Burroughs?

[Michael Bailey]

Toby Levy wrote:
> Sorry, I just don't see Burroughs in this light, and I don't see how
> an assumption can be made that a young author was a "fan" simply
> because the older author was on the cover of Life magazine as being
> the new voice of the Beats.
>
> I read Burroughs back in the 60s and I just didn't think he wrote very well.
>

I think young Pynchon was a big reader of Evergreen Review, because he
said so in the preface to _Slow Learner_

so he liked experimental and non-censored writing

Going by his work, I think he's a lot better writer than Burroughs.
If there's some resemblance in GR, it's mostly because GR doesn't
shrink from detailing hideous grotesque dream sequences like the
Adenoid, Burroughs could totally do something like the Adenoid.
He couldn't do oh so many other things in GR, though.