"The Last Words of Dutch Schultz" By William S. Burroughs скачать в хорошем качестве

"The Last Words of Dutch Schultz" By William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs’ "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: A Fiction in the Form of a Film Script" is a fascinating and experimental narrative that merges reality and fiction while exploring the mental unraveling of the notorious gangster Dutch Schultz. Written in the style of a film script, Burroughs uses this format to capture the surreal and fragmented consciousness of Schultz during his final moments after being shot. The work combines Burroughs’ signature stream-of-consciousness technique with his fascination for crime, corruption, and the disintegration of the human mind.The novel is structured around Schultz’s delirious, incoherent ramblings as he lies dying, and it draws on real-life transcriptions of his last words, making the work both a historical artifact and an imaginative creation. The fragmented, often bizarre monologues that Schultz delivers give the reader access to his disjointed memories, fears, and hallucinations. Through this approach, Burroughs portrays the gangster’s mind as it collapses into madness, producing a vivid and chaotic narrative. Schultz’s final words offer a glimpse into his paranoia, fear of betrayal, and reflections on his life of crime, all of which are distorted by his deteriorating mental state.One of the striking elements of the narrative is Burroughs’ blending of the real and the imagined. The factual basis of the novel, taken from the actual transcripts of Schultz’s last words, grounds the work in reality. However, Burroughs filters this reality through his own lens of surrealism and absurdity. The film script format allows him to interject stage directions and scene settings that heighten the sense of artificiality and detachment from conventional storytelling. This format also gives the narrative a sense of movement, as if Schultz’s delirium is playing out on a screen, a series of disjointed images and conversations unfolding in real time.The language used in the novel reflects Schultz’s fractured psyche. His ramblings move between past and present, reality and fantasy, in a fluid, often nonsensical way. Burroughs captures the fragmentation of Schultz’s consciousness by jumping from one topic to another without logical transitions. The sentences are clipped, chaotic, and filled with non-sequiturs, reflecting the gangster’s disordered thoughts. This linguistic disarray mirrors the breakdown of Schultz’s body, as both his physical and mental faculties deteriorate in tandem.Burroughs also explores the themes of power, violence, and mortality through Schultz’s final monologues. As a gangster, Schultz wielded immense power, but in his dying moments, he is reduced to a vulnerable, incoherent figure. His sense of control slips away as he grapples with his impending death, revealing the futility of his former dominance. The violence that defined Schultz’s life is ever-present in his thoughts, as he recalls violent episodes and the betrayals that plagued his criminal career. However, these memories are tinged with fear and confusion, suggesting that Schultz’s power was always precarious, dependent on the very chaos that ultimately consumes him.The novel also taps into Burroughs’ broader preoccupations with language and control. Schultz’s final words represent a failure of language to convey coherent meaning. As he descends into delirium, his words lose their communicative function, becoming instead a jumble of fragmented thoughts and memories. In this way, Burroughs illustrates the limits of language, especially in the face of death. The collapse of Schultz’s speech mirrors the collapse of his control over his own life, underscoring Burroughs’ view of language as both a tool of power and a source of entrapment."The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: A Fiction in the Form of a Film Script" is a striking example of Burroughs’ experimental narrative style, blending fact and fiction to create a surreal meditation on crime, death, and the breakdown of the human mind. Through the fragmented, chaotic language of Schultz’s dying monologues, Burroughs presents a portrait of a man unraveling, both mentally and physically, while also commenting on the larger themes of power, violence, and the futility of control. The novel challenges traditional storytelling by immersing the reader in the disordered consciousness of its protagonist, offering a unique and unsettling exploration of the final moments of a man’s life.