The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, William S.)
by William S. Burroughs

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Book Reviews of The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, William S.)

Book Review: "Satan, I will destroy you forever!"-The General
Summary: 5 Stars

Although mellowed and not as controversial as previous books, THe Wild Boys is still truly awesome. The main plot when there is one centers around a variety of boys from all around the globe joining together (often engaging in destructive homosexual imagery, which WSB explains in vivid detail) and devising up beautiful if primative ways of tearing down the system and preparing for the cataclysmic wave of catharsis that is apocalypse. Nothing Burroughs writes can come to any real good. He;s not trying to make the world a better more peaceful place, he's trying to come to terms with the varied forms of violence and insanity inside all of us, and essentially creating something that transcends all boundaries and leaves out practically nothing. He's a literary genius and packs so many lucid descriptions of his mesmeric apocalyptic world and the wild people that inhibit it, but can also rise from these often free flowing images to produce feircely dark humour (Something seen more so in Naked Lunch, you can pick your finger at random sections and find something any morbid mind will laugh with.)

Amusing sections of THE Wild Boys include extremely religious covenant where the nuns control their paritioners with drugs and retardation techniques, while the head nun has frequent visions of "Jesus with ..."; a densely packed and hypocritical aristocratic party that lasts a whole month and includes every single thing you could want from the fanciest food to almost all forms of sexual taboos, while the poor outside starve to death...that part leaves Burroughs contradicting himself which is frequent in his universe, loving the uncontrolled nature of things but having a soft spot for the victims of it.

Some of the most beautiful chapters include "The Dead Child", which starts out with the narrative of an unwanted asumed poor misfit which leads through twists and turns to the narrative of ancient (now long forgotten) Indians fleeing their diseased city and eventually becoming ghosts prowling the jungle and engaging in phantom sex (something which is explained more so elsewhere in the book); "THe Miracle Of THe Rose" (which sounds like some church Christmas special) shows a few wild boys heading in the land of the blue silence and into a rose-colored book which seems to alter reality; the last chapter is pretty lucid as well, wild boys roaming through ruined suburbs in a strange, seemingly copacetic relationship while breaking into houses and stealing whatever. Too much goodness. Alot of characters like to smile too, as seen in the titles;;;"THe Penny Arcade Peep Show" sections show the stream-of-conciousness/free association process nicely.

Simply, no WSB fans should be without this book. ....

Summary of The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead (Burroughs, William S.)

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