The Great Writing Caper

William S. Bur­roughs often sug­gest­ed that one’s dreams are a valu­able tar­get for the writer to plun­der. But what he nev­er said, nor made explic­it, was how the dreams of oth­ers might pro­vide a writer with direc­tion and mate­r­i­al. And yet it hap­pened to him: the dream of a lit­er­ary char­ac­ter, as it occurs inside a nov­el of the past, appears to have giv­en Bur­roughs a mas­sive trea­sure cache.

The dream is Raskolnikov’s, in Crime and Pun­ish­ment. And it brings William S. Bur­roughs to life. His whole oeu­vre seems to spring from it, is out­lined in the passage…

A Visit From the Time Ghost

the time ghost

I spoke with William S. Bur­roughs a few times in the final years of his life. I miss him, and recent­ly I was shocked but hap­py to hear his voice again — it was com­ing out of the pages of Dostoyevsky.

Yes, I’ve been think­ing of Bur­roughs late­ly, and I’ve encoun­tered him, and I’ve been think­ing about many oth­er things that are appear­ing, too.

First pub­lished in Got­News as “A Vision From the Time Ghost.”