Read Online The Adding Machine by William S. Burroughs - Free Book Online
Authors: William S. Burroughs
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vultures have flapped away in disgust from that sell out.
On a sell-out you have to think in terms of properties . I mean he sells The Snows of Kilimanjaro which is gilt-edged stuff for The Green Hills of Africa. Was The Green Hills even worth doing? No. For all that hunting and loading shit I’d rather read Field and Stream and The American Rifleman. But the real tragedy is that The Snows of Kilimanjaro could have been a great film about Death. Hemingway could smell death on others. Here he is in a jeep with General Lanham, known as Bucky to his friends, and Ernie was a real general lover. It’s worse than being a cop lover.
‘Have to relieve that man,’ says Bucky.
‘Bucky,’ says Ernie, ‘You won’t have to relieve him. He won’t make it. He stinks of death.’
When the jeep reached Regimental Command Post it was stopped by Lieutenant Colonel John Ruggles.
‘General...’ said Ruggles saluting. ‘The Major has just been killed. Who takes the First Battalion?’
And there is a great description in Farewell to Arms of the feeling you get when leaving the body at death. He has an opportunity to do a film about his specialty the thing he does best as a writer. And he throws it away for an expensive hunting trip. So the writer doesn’t die after all. He will go back to America and hole up in a cabin he knows about in Minnesota and write the great American novel. His gear is packed. The jeep will come at dawn. The sun is setting. The wise old hunter lights his pipe and points with the burning firebrand to the white dome of Kilimanjaro.
‘Don’t ever sell your dream, son.’ The old hunter waves to the jeep. ‘You see he had learned that life is more important than death. He had learned to live humbly for something he believed in. I guess it was just making his own dream real for a lot of people. You see Ernie wanted to give, he wanted to give from the heart with every word he wrote.’
He’s gonna pay death off with a load of corn, or so he thinks.
‘You reckon ill who leave me out
When me you fly I am the wings.’
Who wrote that? I mean Death was Ernie’s inspiration. When Death walked out on him in Hollywood he took Ernie’s inspiration with him. ‘It doesn’t come anymore,’ he groans. You have to respect him for the courage to blow his brains out like that, don’t care what you say about the higher courage of living, it takes guts to do that. Makes me feel queasy just to think about it He certainly died in style.
‘I reckon you could have put your foot in the back of his head where the two barrels of heavy duck load splattered out even if it was a medium-sized foot and you didn’t want to put it there.’
Old Lady: It must be very dangerous to be a writer.
Papa: It is Madam, and few survive it.
Does the book contain memorable passages? I first read Denton Welch in 1948. I re-read Maiden Voyage thirty years later and found that I had virtually memorized passages from the book. I have already quoted an example concerning his ‘horrible little black pony, its awful yellow teeth.’
And here is the end of The Great Gatsby: ‘He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter, tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further and one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’.
This passage stays with the reader and becomes part of his inner landscape ‘commensurate with his capacity for wonder.’
And the characters? Can you see them? So long as there are readers Gatsby will look across his blue lawn to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. But I can’t see the protagonist of Appointment in Samarra. I can’t remember his name. He is as real and as quickly forgotten as today’s newspaper: Elderly Woman Dies in
On a sell-out you have to think in terms of properties . I mean he sells The Snows of Kilimanjaro which is gilt-edged stuff for The Green Hills of Africa. Was The Green Hills even worth doing? No. For all that hunting and loading shit I’d rather read Field and Stream and The American Rifleman. But the real tragedy is that The Snows of Kilimanjaro could have been a great film about Death. Hemingway could smell death on others. Here he is in a jeep with General Lanham, known as Bucky to his friends, and Ernie was a real general lover. It’s worse than being a cop lover.
‘Have to relieve that man,’ says Bucky.
‘Bucky,’ says Ernie, ‘You won’t have to relieve him. He won’t make it. He stinks of death.’
When the jeep reached Regimental Command Post it was stopped by Lieutenant Colonel John Ruggles.
‘General...’ said Ruggles saluting. ‘The Major has just been killed. Who takes the First Battalion?’
And there is a great description in Farewell to Arms of the feeling you get when leaving the body at death. He has an opportunity to do a film about his specialty the thing he does best as a writer. And he throws it away for an expensive hunting trip. So the writer doesn’t die after all. He will go back to America and hole up in a cabin he knows about in Minnesota and write the great American novel. His gear is packed. The jeep will come at dawn. The sun is setting. The wise old hunter lights his pipe and points with the burning firebrand to the white dome of Kilimanjaro.
‘Don’t ever sell your dream, son.’ The old hunter waves to the jeep. ‘You see he had learned that life is more important than death. He had learned to live humbly for something he believed in. I guess it was just making his own dream real for a lot of people. You see Ernie wanted to give, he wanted to give from the heart with every word he wrote.’
He’s gonna pay death off with a load of corn, or so he thinks.
‘You reckon ill who leave me out
When me you fly I am the wings.’
Who wrote that? I mean Death was Ernie’s inspiration. When Death walked out on him in Hollywood he took Ernie’s inspiration with him. ‘It doesn’t come anymore,’ he groans. You have to respect him for the courage to blow his brains out like that, don’t care what you say about the higher courage of living, it takes guts to do that. Makes me feel queasy just to think about it He certainly died in style.
‘I reckon you could have put your foot in the back of his head where the two barrels of heavy duck load splattered out even if it was a medium-sized foot and you didn’t want to put it there.’
Old Lady: It must be very dangerous to be a writer.
Papa: It is Madam, and few survive it.
Does the book contain memorable passages? I first read Denton Welch in 1948. I re-read Maiden Voyage thirty years later and found that I had virtually memorized passages from the book. I have already quoted an example concerning his ‘horrible little black pony, its awful yellow teeth.’
And here is the end of The Great Gatsby: ‘He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter, tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further and one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past’.
This passage stays with the reader and becomes part of his inner landscape ‘commensurate with his capacity for wonder.’
And the characters? Can you see them? So long as there are readers Gatsby will look across his blue lawn to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. But I can’t see the protagonist of Appointment in Samarra. I can’t remember his name. He is as real and as quickly forgotten as today’s newspaper: Elderly Woman Dies in
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