Burroughs Books

After reading the introduction to the book, and how horribly it did when first released I was prepared for the worst. However, it really isn't that bad. Yes, it does have the usual racial sterotypes that Burroughs often relied on, though there was a sentence or two about how Dick and Doc (the twins) found some of their narrowminded assumptions corrected. Clearly Burroughs was making attempts to correct some of the sterotyping he had done. Even one of the horrible cannibals becomes an almost compassionate character by the end. Which is a huge step from alot of Burroughs' other books.

I enjoyed this book, it was a really quick read, it lacked alot of the physical descriptions that drag down some of the other novels. Tarzan has a breif cameo. And what I really liked was the humour the twins managed to carry through their entire adventure, I am not usually laughing during ERB's novels, (except perhaps at some of the improbable plot devices). It's too bad this edition didn't have any of the award winning illustrations that were mentioned in the introduction.

A kid's story, to start with.

A couple of boys, both with alliterative names starting with D, are off to visit the jungle. The only problem is when they get there, they get a bit sidetracked, and lost, and the Lord of the Jungle doesn't know quite where they are.

They end up running into a lion, and cannibals, as you do, when lost in Tarzan's Africa. They manage to find a couple of decent local blokes though, and eventually Tarzan tracks them down.

This long out of print story is a rare treat for fans of Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan wrote two short novellea about Dick and doc, a pair of fourteen year old cousins who visit Tarzan and have jungle adventures.

I am sorry to report that the previous reviewer is not correct. Only the novella THE TARZAN TWINS is included in this edition. Fans can only hope that AEgypan Books will also publish TARZAN AND THE TARZAN TWINS WITH JAD-BAL-JA THE GOLDEN LION in the near future.

I also feel compelled to say that parents may want to use some discretion in giving this book to youngsters. It is true that there is no inappropriate sexual material and the violence is minimal, but there are racially insensitive comments and characterizations aimed at the African characters. I don't believe Burroughs was the racist some reviewers make him out to be, but he was a man of his times, and bought into many of the racial stereotypes common in the early 20th century. Parents who buy this should be prepared to talk with their children about these attitudes. African American parents may want to pass.

Aside from that, the story is fast-moving and exciting. The boys learn about friendship, courage, and self-reliance as they dodge peril in the jungle. It's an adventure many young readers will enjoy sharing with them.

This book contains the first three books in Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" series of novels. The hero, John Carter, is Burroughs' second most famous creation. Carter is a perpetually 30 year old Civil War veteran (Confederate) who inexplicably transports to Mars. He has thrilling adventures with various races of Martians and meets his true love, red Martian Dejah Thoris. These are very exciting stories, although the "science" in the science fiction is incredibly dated now. But if you are interested in early science fiction, you should give it a read.

First, let's make this clear: I gave the book one star not for the content, which is actually good, but rather for the fact that it is actually not a stand-alone novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is a compilation of The Princess of Mars, The God of Mars and Warlord of Mars. Unfortunately, to the untrained eye, this title may seem to be a novel on its own, so I bought it and found upon receiving it that I already owned these stories...
Amazon has a return policy but since the official reason for this order is my mistake (there is no "duh one couldn't know just by the title that is was a duplicate in the scroll-down menu) I have to absorb the shipping fees, and since I live in Canada I have to ship it to the US which ends up costing me more than the refund I would get... Oh well...
Long story short this book is a compilation so if you don't already own the first three short novels of John Carter of Mars go ahead and buy it but otherwise don't be fooled by the title!

"Under the Moons of Mars" collects the trilogy that opens up the Martian series of Edgar Rice Burroughs. While better known for the creation of Tarzan, many fans of ERB feel that the John Carter books are even better. Besides, from Lin Carter's Green Star series to John Norman's Gor novels, it was John Carter's first appearance in "A Princess of Mars" that has inspired other adventures of men from Earth traveling to strange new worlds for wondrous adventures. This volume includes both that first novel and "The Gods of Mars" and "The Warlord of Mars," telling the story of how John Carter, a cavalier of Virginia, came to the planet called Barsoom by its natives.

Originally published as "Under the Moons of Mars" in "The All-Story Magazine" in 1912, "A Princess of Mars" has John Carter dying in an Arizona cave, only to find his spirit looking down at his body. Opening his arms to the planet Mars, Carter is suddenly whisked to the Red Planet, where rival tribes battle while the planet's atmosphere continues to dissipate. Captured by a band of green six-limbed giants, Carter soon earns their respect for his prowess as a warrior and forges a lasting friendship with Tars Taras of the Tharks. But then the Tharks attack a fleet of airborne vessels and capture Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium, the greatest city on Barsoom. Of course, they get off on the wrong foot, since Carter knows nothing about the culture of the red humanoid race. But the lovely Princess of Mars has captured the Virginian's heart. Abandoning dreams of returning to Earth, he wants nothing better than to win her love. In the meanwhile, he has to protect her from the amorous attention of the depraved ruler of the Tharks, bring some semblance of civilization to the barbarian tribes, and stop all out war between the green men and red men from ending Barsoom's last chance for survival.

After the first novel, Carter finds himself back on earth, separated from his beloved princess. "The Gods of Mars," originally published in 1913 as a serial in "All-Story Magazine," finds John Carter returning to Mars and setting off to find his woman. Knowing there stories were originally published serials is useful because Burroughs loads on the cliffhangers throughout the novel. When Carter returns to Barsoom a decade has passed and he finds himself in that part of the planet that the natives consider to be "heaven," which proves to be a more ironic idea. Carter has to reunite with his friend the fierce green warrior Tars Tarkas, fight with the great white apes of Barsoom and plant men, violate some significant religious taboos, survive the affections of an evil goddess, help with a slave revolt, fight in an arena, and still save Dejah Thoris in the middle of a giant air battle between the red, green, black and white people of Barsoom.

Burroughs did not originally intended to write a trilogy, but his 1914 pulp novel "The Warlord of Mars" completes the epic saga of John Carter and Dejah Thoris (I really, really like that name). The story picks up six months after the conclusion of the previous novel, with our hero not knowing whether she is dead or alive in the Temple of the Sun of the Holy Therns where he last saw here with the blade of Phaidor was descending towards her heart as the evil Issus, queen of the First Born, had locked his mate in a cell that would not open for another year. However, it turns out that the exiled leader of the Therns has reached the trapped women to rescue his daughter and to seek revenge on Carter for exposing his evil cult. The focus of "The Warlord of Mars" is on Carter's relentless pursuit of the villainous Thurid who have taken his beloved princess from the south pole of Barsoom across rivers, desert, jungles, and ice to the forbidden lands of the north in the city of Kadabra where the combined armies of the green, red and black races attack the yellow tribes of the north, thereby justifying the book's title.

The first novel is the best of the bunch, introducing us to the diverse cultures of Barsoom, but there is some historical significance to the John Carter trilogy in terms of the development of science fiction (which was not even called that when Burroughs wrote these stories). The pattern established in each of these novels, where the hero pursues his beloved across an alien landscape rescuing her from one threat after another, would become the standard plot of ERB's pulp fiction adventures. Almost all of the eleven books in the Martian series follow this pattern, including the next pair, which tell the stories of the son and daughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. However, the best in yet to come in this series (i.e., "The Chessmen of Mars"). Burroughs always provided a solid mix of romance and adventure, but the Martian series also showed him at his imaginative best.

I picked up Brother Men not knowing what to expect, but figuring it would be a quick and amusing read. What I found was a window into life as it was passing for Weston and Burroughs, not as it was remembered. This collection of letters spans the birth of two generations, two World Wars, and the trials of profit and loss. The conversation is friendly, comic, insightful, and random! At times I had to remember that the characters were real and that the letters existed. I actually was sad to end the book knowing that in a few years after the last letter this friendship would end. I think the book is great if you are a Burroughs fan, interested in history, or just enjoy how human relationships evolve. I highly suggest reading the introduction BEFORE and AFTER reading the letters.

Reading the personal correspondence of the great US author Edgar Rice Burroughs, you feel like a voyeur, for his detail is almost astounding and sometimes you are taken back to a day far removed from our crazily sped up world.

His correspondence with his prep school pal Herbert Weston isn't especially shocking, but it's affectionate, like looking into an old yearbook and seeing the silly inscriptions. It sounds to me as though they kept up writing to each other for nearly thirty years just for old times sake. If you were looking, as I was, to get more insight into Burroughs' writing process, you're out of luck; mostly it's him trying to cheer up Weston, whose business goes through rough times, and also, rather charmingly, he tries not to show off too much when the success of the TARZAN and JOHN CARTER novels makes him into a world famous personality--and a whole city, Tarzana, named after his creation. Meanwhile in Nebraska Weston just bumbles along, stumbling across "Ed"'s name constantly whenever he picks up the newspaper or reads a magazine at the barber shop. The most exciting part of the whole book comes when Weston proposes to buy "Ed" a Lincoln in Nebraska and drive it out to Tarzana--this scheme will save Ed about 1,000 in sales tax. I won't give away the spoilers, you'll have to read the book yourself to see what happens.

Outside of the Lincoln caper, the only thing that really lights a fire under Weston's ass is the death of Teddy Roosevelt, a lion among men I suppose. It was like the way some people here in the 21st century cried when Reagan died. Also intriguing is the unfolding account of the ways both men coped with the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, and how they quarrelled and didn't speak for ten years, then started writing again before the 2nd World War. Time speeds on by, doesn't it?

Editor Matt Cohen provides helpful and informative notes; the volume is nicely illustrated with vintage photos of both families. Cohenis the great-grandson of Weston and relates, amusingly, the story that he came home from grad school and told his grandma that he was looking into cases of emotional and homosocial friendship between American men of 100 years ago and out of the blue she said, "Well then, why don't you go up to the attic and pore through Dad's old letters from Edgar Rice Burroughs?" Talk about buried treasure! The Westons had kept these letters in perfect condition, and happily enough when it came to it, young Cohen found that the Burroughs estate was willing to cooperate fully.

Barsoom for real, sort of.


A group on a spaceship ends up on a planet that, according to one of the crew who happens to be an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, bears more than a passing resemblance to Barsoom.

However, the locals have a big more in common with those in the Left Hand of Darkness, etc., than would be expected of a group of Dejah Thoris types.

This crew ends up staying, and because of their technology and method of arrival have influence in a society that is deliberately designed to be stable and not progress or use energy hungry technologies.

cover art by Don Maitz. David Lake takes a shot at continuing the saga of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When Tom Carson caught sight of the third planet of 82 Eridani he recognized at once its resemblance to that imaginary Mars called "Barsoom" of the ancient novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs' character John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Of course, there were indeed vital variations that would eventually trip up the self-deceived travelers from the 24th century Earth. Therein hangs the tale. David Lake wrote another one, that is Warlords of Xuma.

I just could not get into this novel. It seemed to me to be very shallow and did not delve into the characters beyond a physical context. The main character remained below a murky surface as I found myself waiting for his true nature to emerge. It washowever an easy read and perhaps a nice piece to read if you want something simple and unengaging.

This book is an account of a walking tour of England by a young man. Mostly, it's full of wry and critical descriptions of the people he encounters. There are odd aunts, strange villagers, haunting fellow hostel guests. Welch himself was a visual artist by training. He was a promising, public school educated young man when he had a crippling bicycle accident. His writing consistently describes athletic situations: swimming, skiing, bicycling. Because he wrote so little, though, I'm not certain how important this was to him. As I read, I felt I was in the company of Paul Theroux. Then I'd feel it was Graham Greene or DH Lawrence. He's such a craftsman of the written word. His skills equal those of the other writers I'm mentioning here. However, it's a shame to compare him to these writers. He simply didn't leave enough writing behind him. Welch feels very accessible. Though his writing has become obscure to us, there is no feeling that he is writing in an obscure way. You have an oppurtunity to be the first one on your block to get to know Welch. The fun part is that nobody has to know just how easy Welch is to read.

This is the script for a very cool movie, that (to the best of my knowledge) does not exist. I enjoyed it although this is not a novel-it is just a movie script. I never have read a complete film script before, and was pleased with how straightforward this was. The text is very detailed, with action and sound separated into two columns on each page. Pictures of the characters are included as well, with a identification key appearing in the end. The story is captivating: a real mob boss is dying, and a police stenographer records what he has to say. Burroughs expatiates upon this actual account with a more or less linear fictional interpretation of Dutch's rise to power during the Prohibition. This would be a better movie- just not quite as cutting edge anymore, unless room for additional experimentation is allowed. Overall a very light and simple read, I finished this in two short sittings. If you are a fan of Burroughs I strongly encourage you to read this, it is much more approachable than some of his novels.

In his final journals, Burroughs spoke forebodingly of the "pure killing purpose" which characterized his formative influences, of the hammer-blow "realism" which Conrad or Stendhal seemed to have in spades, the power of an author to grab the reader by the throat and put them in an imaginary world more real than our burnt-out sphere could ever sustain, and this in only a few words, a scrap of dialogue, a well-honed descriptive fragment. Burroughs' own wager with such intense literary economy involved many volumes of spasmodic hit-and-miss fragmentary visions, a cine-fantastique for television-shrunk minds, moments of intense brilliance and humor rising from a frostbitten plain of cold narrative tundra. But *Dutch Schultz* is startling in its word-for-word attention-grabbing coherence, its creeping aura of sustained criminal imagination, not to mention the closest Burroughs ever came to writing a fiction of mounting suspense, one of the most idiosyncratic "potboilers" you will ever read.

Arthur Flegenheimer (a.k.a. Dutch Schultz) was gunned down in the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey in October 1935. Though he survived only two days after the shooting, a police stenographer was stationed at his bedside to record any incriminating evidence relating to the identity of his assassin(s). What was recorded in lieu of legal testimony was the fevered ramblings of the dying gangster, a "cut-up" of his youth and delinquent upbringing, his bloody rise to becoming Gotham's #1 racketeer, paroxysms of rage and grief at such a dark and brutal life. Happily for this reader, the obscurantism of the Burroughsian cut-up is constantly reworked into wonderful "dramatic" sequences, brass-knuckled wiseguy folklore soaked in the moneyed carnage of the mean streets.

Perhaps Burroughs' lack of explicit Control metaphors here (the Nova Mob, the Black Meat, et al.) made this text convenient for academic criticism to overlook, which is a shame, since it is one of his best shorter works, second only to *Ghost of Chance*(1991). The Arcade edition which I'm reviewing here, with its disquieting graphic design (headlines and period photographs of gangster-era Gotham City and environs), amplifies the text to a chilling degree, sending the reader on greased rails into the black-and-white phantasmagoria of 1930's American gangland.

Burroughs' script will never be filmed, of course, yet will always linger as an inspiration to overcome such contemporary disappointments as 1991's *Billy Bathgate*, where Dustin Hoffman as Dutch Schultz was surely great casting, but hardly a compensation for the film's slick expurgation of dirt-under-the-fingernails spittoon-juice gangster grunge.

Terra incognita: check.
Savable babe: check.
Treacherous traveling companion: check.
Death cult and/or human sacrifice: check.
Inane romantic misunderstandings: check.
Everything else in the genre's list: check.

This time, "there" is the bizarre and unknown world outside the US. Some poorly-stated conflict divided the world into America (South America included, not that anyone important lives there) and All The Rest. Sabotage and misfortune drive Our Hero et al. outside the ken of civilized people and onto the carnivore-ridden shores of Great Britain, then beyond. Beyond means "where all those guys who aren't Anglo-colored live."

The story has passed its 90th birthday, so WWI was fresh in mind for the original reader. Burroughs knew that US isolationism was a dream or nightmare on many minds, as it is when I write this. He played and preyed on that to create the setting for his next pot-boiler.

But he did it really well. Also known as "Beyond Thirty" (the thirtieth line of longitude), this historical artifact carries all the distressing prejudices and jingoistic assumptions of its time. A modern reader might like this best if it's read at arm's length. You'll want to taste all the racist and implicitly imperialist culture of the time, but not swallow. We're not perfect these days, but it's nice to know that we're doing a damm lot better.

-- wiredweird

In THE LOST CONTINENT, Edgar Rice Burroughs creates a world that is typical of his writings. The backgrounds of his civilizations are less important than his desire to allow his heroes to sally forth onto unknown lands to fight ferocious beasts and win the hands of wild and lovely women. Here, Jefferson Turck is an American submarine captain who unwillingly sails his vessel to an England that was wrecked in the First World War. This annihilation of civilization by unrestrained warfare is a theme that he would use many times in his other novels. Mankind, it seems, can only survive such a conflagration by isolating itself from the source of the internecine infection and letting the combatants slug themselves out unmolested. Those who survive, like Turck, must enter the realm of ruin to take grim satisfaction and learn that continuous warfare will be unlike that of Orwell's version where wrack and ruin of continuous battle is carefully plotted. In the world of ERB multigenerational conflict can lead only to a regression of mankind to their atavistic ancestors. The plot, of course, is silly nonsense, but ERB is such a strong creator of character that the reader simply ignores the many implausibilities. After reading End of Civilization novels such as this one, the reader is tempted to compare how ERB sees how man may conspire in his own ruin and how other authors do the same. What is a common element is that nearly all authors who write of the destruction and recreation of civilization tap into a deep seated need of humanity to account for how Things Are Now, How They May Have Been, and most important, How They May Yet Be. THE LOST CONTINENT is a fine example of how one author attempted to plumb such depths of mankind's psyche.

The Mad King, by Edgar Rice Burroughs was very entertaining to me. It takes place in the fictional kingdom of Lutha caught between Austria-Hungary and Serbia right at the start of World War I. Burroughs began writing this book after the news of hostilities breaking out, during that fateful November and incorporated the real world events into his tale. It centers on an American, Barney Custer, who is unknowingly descended from the royal house of Lutha. Upon going to the kingdom he is mistakenly identified by the true king, who is being held prisoner by a rival who is acting regent and has proclaimed the actual king mad. The likeness between Barney and the true king is used as a plot device, and they switch roles several times in order to save the kingdom from internal threats as well as those imposed by Austria at the outbreak of the war. Along the journey we see examples of pulp heroics, entertaining plot twists, and of course romance. The heroine (love interest) is betrothed to the king, but is in love with Barney, and both men want her for their own. Many times Barney plays the king to save the kingdom, and always does the right thing by giving the throne back to the true king instead of holding the crown and the woman he loves. An excellent example of the pulp literature of the time, and a fun read.

For those of us who went through a phase of tracking down ACE paperback editions of everything Edgar Rice Burroughs ever wrote, it is interesting to see how many of his yarns were originally published in different issues of different pulp fiction magazines of the day. Such is the case with "The Mad King," a tale of confused identities involving European royalty in the tradition of "The Prisoner of Zenda." The first part was published in "All-Story Weekly" as "The Mad King" in March of 1914 with the follow up, "Barney Custer of Beatrice" appearing the following year in "Blue Book Magazine."

The story is set in the fictional land of Lutha where the corrupt regent Peter of Blentz has been keeping Leopold, the late king's mentally unbalanced son, locked up. But after a decade's imprisonment Leopold has escaped and the regent has his minister of War, Coblich, order Captain Maenck to recapture Leopold. Meanwhile, American tourist Barney Custer is visiting his mother's homeland. Seeing a description of the "mad king," he saves a young woman from a runaway horse and on a whim introduces himself as the "mad king."

At this point ERB pours on the contrivances. The young woman believes him, at which point explaining the truth does no good, because she is really the Princess Emma von der Tann, who father supported the old king and would like to see nothing better than Leopold assume the throne. The whole point of the first part of the story is to get the real Leopold on the throne, which does nothing to resolve the romantic tension between Barney and Emma, especially in light of all the political intrigue. The second part finds that the problems of Barney and Lutha are not settled by having Leopold on the throne and Burroughs plays on the various tensions in Europe that were leading the continent towards the First World War.

Your enjoyment of this early ERB potboiler depends almost entirely on your tolerance for confused identities and your knowledge of European politics in the years before WWI. Burroughs would use the idea of look alike characters often, most notably in a couple of Tarzan novels, which is one of the reasons this is an average ERB offering. Burroughs does have a plausible reason for why Barney and Leopold look so much alike, but that really just amounts to another trick from the same deck. You do get strong dosages of adventure and romance that you come to expect from a Burroughs pulp fiction yarn, but the total package is not especially special.

This is one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' best stories. However, this is just the first half of the story! Wildside Press has gone back to the magazine version, and printed just the first half of the story of Billy Byrne. The book commonly known as THE MUCKER also contains the second half which was published in magazine form as "The Return of the Mucker". $32 for half the story? What a rip off!

Okay, first, to set you mind at ease, a "mucker" is slang for "a coarse vulgar person, esp. one capable of offense against courtesy of honor." I believe it is originally British slang which made its way across the pond in the early 20th century in time for Edgar Rice Burroughs to feel comfortable using it for the title of a pair of pulp fiction yarns collected in this volume. As you would expect from the title, this is the story of a low borne brute, Billy Byrne, who wins the hand of an upper class lady, Barbara Harding . "The Mucker" ran in "All-Story Cavalier" in 1914 with "The Return of the Mucker" being published two years later in "All-Story Weekly." Now both stories are published in a single volume.

Billy Byrne is basically a street thug whose notion of honor is based more on a sense of territoriality rather than anything else. Just when things are starting to become too hot in Chicago he gets shanghaied and ends up on the brigantine "Halfmoon," a 20th century pirate vessel. Surviving and rising in the ranks because of his ability to beat any other man to a bloody pulp, Billy participates in the taking of the yacht "Lotus," where one of the captives is Barbara Harding, the millionaire's daughter. Of course he insults her, as is the way of the mucker, but when she calmly calls him a coward and a beast he finds himself thinking about how he much look to others, thus beginning his quest for moral regeneration. When she gets captured by headhunters, take a wild guess as to who is going to rescue her. Of course, at the end of the first part Billy takes the high road, knowing he is not good enough for Barbara and leaving her to return to the world to which she belongs, and then we repeat all the action in the second part and change the ending.

You will find a little bit from several different early works by Edgar Rice Burroughs in "The Mucker." The story starts in Chicago, a city that ERB knew well, and then turns into a sea yarn with a mutiny, which is how "Tarzan of the Apes" began, except that this time the "hero" is one of the pirates. You will also find one of ERB's lost races, which would become a staple in the last half of the Tarzan series. The second half, which takes place after the Mucker does the noble thing at the end of part one, goes off into the Mexican desert and turns into a western. So there is certainly a little bit of everything here, although the strongest comparison is to the first two Tarzan novels, not only because the romantic plot follows essentially the same pattern, but because it also provides the brute becoming civilized. In that regard it is one of ERB's more interesting pulp yarns, totally devoid of the science fiction elements found in most of his better stories, but retaining his strong sense of human nature.

Imagine a mix of Raymond Chandler, William Blake, Swift and Genet. That is about as close as you will get to Burroughs. But the man is unique. His satire is utterly incisive. His ear for prose and dialouge is impeccable. And his imagination is prolific, as beautiful and truthful as it is violent, vile and so on.

Still, Naked Lunch is not for the faint of heart. And my suspicion is that unfortunately, it is also one of those books which, while generally understood by those who have already arrived at an understanding of its core ideas via their own routes, is seldom comprehended by those who haven't.

The majority of readers are likely to be left cold, nauseated, or outraged and to come away having failed to connect with what the author is communicating.

So before I leap into proclaiming this book as a work of genius and poetry - which it is - I would also add that NL is frequently obscene, gratuitously so. There are plenty of scenes in the which are simply pornographic, and/or grotesquely violent, and which don't have anything more profound to them than that. Not all of the "colourful" details in NL connote something more than what's there on the surface.

That said, this book is serious literature, great literature that has I might add (ad hominem, I know) been praised by the likes of J.G. Ballard, Christopher Isherwood, Angela Carter and Norman Mailer.

This book is incredibly over-rated. I finally finished reading this beginning to end after several previous attempts - its a fairly short book and starts out well but I found a chore to read primarily because large parts of it are totally nonsensical. Maybe it did challenge the meaning of literature in the 50s like James Joyce's Ulysses did in the 20s, and maybe its value is in its perceived offensiveness, which was oh so shocking when first published. I could appreciate some of the wit, especially with regard to heroin use and in this respect it was slightly insightful, but I didn't find the gratuitous gay pornography and violence particularly shocking or interesting - in fact it bored me. Primarily because of the lack of structure (there are characters but not really a story line) but his style - perhaps because it's a much celebrated subconscious stream - doesn't seem to aid expression, it serves to confuse, and a lot of the dialogue doesn't make any sense either. Now I do like the beatnik subconscious stream style (or whatever it's called) to some extend, but often it just ends in nonsense. Maybe the value is aesthetic, in the sound of spoken word, but I am in favour of content over superficiality anyway. Kerouac on the other hand is amazing, and I'd recommend reading some of his books instead. Ginsberg's poetry has strong similarities to Burroughs style, but after all they're poems, so they're shorter and meant to read aloud, and therefore appreciation can still be found in his drug induced ramblings.