Las cartas de la ayahuasca

by William S. Burroughs, Roger Wolfe (Translator)

Las cartas de la ayahuasca, libro publicado originalmente en 1963, es un volumen de correspondencia y otros escritos de William Burroughs y Allen Ginsberg. La mayor parte de estos textos datan de 1953, y son la crónica del viaje que hizo Burroughs a la selva amazónica en busca del yagué o la ayahuasca, una planta de míticas propiedades alucinógenas y telepáticas. Burroughs comparte con Ginsberg anécdotas, historias y ciertos conceptos que más tarde utilizaría en novelas como El almuerzo desnudo. El volumen termina con una larga carta de Ginsberg, escrita en 1960, en la que le relata a Burroughs los experimentos que él mismo realizó también con la ayahuasca. Al final del libro se incluyen dos epílogos: una breve nota de Ginsberg, escrita tres años después de los hechos narrados, en la que proclama su mística permanencia entre los vivos, y un hiperlisérgico y apoteósico de Burroughs titulado «¿Me estoy muriendo, míster?».

Genres: Nonfiction, Drugs, Biography, Memoir, Travel, Literature, American

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

William Seward Burroughs II, (also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

ALLA RICERCA DELLO SBALLO PERFETTO



William Seward Burroughs II non ha mai avuto problemi con la droga. E qui – come nella maggior parte della sua opera – lo racconta.
Ma, in effetti, il racconto arriva presto a diventare qualcos’altro. Voglio dire, le esperienze con la yage occupano poco spazio: la prima volta vomita e rivomita, sta male, ha poche o nessuna allucinazione; la seconda volta paragona l’effetto a quello della marijuana. Insomma, intraprendere un viaggio del genere, durato svariati mesi, attraversando l’Amazzonia, alla ricerca di questa mitica droga, per poi collezionare le due esperienze di cui sopra: beh, non è granché.



Ma il breve libro-epistolario si rivela da subito un eccellente occasione per sfoggiare la sua passione per l’antropologia (che era stata la sua specializzazione ad Harvard): sono queste le pagine più belle e goduriose. Colombia, Ecuador, Perù, nel 1953, portandosi dietro una rivoltella (chissà se era la stessa con la quale aveva ammazzato sua moglie solo l’anno prima, in una goffa imitazione di Guglielmo Tell, rendendolo in Mexico persona-non-grata) e portandosi anche dietro una farmacia. Molto attento all’aspetto fisico di chi incontra, a dettagli, a dettagli che non sono scontati.

Segue una lunga lettera di Ginsberg a distanza di sette anni – e siamo dunque arrivati al 1960 – che è a sua volta partito per quei luoghi e quelle esperienze: il suo viaggio con lo yage colpisce soprattutto per la quantità di vomito che il poeta è in grado di espellere.

[carey lina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear Al,
I'm detoxing. I can't find any little boys to pay for sex. Corruption, whine whine whine. Third world, whine whine whine.

Low points: Cultural observation skips along the path to racism. Whining. Craptacular "routine" play thing, possibly more enjoyable if one knows about the politics of the time, possibly not. Disgusted tone gets me down.

Highlights: Good writing. Good cultural observations. Stubborn scientific approach to looking to score. Bad trips. A freakout at the end. Epistolary. Wonderful, supportive, loving letter by Ginsberg to losing-it Burroughs at the end. Burroughs was clearly an asshole, albeit a decent writer. Ginsberg seems like he was a good friend.

I don't like to give a well-written book one star. I don't. But I got one star of enjoyment out of it. I think I'll put it in that "dudes travelling the world being dudes" category, which I have decided not to try so hard to like, and call it a day.

[Katalina Aurora · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a Colombian and as person who is initiating herself in the world of ayahuasca, I find this book extremely offensive. This man comes to this land looking for nothing more than a drug that makes him hallucinate and disrespects not only what is considered a sacred plant but refers to shamans as ''brujos'', when they call themselves taitas, which is a name that has a deep meaning and respect. Burroughs came knowing nothing and left knowing nothing as well. If you read this book and know nothing about ayahuasca, please don't believe a word. This is full of shit.

[Patricia Killelea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent my teenage years trailing through Naked Lunch, Junkie, and I later devoured Word Virus: A Burroughs Reader. I loved and continue to love those particular works.

I remember reading The Yage Letters for the first time (2002?) and finding it engaging, but upon my second recent reading I am struck with major concerns: 1) Burroughs' effed up characterizations of indigenous peoples; 2) Burroughs participation in what we now call "sex tourism" and the many issues of privilege and dominance that come with that practice; and 3) His disrespect of plant personhood.

I still love his style, his voice, his structure... but the work buckles in so many arenas that I find it hard to stomach this time around.

[Leeann · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Meh" is pretty much all I thought about this. White junkie dude traipses through the Amazon and whines about it a whole bunch and is pretty much a jerk to everyone he meets. Whatever. (The Ginsberg part at the end was ok, though.)

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably my third favourite book by William S. Burroughs after 'Junky' and 'Cities of the Red Night'.

This book is not only a first-hand account of his experiences taking the South American drug 'yage' (through the Putumayo Kofan and Vauges methods), but it also showcases Burroughs’ dry, tongue-in-cheek, ‘scientific’ humour. One of my favourite parts which really made me laugh and which is still very relevant in today’s society was, “You can not contact a civil servant on the level of intuition and empathy. He just does not have a receiving set, and he gives out like a dead battery. There must be a special low frequency civil service brain wave”. I guess civil servants in South America are no different from anywhere else then, both past and present.

It is easy to understand how someone like Burroughs who studied anthropology at university would be drawn to the romantic aspects of exploring South American tribes and areas but according to his letters to Ginsberg, Burroughs did not have a good time here at all with nosy police always inspecting papers, sleazy moochers, whores and even the occasional botanical scientist. Sounds like the perfect place for Burroughs to fit right into though doesn't it?

As in other Burroughs books, the author puts himself through some incredibly painful and dreadful experiences BUT, in my opinion it is probably his suffering which gives his writing that distinctive razor-like edge that has become the Burroughs’ trademark. And in terms of style of prose, he is truly one-of-a-kind and groundbreaking. Reading his books is like being on the edge of your seat when watching a nail-biting thriller movie. And I think that it is this quality that is so charming and endearing to his readers and fans of beat literature.

It doesn’t seem like he enjoyed most of the places he went to in South America or the people he met although he seems to be more fond of Peru than its neighbours. The Panamanians and Ecuadorians are largely on the receiving end of his caustic comments. In one letter, Burroughs says that, “the Panamanians are about the crummiest people in the Hemisphere - I understand the Venezuelans offer competition”.

And then there are his various macabre tales laced with his acid-sharp wit such as in, “every Sunday at lunch my grandmother would disinter her dead brother killed 50 years ago when he dragged his shotgun through a fence and blew his lungs out”.

But I digress. Now, to the meat of the story – the sections on yage. When the author experiments with the drug using the Putumayo Kofan method prescribed and prepared by a Brujo (type of witchdoctor), he ends up going through an awful experience which makes him retch and vomit many times and cause his body to shake. The second time around though when he takes the drug following the Vauges method, the experience is more like weed he says.

Just like the interviewers of the great Beat documentary entiled ‘the Source’, you are probably wondering why anyone would go out of their way to put themselves through such misery.
Burroughs’ slightly irritated and defensive response was, “What are you talking about? You want to try yage, you try yage!”.

Burroughs was a man who truly believed that drugs could be something beneficial for mankind. I also feel that he believed humans 'need to suffer' in order to grow stronger and achieve greatness. There is more on this in the final chapters of ‘Junky’. While certain powerful drugs like 'yage' are certainly not for the faint-hearted, Burroughs was all about challenging the entrenched notion that ‘DRUG AUTOMATICALLY EQUALS BAD’. And in this sense he was a real pioneer hoping that people would develop a more open understanding of both the benefits and dangers of drugs. He was different from other beat writers and poets like Kerouac, Ginsberg and Corso in that he was not only a writer but also an ethnographer. You can tell that he was often disgusted with mankind but at the same time he had the typical curiosity of any given anthropologist or scientist who goes out into the world and studies and records human behaviour in all its weird and wonderful forms. Many would say that Burroughs loved writing about the 'underworld' and 'darker' sides of the planet. This is true and with the possible exception of Poe, the 'underworld' society had been largely neglected by authors as a subject until Burroughs came around, although since the 60s and 70s it has become popular to write such novels. I feel that he wanted to write about all the things you would never read about in a newspaper or Time magazine! And in this sense, modern-day writing (especially the press) is aggravatingly dull, stale and stultified and that's why we need more writers like Burroughs.

I read 'Marching Powder' (book about a British national who is incarcerated in a Bolivian prison for drug-trafficking) about a year ago and that was also a good 'tale from the underside' and incidentally, also set in South America. If you liked 'the Yage letters', you will love 'Marching Powder' which has an even stronger and more fascinating story.

Although I cannot recall the title of the book and have yet to read it myself, a friend also recommended another good book out there on the history of the US government’s clandestine war of propaganda on drugs and this is exactly the kind of thing that Burroughs would have dug.

Verdict: All in all, this is a short but fascinating epistolary novel which I highly recommend. Four Stars!

[Harley Claes · Rating 5 out of 5]

What else must a white man do but study that which he does not know? What else must a white man do but learn, educate, experiment? As a woman of color I do not see this book from a narrow lens. I see it as the research it was, the need to educate themselves on culture, psychoactive plants, the world. And what for? For the revolution of the consciousness that was necessary to bring into fruition in America, as they left seeds of their exposure in different sects of the world. The Beats were a controversial bunch. That is what made them great, it is what made them REMEMBERED. If not for their controversy, they would have been forgotten. Their taste for drugs was a conduit for esoteric knowledge to be inked on the paper, the derangement of the senses was art itself and education to them. So be it, it added volume to their ramblings.

My personal perception on why Ayuaschsa was such a different experience for both Allen and Burroughs; It was due to Burroughs junkie nature desire to get high, to get out of his head instead of inside it. It was an insincere desire for knowledge, but a lust for high times. While Allen seeked the ultimate light and truth, thus he received visions of the great being. Ginsberg’s poetry is like an active battle between his spirituality and absolute reality. His subconscious wishes to justify his visions.


Overall the book was an insightful collection, we are lucky to have this piece of history and educational resource within our reach.

[Ebony Earwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good 'un. Can be summed up as William Burroughs travelling through jungles and getting misled by various locals as he looks for Ayahuasca so he can be even more out of his mind. It's the kind of thing you hear about trust fund hipsters doing these days, except these days it's all sanctioned and done in hostels and retreats. By the end he gets what he's looking for and it serves as a nice prelude into his mindset for Naked Lunch.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd been looking for this book for quite some time when my roommate surprised me with a copy for my birthday. Quite interested, I read it immediately and in one sitting.

Although Oliver Harris is only listed as the editor of this edition, his actual contribution, his introduction, constitutes almost a third of the text and is well worth reading. Most of the material, however, is by Burroughs.

Excepting the introduction, the texts in this collection were composed in the fifties and sixties, when relatively little was known about ayahuasca/yage and its main active ingredient DMT. Thus what Ginsberg and Burroughs say about the plants and the chemistry is dated and often in error. This is not the book to read as a preparation for trying the drug. Indeed, Burrough's contributions are mostly along the lines of eccentric accounts of his travels in South America.

Of the actual accounts of their drug-induced experiences, Ginsberg's comes across as most believable and impressive. He took, it seems, the real stuff, the combination of the vine and shrub that can be ingested, and he apparently obtained some insight from the experience. Burroughs seems to have mostly taken the harmaline-rich vine without the shrub which makes the DMT ingestible. His experiences were generally unpleasant--lots of nausea and retching.

I write the above with some prejudice. Ginsberg I like, having witnessed much of his career, read some of his material and read a substantial biography of him. He appears to have been a genuinely well-intentioned man. Burroughs I've only know through his first novel, 'Junkie', hardly the basis for a good first impression, from surveys about the beatnik 'movement' and from a documentary. Compared to Ginsberg, he appears a dark figure, not someone I'd want to trip with.

[তানজীম রহমান · Rating 3 out of 5]

নেশা, ভ্রমণ, সাহিত্য—জীবনের অন্যান্য প্রয়োজন পূরণ করার পর আমার পকেটে যতোটুকু টাকা অবশিষ্ট থাকে, সেটুকু খরচ হয় এই তিনের পেছনে। আমার বাকেট লিস্ট বলতে যা আছে, তার মধ্যে অন্যতম হলো মরার আগে পৃথিবীর দশটা রাজধানী দেখা। মাঝে মাঝে সন্দেহ হয় তারুণ্যে বিট প্রজন্মের সাহিত্যিকদের লেখার সাথে পরিচয় হয়েছিলো বলে আজ আমার এই দশা।

বিট প্রজন্মের প্রধান তিন লেখক হিসেবে যাদের ধরা হয়: অ্যালেন গিন্সবার্গ, উইলিয়াম বারোজ আর জ্যাক কেরোয়্যাক—তাদের জীবনে নেশা, ভ্রমণ এবং সাহিত্য বাদে আর তেমন কিছু ছিলো না। ওহ্‌, না, আরেকটা জিনিস ছিলো: সেক্স। এই বিষয়গুলো তাদের লেখায় ঘুরেফিরে আসতো। কারণ এগুলোর মাধ্যমে তারা মহাবিশ্বের অনন্ত আত্মা আর মানবজাতির সামগ্রিক চেতনার সঙ্গে যুক্ত হওয়ার চেষ্টা করতেন (ইত্যাদি, ইত্যাদি)। বিট প্রজন্মের লেখা পড়ার পর আমার প্রথম উপলব্ধি হয়েছিলো যে মানুষের জীবন ফিকশনের মতো হতে পারে। আরেকটু পরিষ্কার করে বললে: মানুষের জীবন নিয়ে ফিকশন লেখা যায়, তা নয়। উপলব্ধিটা ছিলো—মানুষের জীবন কল্পকাহিনীর মতো রোমাঞ্চকর, অবিশ্বাস্য, বিপজ্জনক আর বড়ো মাপের হতে পারে।

গিন্সবার্গ আর বারোজ আর কেরোয়্যাক যা লিখেছেন সেগুলোর অধিকাংশই আত্মজৈবনিক (বারোজের ক্ষেত্রে ছড়িয়ে-ছিটিয়ে হিংস্র কল্পবিজ্ঞান আর স্যাটায়ার থাকে অবশ্য)। এই লেখাটাও ব্যতিক্রম নয়। এখানে তাদের তিন ভালোবাসা একত্রিত হয়েছে। বারোজ একসময় কোথাও পড়েছিলেন যে আমাজন জঙ্গলে ইয়াহে (Yagé) নামে একধরনের পাতা পাওয়া যায়। সেটা দিয়ে নেশা করলে ঈশ্বরের দেখা পাওয়া সম্ভব। অন্তত রূপক অর্থে। ইয়াহের খোঁজে বারোজ দক্ষিণ আমেরিকায় যাত্রা করেছিলেন। সেই যাত্রার বিভিন্ন খবর আর ইয়াহে ব্যবহারের অভিজ্ঞতা গিন্সবার্গকে জানিয়েছিলেন চিঠি লিখে। অনেক বছর পর গিন্সবার্গও একই উদ্দেশ্যে আমাজনের গভীরে যাত্রা করেন। তিনিও বারোজকে তার অভিজ্ঞতা পত্রের মাধ্যমে জানান। দ্য ইয়াহে লেটারস বইটা হচ্ছে সেই চিঠিগুলোর সংকলন।

আচ্ছন্নতার ধরন কেমন হবে, তার অনেকখানি নির্ভর করে যে নেশা করছে তার ওপর। এখানেও অনেকটা তাই হয়েছে। বারোজের বিশ্বকে দেখতেন অনেকটা দুঃস্বপ্নের মতো, যেখানে অতিকায় যন্ত্র আর গোপন ষড়যন্ত্র আর ধুরন্ধর মানুষ রাজ করে। ইয়াহে ব্যবহারের পর তার আচ্ছন্নতা তাকে দুঃস্বপ্নে নিয়ে যায়, অসুস্থ করে ফেলে। গিন্সবার্গ সে তুলনায় আশাবাদী এবং আনন্দপ্রেমী মানুষ ছিলেন। ইয়াহে তাকে তীব্রভাবে প্রভাবিত করে এবং কিছু ভয়াবহ দৃশ্য দেখায়। তারপরেও তিনি সেখানে ঈশ্বর এবং অবচেতনের গভীর রহস্যের দেখা পান।

বইয়ের একটা ব্যাপার লক্ষ করে বেশ মজা পেলাম। বারোজ বিভিন্ন জায়গায় দক্ষিণ আমেরিকার দেশের মানুষের ব্যাপারে অভিযোগ করেছেন। বলেছেন এরা পর্যটক ঠকায়। আমলাতন্ত্র ব্যবহার করে সাধারণ মানুষকে হেনস্থা করে। একনায়কের দোসরেরা যখন ইচ্ছা ক্ষমতা ফলায়। মনে মনে হাসছিলাম এগুলো দেখে, কারণ বারোজ জন্মসূত্রে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের সাদা চামড়ার নাগরিক ছিলেন। তিনি এই ভ্রমণে সাময়িকভাবে যেসবের মধ্যে দিয়ে গেছেন, সেগুলো বাদামী চামড়ার মানুষের জীবনে দৈনন্দিন অভিজ্ঞতা। এই লেখাগুলো কোল্ড ওয়ার আমলের। সে সময় যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের সরকার কীভাবে সাম্যবাদের বিরুদ্ধে একনায়কদের সমর্থন দিয়েছে, তা মনে পড়লে বারোজের অভিযোগগুলো আরো হাস্যকর লাগে। শালার হোয়াইট প্রিভিলেজ। অবশ্য এটা মনে হয় উল্লেখ করা দরকার যে বারোজ বহুদিন মেক্সিকোতে থেকেছেন এবং তিনি যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের সরকারকে খুবই অপছন্দ করতেন।

ইয়াহে বর্তমানে আয়াহুয়াস্কা নামে পরিচিত। অনেকেই এই নেশা করেছে। আমি করিনি।

[Pablo Paz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Le pusé una estrella por que es lo minimo que la página permite.. un libro epistolar donde un señor habla todo el tiempo sobre las iniciativas cleptomaniacas de los prostitutos que contrata,la fealdad de los muchachos que alcanza a ver desde las ventanas de los buses en los que monta, lo espantosos que son los países que visita y por ahí al final del libro menciona el yage. Un libro que parece editado no más por explotar el beneficio economico que representa el uso del apellido de Burroughs y la palabra yage para cierto público compuesto por lectores parranderos y aspirantes a Terece Mackenna. Le abono eso sí que en cierta parte Burroughs critica la costumbre colombiana de llamar Doctor a todo personaje que use corbata. pero de resto... este libro me hace sentir piedra que los mexicanos no hayan encarcelado por un largo tiempo a Burroughs después de haber asesinado a Joan Volmer en el D.F... de haber sido así al menos la muerte de esa señora hubiese tenido algún sentido... odié este libro jaja se nota?

[Kitap · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear Al,

Sex tourist in search of final fix is no good, no bueno. Full of holes, full of holes. Use that last bit in summarizing new "epistolary novel" I'm writing. With letter, you're now part of novel. Mindfuck using old typewriter instead of Brion's Dream Machine. Annual meeting of society of book reviewers: "Are we to gulp down this slim edition of horseshit? Are we to spend hard-earned money on book ostensibly about yage and presumably visionary experience only instead to endure dry grating of pushing pederast in search of something pure to foul and despoil?" Wanted to thank you for coming along at end, contributing weird images, whacked-out trademark Allen Ginsberg "poetry" about ayahuasca experience about experience itself not about screwing teenage boy in Ecuador. Shit-hole country by the way. You try to score paregoric and the croaker hits you with paracetamol instead, pockets difference. Full of holes, full of holes.

Off to cutup literary collage crap. Critics will gush. Beats working.

Love always,
Billy Lee

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Yage Letters is a decidedly minor work from the Burroughs canon, but serves as an interesting follow-up to his short novel Queer. In that novel, he traveled around South America questing after the psychedelic drug ayahuasca, but was often distracted and ultimately unsuccessful. In this slim volume, be recounts (in letters to Allen Ginsberg) his success in obtaining and consuming the drug. His adventures along the way are of some interest, but overall this book is only for the Burroughs completist.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pulled this off my shelf for a friend interested in ayahuasca and decided to reread before I gave it to her. Eesh. Mostly Burroughs being racist and horny (in that order), though the descriptions of his hallucinations and Ginsberg's letter regarding his own experiences with the drug are interesting to read.

[dieverneinung]

"This place gives me the stasis horrors. The feel of location of being just where I am and nowhere else is unenduring. Suppose I should have to live here?"

[Professor Weasel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was interesting to read about Bogotá and Cali in the 50s but Burroughs really comes off as a miserable old git in these...

[Will Mayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book hesitantly about Burroughs's search for the perfect high in the jungles of the Amazon wondering if I could at all relate to it since, apart from a couple of all too brief experiences in the 1970s and 1980s, I've shied away from drugs almost entirely. Basically, drugs just never appealed to me. Even marijuana never did anything for me. I was just blasé about the whole thing. But, trust Burroughs, he renders the whole experience vividly here in bright colors including even the vulnerability of the ordeal in a series of letters to his friend and sometime lover Allen Ginsberg and in Ginsberg's responses to him. I wish I could say more but you'd just have to read the book yourself. It was just magnificent.

[W. Koistinen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done research on "letters" that are not really letters at all, but constructed piece of autofiction. Included are also some real letters of Ginsberg, as he was on his own separate journey to find the "vine of the soul" and some of Allen's journal writing of that time. It becomes clear that Ginsberg went in fact much farther into yage tripping than Burroughs, but Burroughs' prose contains more humorous elements.

If you have only read the original Yage Letters I recommend reading this also. And if you haven't read either one, I'd recommend going straight to this.

[t · Rating 2 out of 5]

only my second burroughs, and i hate to say it but gimsberg’s part was the best. not sure what i had expected from a severely problematic ethnographic epistolary style book on sex tourism and ayahuasca experimentation but there you are. all of the tonal/stylistic elements that were so compelling in naked lunch sort of fall flat here ? idk

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

William S. Burroughs the ultimate adventure. Going for the perfect high. Writing to Allen. Will he come out of the jungle? No, not really.

[Secret · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Den einai dynaton na eltheis se diaisthitiki h sinaisthimatiki epafi me atomo tis politikis ypiresias.Apla den diathetei tous katallilous dektes,kai eksantleitai san mpataria pou exei adeiasei.Tha prepei na yparxei kapoio eidiko politikis ypiresias egkefaliko kyma xamilis sixnotitas”. Ypothetw oti oi dimosioi ypalliloi stin Notia Ameriki den diaferoun apo opoudipote allou,toso sto parelthon oso kai sto paron.

Einai efkolo stin katanoisi pos kapoios san ton Burroughs,pou spoudase anthropologia sto panepistimio,tha proselkyontan apo tis romantikes ptyxes tis ekserevnisis fylwn kai perioxwn tis Notias Amerikis.Simfona omos me tis epistoles tou pros ton Ginsberg,o Burroughs den pernouse katholou kala me tin adiakriti astynomia,tis ierodoules,tous alites,akomi kai ton peristasiako votaniko epistimona.Den fainetai na apolamvane ta perissotera apo ta meri pou episkefthike stin Notia Ameriki oute kai tous anthropous pou sinantise an kai mallon ksexwrise to Perou.Oi katoikoi tou Panama kai tou Isimerinou einai se megalo vathmo apodektes twn kafstikwn sxoliwn tou:”Oi Panamezoi einai apo tis xeiroteres linatses tou Hmisfairiou-antilamvanomai pos kai oi katoikoi tis Venezouelas tous sinagwnizontai epaksia”.

Gia allh mia fora,o siggrafeas vazei ton eafto tou mesa se apistefta odynires kai tromeres empeiries alla,kata tin gnwmi mou,einai ta vasana afta pou dinoun stin grafi tou afti ti xaraktiristiki kopsi pou moiazei me ksirafi.Oson afora to yfos,einai pragmatika monadikos.O Burroughs itan enas anthropos pou pisteve oti ta narkwtika tha mporousan na einai kati ofelimo gia tin koinwnia kai apoteloun vasiko sistatiko gia tin siggrafi twn ergwn tou. Prosopika niwthw pos thewrouse oti oi anthropoi prepei na ypoferoun gia na ginoun isxyroteroi enw episis amfisvitouse tin edraiomeni antilipsi oti “To narkwtiko isoutai aftomata me kako”.Me aftin tin ennoia itan enas pragmatikos prwtoporos afou ilpize oti oi anthropoi tha anaptyksoun mia pio apeleftheromeni apopsi toso twn ofelwn oso kai twn kindynwn twn narkwtikwn.Pistevw pos den mporoun polloi na antilifthoun to talento kai to psixografima tou

[eddie]

Had an absolute hell of a time trying to decipher the PDF-turned-EPUB version of this that my dad helped me pull from the internet, but I’m honestly not sure I would have understood more of what was going on if I had read a legitimate copy (of which, to get my hands on one, my only option was to buy it, and I am so glad this is not the Burroughs I have chosen to own).

[Liv Oggieboggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as i hated the first part of the book, it really deepend my understanding of Burroughs as an writer and made much of his later work more clear in my mind. Ginsberg is, as always, a highlight of the book and made for a more introspective reading experience.

[Diletta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Altro romanticismo.

[Jacob Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could hear Burroughs chat about Yage all day long. Could do without Ginsberg. Why would anyone want to send that loser letters?

[Sara 🦷 · Rating 2 out of 5]

so mediocre, but at least i learned about Hassan Sabbah

“nothing is true, everything is permitted.”
— Hassan Sabbah

[Dustin Wilson V · Rating 1 out of 5]

The epistolary nature of this allows Burroughs close-minded bigotry to be known in full. One learns little about the culture of his environment, and much more about how much he hated it. It's dull, derogatory, and diminutive to all those involved.

[Fernando Bajo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermosas historias entre lineas de horrible sufrimiento y vacío existencial

[Francesca · Rating 2 out of 5]

may god strike me down if I'm even half as annoying to my friends about MCR as Burroughs is about yage

[Zach Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most of Burroughs' writing, it walks a wobbly little between the grotesque and the poetic. This work is mainly just an anonymised account of a drug trip, that is, a trip to find a try the drug Ayahuasca. For what it is, it is quite interesting, half field report, half rambling, with a touch of actual botanical research in-between. You can certainly tell the difference in writing styles between Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, but it reads as an interesting dichotomy, especially as they were briefly in a relationship. Not for everyone but a relatively quick, straightforward read.