"I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say "I don't take any shit!" and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him."
—page 104, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs (from a WSB chapter)
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy the works of Jack Kerouac and am a huge fan of the works of William S. Burroughs. But this work should have stayed "buried" as Burroughs had managed to do during his lifetime and had insisted happen after his death.
The chapters alternate between sections written by William S. Burroughs ("Will Dennison") and Jack Kerouac ("Mike Ryko"). The novel is purportedly a roman à clef about Lucien Carr's killing of Dave Kammerer, friends of both Burroughs and Kerouac. The main problem is that the killing is inconsequential to anything that resembles a plot. The secondary problem is that the novel isn't written very well.
The writing is nowhere near the experimental and raw writing that would later appear in Naked Lunch (WSB) and On the Road (JK). It doesn't even rise to the level of some of the early work of Burroughs, such as Junky or the short stories of Interzone, to which it feels most related. And, for the most part, this novel is boring—the plot is nonexistent, the characters are unsympathetic and apathetic, the writing is uninspired.
It was prescient on the part of Burroughs that this novel remained hidden away. It could have easily gotten either Kerouac or Burroughs (or both) labeled as hacks very early in their careers, which would have been a major blow to modern literary history.
I only wish James Grauerholz and company had honored the wishes of Burroughs and left this one to molder in some damp attic, never to be discovered.
---
The above quoted passage is the lone standout for me. It foreshadows the sentiments of the dying, jaded Burroughs as he looks at the world and declares its end in an apocalyptic collapse, a slow self-created decline. The statement could have easily found its way into any of the books of The Western Lands Trilogy (Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads, and The Western Lands) or Ghost of Chance. In fact, it may be there somewhere, recycled and reconstituted, as Burroughs was fond of doing. If not, it sure feels like it is.
---
The book is not a complete failure. I keep returning to it. I keep searching through it.
Some have argued its historical importance, which I initially thought was a lame argument. But I have recently revised my opinion of such. There is something valid in seeing the early works of two American geniuses. This may be work that is stiff and awkward, but isn't that what our early steps looked like?
And now? We can walk.
