>
>
>Evidently Burroughs is revealing the
>depths of depravity borne of drug addiction, sadism,
and pedophilia.
>
True. And beyond that, he is revealing the obsessions and
addictions that result from the exercise of
authority--scientific, political, academic. Dr Benbow, and
the "algebra of need" that defines his actions, is the best
example. Miker mentioned that no one would publish NL today
for fear of offending religious groups, esp. Muslims. That's
probably true, but wasn't the book first published in 1959 by
the Olympia Press in Paris, not in the US, b/c of its
"obscenity" and descriptions of
"depravity"? It was the last of the "high literary value"
banned books published in this country to be liberated, in
1966, after Miller, Lawrence, and Selby. Burroughs was
obscene, all right, b/c in what other kind of story could he
let people "see what is on the end of that long newspaper
spoon"? For an example of that today, recall that although
political correctness would inhibit the publishing and
distributing of critiques of fundamentalist Islam, our
President can speak of
"Islamo-fascists" in hopes of reminding people before Nov 8
of who protects them from evil enemies. Where is the sense of
restraint that should prevent the kids in NL to try erotic
asphixiation, or the sense of decency that would prevent
Benbow from his hellish perversions of social engineering? In
the same toilet that the cigarette companies swam in while
they successfully scared major newspapers out of printing
stories (lest they lose too much advertising revenue) of the
connection between cancer and smoking from about 1939 to
1960. There's your algebra of need. No wonder it was American
novelists who invented noir.
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