The Western Lands wraps up the Red Night trilogy with a more involved look at the pilgrimage thereto, intercut with crosscurrents from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and remembrances from the author’s own life, the mass of which merges into a hallucinogenic exploration of the potentialities inherent in our concept of the great beyond. Part memoir, part attempt to provide closure to the impossibly sprawling mythology he’s created, this book feels doubly relevant as we watch the story and W.S.B. himself galloping rapidly to their end:"Forty years ago the writer had published a novel which had made a stir. [...] He still had the clippings, but they were yellow and brittle now and he never looked at them. If he had removed them from the cellophane covering in his scrapbook they would have shredded to dust. [...] Often in the morning he would lie in bed and watch grids of typewritten words in front of his eyes that moved and shifted as he tried to read [them], but he never could. He thought if he could just copy these words down, which were not his own words, he might be able to put together another book and then... yes, and then what?"It is perhaps impossible to miss the autobiographical quality of this passage, though to dwell on this aspect is to miss the deeper connection implied between the dying writer and the countless other deaths realized in our vain quest for immortality. Whether one seeks eternal life through their artistic legacy or by literally questing for the holy grail that is the Western Lands, only one thing is sure -- “Life is very dangerous and few survive it.”The word is out now that life after death is a real possibility, no longer a matter of unsubstantiated faith. As governments collapse and global catastrophe inches closer and closer, a “Great Awakening” washes over the land, and a mass of pilgrims as determined as they are desperate flock to heed the call:"Just as the Old World mariners suddenly glimpsed a round Earth to be circumnavigated and mapped, so awakened pilgrims catch hungry flashes of vast areas beyond Death to be created and discovered and charted, open to anyone ready to take a step into the unknown, a step as drastic and irretrievable as the transition from water to land. [...] The pilgrimage to the Western Lands has started, the voyage through the Land of the Dead. Waves of exhilaration sweep the planet, awash in seas of silence. There is hope and purpose in these faces, and total alertness, for this is the most dangerous of all roads, for every pilgrim must meet and overcome his own death."Kim is now en route to The Western Lands, along with Neferti, Hassan i Sabbah, and a host of others as they each attempt their own treacherous journey, fraught with every kind of danger imaginable. And while there is no shortage of deadly foes and lethal traps to be evaded or otherwise dealt with along the way, including (but certainly not limited to) the noxious “Breathers”, flying venomous scorpions, and Open Season duelists around every corner, perhaps the biggest impediment to progress on the pilgrim’s path is the sheer uncertainty of how best to proceed. As we are told at the outset of chapter seven:"Today’s easy passage may be tomorrow’s death trap. The obvious road is almost always a fool’s road, and beware the Middle Roads, the roads of moderation, common sense and careful planning. However, there is a time for planning, moderation and common sense."Sound advice to be sure (wherever one’s destination), but when the eternal soul is on the line, seekers generally seek for more direct guidance than that! Perhaps this explains why we remain so inclined to find our way within the context of this or that philosophy, science, or religion -- as ultimately flawed beings, flawed as we are in terms of even basic perception, it is perhaps unsurprising that we so often look to others for the way. Then again, this would also explain why so few (if any) of us ever succeed in reaching the Western Lands....If you somehow missed the first two books in this series, reincarnate yourself at the beginning with Cities of the Red Night.
Tărîmurile Vestice este volumul care încheie trilogia Cut up. Aparuta în 1987, cartea este scrisă de un Burroughs bătrîn, “ajuns la capătul cuvintelor, a ceea ce se poate face din cuvinte”. Romanul este considerat testamentul lui Burroughs ceea ce nu este departe de adevăr, deoarece în aceste pagini poate fi aflat un Burroughs agonizînd, un Burroughs care încearcă să împace cu ajutorul cuvintelor îmbătrînirea cărnii şi toate durerile fizice si psihice cumulate pînă la această vîrstă.Este cel mai greu de digerat roman din toate cele şase ale sale citite de mine pînă acum. Deşi nu mai este la fel de pornografic şi violent ca cele anterioare, cuvintele sunt mult mai apăsătoare datorită mesajului şi imaginilor care de această dată au o factură psihologică. Este un adevărat drum către purgatoriu, drumul către o viaţă veşnică înspăimîntătoare şi rigidă, o viaţă veşnică conformă cu viaţa dusă în această dimensiune şi realitate. Impresia pe care o lasă la un moment dat romanul este aceea că Burroughs este, de fapt, toate personajele sale, toate acele personalităţi ce sunt în căutarea tărîmurilor vestice sunt bătrînul ce acum trăieşte înconjurat de pisici într-o rulotă, aşteptînd inevitabilul. Senzaţia că personajele din carte sunt avataruri ale autorului şi că Burroughs se dematerializează luînd alte corpuri pentru a săvîrşi o călătorie iniţiatică este pregnantă, dar nu poate fi spus categoric acest lucru. Obişnuit să lucreze cu senzaţii, să producă deliruri şi fantezii narcotice, autorul se joace cu toată paleta de cunoştinţe a cititorului, dărîmînd, conform stilului său inconfundabil, tarele etice, religioase si proclamînd în loc un spaţiu dincolo de realitate, atemporal, menit a pune în aplicare toate pornirile şi dorinţele din timpul vieţii. Drumul e plin de magic şi grotesc, de rituri uitate şi păgîne, un fel de drum ce pare a fi călătoria finală a corpului alături de suflet, pentru ca într-un final, corpul sau sufletul să fie purificat, o purificare ciudată şi barbară, o purificare prin violenţă şi cruzime, o purificare comandată şi guvernată de forţe oculte şi politice.Tărîmurile Vestice poate fi considerat o epopee în adevăratul sens al cuvîntului, aventurile personajelor aducînd aminte de Ulise şi Ahile iar bătrînul ajuns la capătul cuvintelor, poate fi comparat cu Homer. Deşi Burroughs nu este orb pare a scrie din inerţie, o forţă exterioară lui impune aşternerea cuvintelor pe hîrtie, acesta fiind rolul său final din tragedia umană, izvorîtă din toate substanţele toxice consumate pînă la acest moment.După mine, Burroughs plăteşte tributul final drogurilor prin această carte, plăteşte tributul lumilor construite din fuga dementă a narcoticelor prin mintea şi venele sale. Nu este un om sfîrşit, Burroughs a ajuns la sfîrşit iar acum derulează genericul pentru a da o ultimă explicaţie acestei lumi pe care s-ar putea să nu o fi acceptat vreodată.“Vreau să ajung în Tărîmurile Vestice – chiar înaintea ta, peste pîrîul bolborosind. E un canal îngheţat. E cunoscut ca Duad, îţi aminteşti? Tot jegul şi oroarea, frica, ura, boala şi moartea istoriei umane se scurge între tine şi Tărîmurile Vestice. Las-o să se scurgă! Pisica mea Fletch se întinde în spatele meu pe pat. Un copac cu dantelă neagră pe un cer gri. O străfulgerare de bucurie.Cît îi ia unui om să inveţe că el nu poate, că nu poate să vrea ceea ce el vrea?Trebuie să fii în Iad ca să vezi Paradisul. Întrezăriri ale Tărîmului Mortului, străfulgerări ale unei bucurii serene fără timp, o bucurie la fel de bătrînă precum suferinţa sau moartea.”Recenzie publicata pe http://razvanvanfirescu.wordpress.com/
What do You think about The Western Lands (1988)?
As with all of Burroughs work there are so many themes that could be expanded on and made into separate novels - if only the author lived to complete all his ideas.... The Western lands scatters across all of the author's interests, ancient Egypt, time travel, Arabian assassins, weapons, erotic imagery, medical manipulations... If I were to choose one theme, one novel, possibly extracted from this, his last major work, then it would be a novel based on the expedition to capture the giant centipede, along with the correspondence from Dean Ripa, Snake expert - A kind of Yage letters with the centipede as the holy grail of disgust...Burroughs in this trilogy is a great travel writer. A travel writer not just through places, but through time and space and outer space. A literary map-maker. His eye for detail and imagination for the absurd make this an interesting journey. But be warned. If a linear plot is required or if you are new to Burroughs the Western Lands is not the best place to look.
—James Newman
"The road to the Western Lands is by definition the most dangerous road in the world, for it is a journey beyond Death..."In the world according to William Burroughs, even the afterlife is subject to governmental control. Just as the pharaohs attempted to monopolize immortality, so do our present day leaders, through petty, everyday controls and restrictions all the up to the deployment of the ultimate soul destroyer - the atom bomb. Fighting the system is Margaras, the White Cat: a fearsome spirit, Hunter, Tracker, supreme assassin. Also Margaras Unlimited, a 'secret service without a nation'. For its agents such as Neferti and a reincarnated Kim Carsons, everything and everyone is fair game, e.g. blackmailing ex-Naxis in hiding. Amoral yes, but remember the motto of Hassan-i-Sabbah, the master of the order of the Assassons, or rather let Burroughs remind you, as he tends to do in each of his publications:"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."Indeed, HIS actually appears as a character this time, on the lam in Egypt during his missing years there, evading his enemies, but also looking for the way into the Western Lands, a way to circumvent the Anubis Gates. All his spare but powerfully descriptive prose is on display; few writers can conjure up time and place so swiftly and so sensually with just a few lines. The use of cut-up passages is rare but effective, the nasty homoerotic passages virtually edited out entirely. Then there is the humor, always a strong point. Many examples could be quoted, this is typical:"Good. Then these letters of safe conduct are for you. Does this town boast a hotel?""We do not boast, but there is the Hotel Splendide."This is the final part of a trilogy of novels which taken together pretty much round out the whole of literary outlaw Burrough's paranoid, unique vision of the world, aided here by his recent discovery of Egyptian theology via Norman Mailer's 'Ancient Evenings', where he found a whole new set of controls and escapes to play around with.It's not exactly a narrative trilogy -in fact, Burroughs can hardly keep a coherent story going for much more than 20-30 pages tops before it implodes into an orgy of sodomy and revenge fantasies- but it's certainly a trilogy in theme and phrase, with the same preoccupations and quotations returning again and again.
—Perry Whitford
Okay, I admit it - I read this series in the wrong order. The Western Lands is the final book in Burroughs' notorious 'Red Night' trilogy, and yet it's the first Burroughs novel that I read. It's typical of the majority of his work - difficult to read, but even more difficult to put down, with a rambling, disjointed narrative that's probably partly down to his experiments with morphine.Interestingly enough, the novel is heavily influenced by Ancient Egyptian mythology - in particular, the legend of the Land of the Dead, which was guarded by the jackal-headed god of Anubis, has a huge bearing on the story. I found Egyptian history and culture fascinating, and while this influence is warped and bastardised in to something that's almost unrecognisable, it was certainly interesting to see it offset against references to modern music, culture and civilisation.And actually, it doesn't really matter which order you read Burroughs' work in - in fact, due to the author's peculiarities, I imagine that he'd probably prefer for you to read them out of chronological order. Each book is like a silo, but put together they form a web of work that transcends literary genres and common sensibilities. This is what happens to you when you take a lot of heroin and sit around in orgone accumulators, kids. Still, he lived until a ripe old age and his fiction is phenomenal, so who am I to judge?
—Socialbookshelves.com
