tTTE, class discussions

Well I'm clearly a mile or two behind on the blogging, so I'll be doing my best to make up for that here, beginning with some discussion of tTTE.

Burrough's novel begins with an identifiable structure, but by the third page, I was left what felt like strands of unrelated text plucked at random from the darkest places of Burrough's mind. Which, as class discussion has attempted to point out, may be a way of challenging the reader's perception of what is disturbing, taboo. As the book progresses, or rather as i read on, (progression hardly seems an apt description of the flow of Burrough's story, nor is it necessarily the goal) i become increasingly detached from the story. The style of writing Burrough's uses should be the focus, as long as I can't understand what I am reading. However, I will touch on the abundant, grotesque sexual content in the book, which seems to have usurped the entire storyline by page 5. There has been recent plurking that states, had male characters been replaced with female ones, there would not be such a widely disgusted response to the activities Burrough's so willingly douses his novel in. This is a completely unwarranted assertion. In fact, excerpts such as "the two bodies stuck together in a smell of KY and rectal mucus" leaves no evidence as to what gender either being is, but it nonetheless discomforting. Rectal mucus is rectal mucus. It is not use of gender roles that makes Burrough's work grotesque to us, it is his application of the senses. He applies odors (musty), adjectives (pulsating), and physical actions (diarrhea), to these sexual encounters, giving them an alienity (should be a word) to western humanity. Sex has become a cultural act, and as a result, is regarded with a dignity easily disturbed by otherwise discomforting sensations. This is why the book makes us uncomfortable, and is why it would do so regardless of the gender involved.