Queer, A Novel by William S. Burroughs
File under: Not “Gay” as in “Happy,” “Queer” as in “Question Authority” (edited for today’s performance of decorum)
I hadn’t touched Burroughs since the 1991 movie Naked Lunch invited me into a nibble. I did not devour. I was only 16 then, and too focused on assembling my costume of conformity for my survival performance to appreciate the critique of control our Beat poets offered.
Burroughs was way ahead of me, of course. I drank the Kool-aid for decades. The same cultural forces that told me I could be anything while shoving me into a girl suit also lied to say Americans live free. I only know from unlearning what was taught to me that this nation’s genocidal inception, its history of slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese Internment and other horrors prove authoritarianism has always been hidden under the glossy banner of “the free and the brave.”
As Trump rolls back time and dispenses with the constitution while general citizenry winds up our outrage and so-called checks and balances watch on wondering what to do, I am compelled towards reminders that non-conforming life existed long before “Love is Love” gained traction. As well as I know the contours of every corner of the closet I lived in, I know it certainly did. And most accounts corroborate it wasn’t cute. Let’s not be surprised. I expect to meet y’all in the streets soon!
I spent a day on the couch licking my post-inauguration wounds with Queer. Burroughs plundered bits of the original 1952 manuscript to add more meat to Naked Lunch when the latter was selected for publication, so, zoomed out, the resulting novella is a somewhat fragmented and gruesome account of a self-medicated expatriate looking for certain affections and pharmacies dispensing unregulated opiates. Generosity is required on the part of the reader to call it a story. This is not a blanket recommendation. Content warning for pedophilia. Repression is no joke.
Zoomed in, however, it is filled with beautiful sentences describing the pain and longing of possessing a forbidden truth and desire. My favorite: “Yes, I know. Too bad. If I had my way, we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”
This gritty assembly offers tremendous sympathy for a human being having a real and tender longing that cannot be manifest.
We cannot go back. Historic depictions like Queer (and the movie Capote I rewatched two weeks ago) can be useful in recognizing how far we’ve come toward liberation. I know there’s still a long way to go to transform the structures that exist to prevent actual freedom and keep me in line to Empire’s benefit. And we must keep moving forward.
Like a swing on some monkey bars, may we use this very disorienting, momentum-gathering backswing to propel ourselves ever forward. And like the playground equipment, can it be joyful? Fuel up, folks.
