''The Nova Trilogy'' or ''The Cut-up Trilogy'' is a name commonly given by critics to a series of three

experimental novel Experimental literature is a genre that is, according to Warren Motte in his essa"Experimental Writing, Experimental Reading" "difficult to define with any sort of precision." He says the "writing is often invoked in an "offhand manner" and the ...

s by

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Volumes

* The Soft Machine *

The Ticket That Exploded ''The Ticket That Exploded'' is a 1962 novel by American author William S. Burroughs, published by Olympia Press and later by Grove Press in 1967. Together with '' The Soft Machine'' and ''Nova Express'' it is part of a trilogy, referred to as ' ...

Nova Express ''Nova Express'' is a 1964 novel by American author William S. Burroughs. It was written using the 'fold-in' method, a version of the cut-up method, developed by Burroughs with Brion Gysin, of enfolding snippets of different texts into the nove ...

Trilogy

The trilogy of experimental novels is composed of '' The Soft Machine'' (1961, revised 1966 and 1968), ''

''(1962, revised 1967) and ''

'' (1964). Like ''

Naked Lunch ''Naked Lunch'' (sometimes ''The Naked Lunch'') is a 1959 novel by American writer William S. Burroughs. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, intended by Burroughs to be read in any order. The reader follows the na ...

'', '' The Soft Machine'' derived in part from '' The Word Hoard'', a number of manuscripts Burroughs wrote mainly in

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the cap ...

, between 1954 and 1958. All three novels use the

cut-up technique The cut-up technique (or ''découpé'' in French) is an aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized ...

that Burroughs invented in cooperation with painter and poet

Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...

and computer programmer Ian Sommerville. Commenting on the trilogy in an interview, Burroughs said that he was "attempting to create a new mythology for the space age". In 2014, restored editions of the three novels were published, edited by Burroughs scholar

Oliver Harris Oliver C. G. Harris is a British academic and Professor of American Literature at Keele University. He is the author and editor of fourteen books, including a dozen editions of works by William S. Burroughs: ''Letters, 1945–1959'' (1993), ''J ...

. The new editions made a number of changes to the texts and included notes and previously unpublished materials that showed the complexity of the books' manuscript histories and the precision with which Burroughs used his methods.

Style

The Trilogy is viewed by critics as being one of Burroughs's most radical experimentations with narrative form. All three novels are crafted using the cut-up method, in which existing texts are cut into various pieces and put back together in random order. The technique was combined with images of Gysin's painting and sounds from Somerville's tape recorders. Due to the cut-up method's random approach to text, Burroughs repeatedly defended his writing style against critics, explaining that the cut-up method created possibilities for mixing text written by himself and other writers and helped deemphasize the traditional role of text. As a result, the novels that make up the trilogy are even more sporadic in plot and structure than ''Naked Lunch''. Burroughs spoke of the trilogy as a "sequel", and "mathematical extension" of the themes and techniques of ''Naked Lunch''. ''The Soft Machine'' is the first book in the trilogy, and is a compilation of descriptive and interchangeable scenes, which delve further into the sexual and biological issues previously explored in ''Naked Lunch''. Critic Mac Tonnies described the main themes in the novel as including "time travel, media bombardment, and out-of-body travel."Tonnies, Mac
"William S. Burroughs Book Reviews."
18 Nov. 2009. In ''The Ticket that Exploded'', Burroughs deals with tape recorders (an allegory Burroughs links to the destruction of control systems), cybernetic pleasure farms, and homosexual erotic exploitations on the planet Venus. Burroughs bypasses linear structure, pattern, and narrative in the novel (i.e., a clear beginning, middle, and end), instead deconstructing traditional organization and composition. ''Nova Express'' follows Inspector Lee as he tracks down members of the Nova Mob. It is considered by critics as being one of the best books in the trilogy due to its graphic descriptions and fragmented cyber world. The Nova Trilogy (as well as a passage in the book on the cut-up technique named ''Minutes to Go'') feature the character

Hassan-i Sabbah Hasan-i Sabbāh ( fa, حسن صباح) or Hassan as-Sabbāh ( ar, حسن بن الصباح الحميري, full name: Hassan bin Ali bin Muhammad bin Ja'far bin al-Husayn bin Muhammad bin al-Sabbah al-Himyari; c. 1050 – 12 June 1124) was the ...

and his final words ''Nothing is true—everything is permitted.'' Burroughs was introduced to Hassan through Betty Bouthoul, who had written an extensive book on the assassins titled ''The Master of the Assassins'' (French title ''Le grand maître des Assassins'').

Influence on popular culture

The influence of the trilogy can be seen in many places.

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

and

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

have employed the cut-up method in composing their lyrics. The band

Soft Machine Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge (keyboards, 1966–1976), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals, 1966–1971), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals, 1966–1968) and Daevid Allen (guitar, 1966–196 ...

is named after the book.

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabli ...

calls himself "That Subliminal Kid" after a member of The Nova Mob. After

Hüsker Dü Hüsker Dü () was an American punk rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould, bassist/vocalist Greg Norton, and drummer/vocalist Grant Hart. They first gained notabili ...

disbanded,

Grant Hart Grantzberg Vernon Hart (March 18, 1961 – September 13, 2017) was an American musician, best known as the drummer and co-songwriter for the punk rock band Hüsker Dü. After the band's breakup in 1988, he released his first solo album '' ...

formed a band called Nova Mob. Many

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

and electronic musicians including

Genesis P-Orridge Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson; 22 February 1950 – 14 March 2020) was a singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, and occultist who rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions arti ...

Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The core ...

, John Oswald, and other

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...

and

industrial music Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...

artists have created compositions using the technique of cutting up audio tape and rearranging the pieces to create new sounds. The German film ''Decoder'', which stars P-Orridge and Burroughs, is largely based on ideas in these novels.

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of ...

, in his song " Lust For Life", mentions Nova Mob member Johnny Yen, and sings "well, that's like hypnotizing chickens", a line from ''The Ticket That Exploded''.

Collections

To date the three novels that form the ''Nova Trilogy'' have yet to be published in a single-volume omnibus. The closest thus far was the ''Three Novels'' collection () published by Grove Press in March 1988 which includes ''The Soft Machine'' and ''Nova Express'' but substitutes '' The Wild Boys'' in place of ''The Ticket That Exploded''.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nova Trilogy, The Novels by William S. Burroughs Novel series Literary trilogies