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#TheWesternLands

The Western Lands is a 1987 novel by William S. Burroughs, the final book of the trilogy that begins with Cities of the Red Night (1981) and continues with The Place of Dead Roads (1983). The title refers to the western bank of the Nile River, which Read More..

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Description	The Western Lands is a 1987 novel by William S. Burroughs, the final book of the trilogy that begins with Cities of the Red Night (1981) and continues with The Place of Dead Roads (1983). The title refers to the western bank of the Nile River, which in Egyptian mythology is the Land of the Dead. Inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Burroughs explores the after-death state by means of dream scenarios, hallucinatory passages, talismanic magic, occultism, superstition, and his characteristic view of the nature of reality.The prose is notable in that it shifts back and forth between Burroughs' characters and episodes clearly drawn from his own life. Scenes that are unmistakably auto-biographical include vignettes where Burroughs takes out evidence of amphetamine prescription bottles his mother gave him to sink with a large stone at the bottom of Lake Worth, Florida. The bottles were evidence his mother found in her grandson’s, Burroughs' own son's, bedroom. While Burroughs is ankle deep in the water, his aged mother is stalling police investigators in her home. Yet the novel also dives backwards into ancient history, giving the plot a perspective on death that attempts to transcend Christian theology. Burroughs acknowledges being inspired by Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, an expansive novel published in 1983 about ancient Egypt set a thousand years before Christianity. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable references to contemporary culture, for instance Mick Jagger appears in some episodes.Despite the narrative challenge of the historical framework, the novel is often regarded as Burroughs' best late work and a gratifying culminating episode of the Cities trilogy. According to The Guardian, it is his best work after Naked Lunch.Guardian Unlimited. "Books" William S. Burroughs. The Guardian and Media Limited 2007. (Accessed 12 May 2007). In his review for The New York Times, Jonathan Baumbach labels the novel as "not an easy work to like" and "offers us a vision that is viscerally unpleasant and often repellent", but yet finds the work to be a success and hold the trilogy to be "a comic meditation on death". Both Baumbach and Burroughs' biographer Ted Morgan emphasize that Burroughs, in the guise of various characters, is trying to "write his way out of death".
Description	The Western Lands is a 1987 novel by William S. Burroughs, the final book of the trilogy that begins with Cities of the Red Night (1981) and continues with The Place of Dead Roads (1983). The title refers to the western bank of the Nile River, which in Egyptian mythology is the Land of the Dead. Inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Burroughs explores the after-death state by means of dream scenarios, hallucinatory passages, talismanic magic, occultism, superstition, and his characteristic view of the nature of reality.The prose is notable in that it shifts back and forth between Burroughs' characters and episodes clearly drawn from his own life. Scenes that are unmistakably auto-biographical include vignettes where Burroughs takes out evidence of amphetamine prescription bottles his mother gave him to sink with a large stone at the bottom of Lake Worth, Florida. The bottles were evidence his mother found in her grandson’s, Burroughs' own son's, bedroom. While Burroughs is ankle deep in the water, his aged mother is stalling police investigators in her home. Yet the novel also dives backwards into ancient history, giving the plot a perspective on death that attempts to transcend Christian theology. Burroughs acknowledges being inspired by Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, an expansive novel published in 1983 about ancient Egypt set a thousand years before Christianity. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable references to contemporary culture, for instance Mick Jagger appears in some episodes.Despite the narrative challenge of the historical framework, the novel is often regarded as Burroughs' best late work and a gratifying culminating episode of the Cities trilogy. According to The Guardian, it is his best work after Naked Lunch.Guardian Unlimited. "Books" William S. Burroughs. The Guardian and Media Limited 2007. (Accessed 12 May 2007). In his review for The New York Times, Jonathan Baumbach labels the novel as "not an easy work to like" and "offers us a vision that is viscerally unpleasant and often repellent", but yet finds the work to be a success and hold the trilogy to be "a comic meditation on death". Both Baumbach and Burroughs' biographer Ted Morgan emphasize that Burroughs, in the guise of various characters, is trying to "write his way out of death".

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Name	The Western Lands
Name
Authors	William S. Burroughs
Authors
Translator
Translator
Genre	Novel
Genre
Series	Cities of the Red Night trilogy
Series
Number in series
Number in series
Language	English
Language
Country	United States
Country

PUBLISH

Story timeline
Story timeline
Pages	258 pp
Pages
Media_type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Media_type
Isbn	0-670-81352-4
Isbn
Oclc	15790818
Oclc
Publisher	Viking Press
Publisher