The Soft Machine: The Restored Text

The Nova Trilogy, Book 1

By: William S. Burroughs

Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef

In The Soft Machine, William S. Burroughs begins an adventure that will take us into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.

A total assault on the powers that turn humans into machines by writing and fixing our life scripts, Burroughs' original "cut-up" book was itself rewritten in three different forms. This new edition of The Soft Machine clarifies for the first time the extraordinary history of its writing and rewriting, demolishes the myths of his chance-based writing methods, and demonstrates for a new generation the significance of Burroughs' greatest experiment.

©1961, 1966 William S. Burroughs. © 2014 by the Estate of William S. Burroughs. Introduction © 2014 by Oliver Harris (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Wild ride

This book has greatly changed my opinion of art as a whole. I don't think that people create art, I think that people discover art. This connotes the idea that art is everywhere, it just takes us to find it and appreciate it. I'm very interested in the cut up method and the possibilities that stem from it. I'd hate to try to hogtie this book with a general description, because obviously it aims to elude all description. But Irecommend this to anyone open minded amd nonjudgmental. The cut up method forces us to see the unseen connections between anything and everything. Sometimes the words just seem like a lot of shit. Other times they're very profound and thought provoking.

....just.......read it.

Amazing

This is an amazing book that requires patience and multiple reads to get a satisfying reading experience from it. The introduction and narrative performance are first rate. I highly recommend this book.

Gets really boring after awhile

Although Burroughs style is (or was) revolutionary, and although the book was interesting for a while, I was eventually bored by its repetitiveness.

Just as I recall

I was in my late teens or early 20s. It took a few hours but I read it all in one sitting at Penrose library in downtown Colorado Springs. Next day I decided to check it so I could read it again. And again. I didn't attempt to memorize it but repetition of key phrases embedded them into my hippocampus and I felt no need to revisit.
Now some thirty years later I rediscover all of William S. Burroughs in audio and mostly free.
Hooray!

Dirty twisted drug dreams

Funny filthy and freaky dreamlike neo-baroque word maelstrom. You can feel the conjuring of the ethos of punk, SciFi noir, underground film, body horror, and cyberpunk. Like listening to a schizophrenic street prophet hanging out at an all night dive bar. Great performance by the narrator too.