions of completely fucked up situations and people, his grey prose detailing the most colourful antics, is such an excellent voice.   His time-travelling body-possessing achronic multi-dimensional cosmology is superb.   His humour is so dark, so black, and so perfectly delivered.  The idea of this ultradimensional Agency of fucked up antiheroes chasing down this conspiracy of fucked up criminal gangs through the very weave of space and time is just excellent.  His thoughts on addiction and language and reality and brainwashing/education/indoctrination are all fascinating.   I pretty much love everything about his writing (to be honest, I could do with fewer descriptions of morally-dubious sexual encounters, but y'know, comes with the territory).

So, re-immersing myself in that world has been a delight and an inspiration.  And when I'm inspired, I'm liable to do poorly-thought-out things.   The poorly-thought-out thing I'm embarking upon now is, chucking a cheeky August Derleth and completely ripping off the Burroughsian mythos (and approach) myself.

(For those not in the know, August Derleth was a friend of H P Lovecraft, and he’s the guy who pretty much helped Lovecraft become posthumously famous – it was Derleth who coined the term “Cthulhu Mythos” to describe the “ancient beings who once ruled the universe and will rule again someday” cosmology that Lovecraft invented (Lovecraft himself used the term “Yog-Sothery”, which is pretty cute).  But as well as anthologising a bunch of Lovecraft and publishing it, Derleth also took a bunch of Lovecraftian idea scraps and turned them into fully-fledged stories, and then started just jamming out his own stories set in Lovecraft’s glorious setting.  I’ve never actually read any Derleth Cthulhu stories, but allegedly they’re pretty shit, utilising all the exciting amorphous unintelligible Yog-Sothery of Lovecraft but then de-ambiguousing it into simple “good vs evil” tales (Derleth apparently was a fervent Christ-lover) and adding very little new of his own.)

Anyway, so, if Derleth can unashamedly steal someone else’s universe and set their own stories in it, so can I.  If Derleth can be a second-rate Lovecraft, I am allowed to be a second-rate Burroughs.

Because, let's face it, not a lot of people are doing this kinda shit at the moment.  The cut-up approach has been around for 60 years (ooh, a quick Google says that it's 60 years exactly in September of 2020!) and yet no-one's really doing it any more (there's one Japanese dude who writes cut-up-like cyberpunk, can't remember his name, but I don't know if it's actual cut-up or just incomprehensible).   

And let's also face it, Mr Burroughs himself was a little... "problematic" is the word they use these days.   As in, he was almost certainly a murderer, a misogynist, and perhaps maybe a teensy bit paedo-adjacent, if not a full-blown kiddie-fiddler (in a private letter to his definitely-paedophilic friend Allen Ginsberg, he wrote of paying "two Arab kids 60 cents to watch them screw each other ... They did it. Made me feel sorta like a dirty old man").  I mean, if that’s the shit you’re sharing with your friends, I can’t help but wonder what you’re hiding.  Eep.  Anyway – so, yeah, Old Man Burroughs is most definitely no saint, and in this age of cancel-culture, is most likely completely null and void.  

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who’s a bit less problematic update the Interzone Mythos?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone, say, maybe a bit like me, for instance, write some awesome stories in the Burroughsian mould?  Well, nice or not, I’m doing it, so there.

I’m definitely qualified.  And I promise I’ll do it justice.  And after all, the cut-up technique frequently cuts other people’s material into itself, if not makes new material entirely out of other source material – so, if Old Man Burroughs can cut up a newspaper and call it his own, I can cut up some Burroughs and call it my own.  Surely.  Thing is, I won’t even be cutting much Burroughs into what I’m writing, I don’t think – definitely will be some, but it’ll primarily be all new material written from scratch – I’ll mostly be cutting up my own writing, I think.   

But I really do want to be true to the spirit of what Burroughs was doing with his work.  It’s not just “stories set in the same mythos” that I want to do, but embrace the whole approach.  So, as he cut up newspapers from his era, I’ll be cutting up articles from mine.  As his writing was semi-autobiographical in lots of sections, so will mine be.  As his writing slipped in and out of narrative comprehensibility, so shall my own.  And that voice! I’ll do my best to recreate that deadpan, alienated, observationally-detached voice he did so well (although I can’t help but think I won’t be able to – I’m too much of a softy to remove all human emotion from my writing, I think).  I’m even writing it in small chapterlettes – and calling them “routines”, as Burroughs himself did.  (Let’s face it though – he and I are very different writers, living very different lives, in very different times, and it’s not going to be an “imitation” as much as an “homage” – I don’t want it to be “like” a Burroughs work, but “on the same trajectory” or something.   I’m not ghostwriting him, but writing from a place of love and inspiration.  So let’s get that clear – it won’t actually be all that Burroughsy – but it will hopefully do the things that I love about his writing, and be some kind of suitable tribute.)

It’s a stupid project, and one that I know will only appeal to a very very very small number of people (even Nalin, my biggest fan, will never read this – she loathes cut-ups with a passion that feels almost pathological), but I’m going to do it anyway.   And I’m going to post the routines up on my blog as I finish them (but maybe not in order), so they’re just “out there”.  Maybe if I ever get to a place where I feel like “it’s finished”, I’ll compile them into a novel or something, but that day may never come (although, now that I know that September 2020 is a significant milestone in the cut-up timeline, maybe that could be some kind of deadline or something – who knows?).

So.  Who’s with me?  Anybody?  

Off we go!  Woohooo!

FICTION: EXCERPTS FROM THE 2005 NOTEBOOK OF AVARIS HABACHI, UNDERGROUND DOCTOR

EXCERPTS FROM THE 2005 NOTEBOOK OF AVARIS HABACHI, UNDERGROUND DOCTOR

17/4/05: Patient exhibits signs of rust.  After descaling and polishing, symptoms greatly alleviated. 

23/5/05: Patient has severe case of wandering anus.  Worst case I’ve seen before.  Anus currently located 16 centimetres below left shoulder.  Patient experiences anxiety, confusion, and great inconvenience, but no pain at this stage.

30/5/05: Patient producing earwax from the nose.  Symptoms treated with discretion.

4/6/05: Patient claims to be from the future, thanks me for excellent work I have not yet performed.  Unusual but harmless.  Brought me large bouquet of irises, my favourite.  Perfume exquisite.

6/6/05: Patient growing roots.  Mostly aesthetic, however patient finds herself drawn towards large bodies of water.  Trimming causes much distress.  Tap root considerable, unresponsive to treatment.  Long baths appear to soothe.

9/6/05: Patient largely atrophied.  Currently fits in matchbox.  Generally content, but very very small. Difficult to treat because of typical medication size.  Note: patient’s sibling brought in, unusually large.  Can’t help but suspect.

13/6/05: Patient with wandering anus returned.  Anus now located midway up throat, patient much distressed.   Recommended scarves, turtle-necks, and breath-freshening mints.  Still no pain.  Lotion seems to do little to alleviate symptoms, very perplexing.

17/6/05: Patient has independent eye.  Attracted irresistibly to motion, green hues, and silent film.  Muscular tests inconclusive.  Symptoms treated with jade eyepatch and the works of D. W. Griffith.

25/6/05: Patient exhibiting dental outgrowths below the knee.  Useless in everyday mastication, but benign.  Recommended regular flossing.

26/6/05: Patient with post-knee dentation reports somnambulant episodes of partner-biting.   Mouthguard may be required during sleep.

30/6/05: Patient prone to fits of rice-making.  Delicious but needs more salt.

9/7/05: Patient exhibits signs of high-gloss.  Recommended dermatologist and fine-grade sandpaper.

13/7/05: Patient exhibits functioning gills.  Unfortunately, patient also has severe hydrophobia.  Poor response to lotions and medication.  Recommended increasing sessions of exposure to fine mist.

18/7/05: Patient exhibits extreme hair-loss, but not own hair.  Have not seen case this bad in years.  Treatment of tonic rubbed on proxy successful thus far.

21/7/05: Patient brought in by guardian.  Patient exhibiting quadrupedia, mane, tail, hooves.  Suspect patient may indeed just be horse.  Referred guardian to psychologist, and, should symptoms persist, veterinarian.

1/8/05: Patient with wandering anus now in extreme discomfort.  Anus now located in centre of forehead.  Hats help only so much.  Still no pain, but social anxiety intense.  Referral to dietician and specialist in curse-breaking.

4/8/05: Patient complaining of lack of adherence to regular chronological flow.  Recommended fibre, bath salts, and string.  Prognosis promising.  Asks for check-up appointment two months prior.  Made strange comment about irises in vase on desk (which just seem to be getting fresher and fresher).

FICTION: Bodies

Another naked man bounced off the bonnet, and the sickening way the car jumped made it clear he had fallen beneath the wheels.  A glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed it: a bloody mess of crumpled muscle and bad angles.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Melitha swore through gritted teeth.  Ahead, naked bodies lay in various stages of decomposition, rudely shoved to the sides of the road by earlier collisions.  The smell here, like the smell everywhere, was insane.

Melitha floored it.  

“Melitha,” said Thophie, trying to keep it together as the car sped along a road slick with blood, “where are we going?”

“Away from the hadron collider,” Melitha said, narrowly missing a stiff and flyblown woman on the road. “Just away.”

Thophie was certain none of this was anything to do with the hadron collider – how could it be? – but she refused to get into that argument again.  And in the end, it really didn’t matter what the cause was.  What was happening was happening.

A fly buzzing on the dashboard caught Thophie’s attention.  It was on its back, spinning, wings a blur of sporadic panic.  It seemed so normal, she almost sighed.

Another naked human – maybe once a rabbit, maybe once a fox – leapt out in front of the speeding SUV.  Melitha swerved but hit, and the naked woman spun in a grisly pirouette and fell. 

She would probably live.

(Was that a good thing?)

Thophie checked her phone again, praying that she could just google some kind of answer to all this – but the phone was still blank and lifeless.  Whatever was turning the animals into humans had also fucked with the satellites.  “What if it’s like this everywhere?”

Melitha laughed, a noise that was nothing to do with joy.

“It’s not.  It can’t be.”

A thump on the roof as someone who had, moments ago, been some kind of bird plummeted onto the SUV from above.  

“Fuck!” Melitha instinctively ducked her head, but the roof was strong.  Thophie turned and watched the naked body bouncing and rolling on the road behind them, getting bloodier and bloodier, before coming to rest on the sticky wet bitumen.  

It had started with the mammals.  But now it was happening to birds too.  Bodies fell from the clouds, heavy, flapping, scared.

(Melitha said she’d seen it happening to fish too – apparently the bay was now filled with men, women, children, all drowning.  That had been Melitha’s last straw.)

Suddenly the dashboard was filled with naked flesh.  A full-grown man, thrashing and wild-eyed, was where the fly had been.  Melitha slammed on the brakes.

“Oh, now the insects? Great, just great.”

As they dragged the man out of the car and threw him weakly onto the road, a horrifying thought occurred to Thophie.

More than 90% of the cells in the human body are parasites.

“If it’s spreading,” she said, feeling instantly uncomfortable in her own skin, “how long until…”

“Come on,” said Melitha gruffly, “let’s get the fuck out of here.”