CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT 2

"The Cities of the Red Night were six in number: Tamaghis, Ba'dan, Yass-Waddah, Waghdas, Naufana, and Ghadis. These cities were located in an area roughly corresponding to the Gobi Desert, a hundred thousand years ago. At that time the desert was dotted with large oases and traversed be a river which emptied into the Caspian Sea."
—page 153, Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs

"Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star."
—page 127, Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs

Time collapses in on itself, such that all times are present. The Cities of the Red Night exist a hundred thousand years ago, yet the armies that battle there consist of seventeenth-century pirates, modern police and military forces, creatures from the future, gods of the golden age.

Space collapses in on itself, such that all places are present. Port Roger, Panama; lower Manhattan; Lima, Peru; and Yass-Waddah and the other Cities are all major settings for the plot, although they fluctuate. There is no constancy.

Culture collapses in on itself, such that all becomes a true melting pot. The Mayan Gods run amok in the "Gobi Desert" region of the Cities. Eighteenth-century nobility melt into twentieth-century corporate players, although they are obviously of extraterrestrial origin, rumored to be Venusian.

Individual characters collapse in on themselves, merging into one another, confusing identities. Clem Snide, private investigator (or "private asshole" as he insists by means of introduction), becomes Audrey. Some of the young men that Snide/Audrey is seeking are having their heads severed and transplanted onto other bodies. Memories move with the heads—sometimes.

Characters from other novels and stories, past and future, are also present: Dr. Benway, Kiki, Paco, Joselito, Enrique, Captain Mission, Clem Snide, O'Brien, along with a myriad of others.

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Cities of the Red Night was published in 1981. AIDS was first recognized in mid-1981. This is fascinating since one of the sub-plots of the narrative is of a disease that becomes epidemic, if not pandemic. It is transmitted sexually, leaving its victims with large red welts or sores. The disease is viral: "I knew why Peter hadn't responded to antibiotics. He didn't have scarlet fever. He had a virus infection." (page 54) It is also ultimately fatal.

In true Burroughs-paranoia fashion, the disease probably originates in a laboratory and mutates and frees itself from any attempts to control it, which was one of Burroughs's theories about AIDS in the 1990s.

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The novel is somewhat difficult to describe to those who have never read the work of Burroughs. The main theme concerns the attempt to overthrow anything trying to control the individual, whether societal, governmental, religious, class-based, or linguistic. This libertarian thread is what ties all of Burroughs's work together, including his earlier drug memoirs. Cities of the Red Night is also somewhat difficult to read, although more accessible than some of Burroughs's earlier work, such as Naked Lunch. If you are willing to commit the time to reading, digesting, and conversing with this work then it is worth the struggle.