by WilliamSBurroughs (Author), ProfessorOliverHarris (Editor)
A total assault on the powers that turn humans into machines by writing and fixing our life scripts, Burroughs' original cut-up book was itself rewritten in three different forms. This new edition of The Soft Machine clarifies for the first time the extraordinary history of its writing and rewriting, demolishes the myths of his chance-based writing methods, and demonstrates for a new generation the significance of Burroughs' greatest experiment. Edited from the original manuscripts by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this revised edition incorporates an introduction and appendices of never before seen materials.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Edition: 3 Revised
Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 27 Mar 2014
ISBN 10: 0802122116
ISBN 13: 9780802122117
One of the most interesting pieces of radical fiction we have. --The Nation
[Burroughs's] great fictions [show] his superb, hard-edged satirical visions of cancerous and addictive consumerism; his elegiac and poetic invocations of sadness and dislocation; his enormous fertility of ideas and imagery. --Will Self
Out of the dirt, the excrement, the couplings, Burroughs makes a disgusting, exciting poetry. --Sunday Times
The author, no longer raging in obscurity with his devils, has devised a technique, the Cut Up and Pemutation. . . . Burroughs writes, and cuts, and pastes, and adds, and recuts, repastes, rearranges by hazard. --The New York Times Book Review
Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift. --Jack Kerouac