Details
BURROUGHS, William Seward (1914-1997). Typed letter signed ('William Burroughs') to Mr Barnard, Cargo U.S. Consulate, Tanger, Morocco, 19 September 1963, 'I enclose a short piece of experimental writing I hope you will find suitable for your magasine', ¼ page, folio, with typed manuscript titled "That's mighty close, Clem", including 'A note on the method used in this text', with a few amendments in biro, together 3¼ pages, folio.
AN EXAMPLE OF BURROUGHS' 'CUT-UP' NARRATIVE, WITH THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPLANATION OF HIS TECHNIQUE.
This 'experimental' piece of writing opens with Bradly Martin sitting on his porch, approached by neighbouring stockmen, Clem and Arch, who accuse him of stealing their cattle. Burroughs talked of his ideas for this piece in an interview with Conrad Knickerbocker in 1965 , 'during the war I was stationed in Coldspring, Texas... genuine backwoods country, and I picked up some real characters there... a fellow.. who was always having trouble with his neighbors, who suspected him of rustling their cattle... he was competent with a gun... I'm interested in extending newspaper and magazine formats to so-called literary materials. Here, this is one of my attempts. This is going to be published in a little magazine, 'The Sparrow''. A recurring character in Burroughs' works, Mr Bradly, Mr Martin, is here called 'Bradly Martin' (both Clem and Mr Bradly Mr Martin feature in the Naked Lunch, Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded and Ali's Smile). In the interview Burroughs outlines the story, 'Bradly Martin... he's the gunfighter... I'm not sure yet what's going to happen after Clem accuses him of rustling cattle... he's going to kill Clem, obviously. Clem is practically a dead man. Clem is going to get likkered up and ... Bradly Martin is going to kill him, that's for sure'. (see 'The Art of Fiction, William S. Burroughs', in the Paris Review, 2004).
Burroughs' adopts his 'cut-up' technique, a collage of words taken from different sources, prompting new connections and images. Burroughs' own explanation is included in the present lot, 'Since work in progress tentatively titled a distant hand lifted consists of walky talky messages between remote posts of interplanetary war the cut up and fold in method is here used as a decoding operation. For example agent K9 types out a page of random impressions from whatever is presentd to him at the moment:: street sounds, phrases from newspaper or magasine... He then folds this page down the middle and places it on another page of typewriter messages...'.
AN EXAMPLE OF BURROUGHS' 'CUT-UP' NARRATIVE, WITH THE AUTHOR'S OWN EXPLANATION OF HIS TECHNIQUE.
This 'experimental' piece of writing opens with Bradly Martin sitting on his porch, approached by neighbouring stockmen, Clem and Arch, who accuse him of stealing their cattle. Burroughs talked of his ideas for this piece in an interview with Conrad Knickerbocker in 1965 , 'during the war I was stationed in Coldspring, Texas... genuine backwoods country, and I picked up some real characters there... a fellow.. who was always having trouble with his neighbors, who suspected him of rustling their cattle... he was competent with a gun... I'm interested in extending newspaper and magazine formats to so-called literary materials. Here, this is one of my attempts. This is going to be published in a little magazine, 'The Sparrow''. A recurring character in Burroughs' works, Mr Bradly, Mr Martin, is here called 'Bradly Martin' (both Clem and Mr Bradly Mr Martin feature in the Naked Lunch, Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded and Ali's Smile). In the interview Burroughs outlines the story, 'Bradly Martin... he's the gunfighter... I'm not sure yet what's going to happen after Clem accuses him of rustling cattle... he's going to kill Clem, obviously. Clem is practically a dead man. Clem is going to get likkered up and ... Bradly Martin is going to kill him, that's for sure'. (see 'The Art of Fiction, William S. Burroughs', in the Paris Review, 2004).
Burroughs' adopts his 'cut-up' technique, a collage of words taken from different sources, prompting new connections and images. Burroughs' own explanation is included in the present lot, 'Since work in progress tentatively titled a distant hand lifted consists of walky talky messages between remote posts of interplanetary war the cut up and fold in method is here used as a decoding operation. For example agent K9 types out a page of random impressions from whatever is presentd to him at the moment:: street sounds, phrases from newspaper or magasine... He then folds this page down the middle and places it on another page of typewriter messages...'.
Special notice
Buyers from within the EU:
VAT payable at 17.5% on just the buyer's premium (NOT the hammer price)
Buyers from outside the EU:
VAT payable at 17.5% on hammer price and buyer's premium. If a buyer, having registered under a non-EU address, decides that an item is not to be exported from the EU, then he/she should advise Christie's to this effect immediately.