Murphy, Timothy S., Burroughs, William S.Wising Up The Marks: The Amodern William BurroughsISBN: 0-520-20950-8Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. First Edition. Hard Cover. William S. Burroughs is one of the twentieth century's most controversial and baffling literary figures. In this comprehensive study of the writer, Timothy S. Murphy places Burroughs in the company of the most significant intellectual minds of our time. In doing so, he gives us an immensely readable and convincing account of a man whose achievements continue to have a major influence on American art and culture. Murphy draws on the work of such philosophers as Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Theodor Adorno, and Jean-Paul Sartre, and also investigates the historical contexts from which Burroughs's writings arose. From the paranoid isolationism of the Cold War through the countercultural activism of the sixties to the resurgence of corporate and state control in the eighties, Burroughs's novels, films, and music hold a mirror to the American psyche. Murphy coins the term "amodernism" as a way to describe Burroughs' contested relationship to the canon while acknowledging the writer's explicit desire for a destruction of such systems of classification. This study presents a solid portrait of a major artistic innovator, a writer who combines aesthetics and politics and who can perform as anthropologist, social goad, or media icon, all with consummate skill. Issued without dust jacket. Unread copy. Cloth on boards. Spine a bit dusty. Very Fine [Item #1074]
Price: $59.00
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