“Linguistic Porridge”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 3

“Linguistic Porridge”

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, December 21.

The Indecent Publications Tribunal, in a decision released today, ruled “Dead Fingers Talk,” by William Burroughs, to be not indecent.

The tribunal had considered an application by the director of the National Library Service (with the consent of the Minister of Justice) for a decision whether the book was indecent, or alternatively a decision as to its classification. There were no submissions either supporting or opposing the application other than a letter from the publisher, John Calder, Ltd., of London

(in association with the Olympia Press), claiming William Burroughs to be one of the most highly considered modern authors and submitting that though much of the contents of the book seemed strong to non-literary people, its price made it unlikely to give the book an appeal to persons other than those for whom it was intended, the decision said.

Burroughs had previously had three novels published which, according to the “Times Literary Supplement” of November 14, 1964, had been “blacklisted by the British Customs and the U.S.A, mails.” None of his earlier novels was available to the tribunal, but the present decision was confined specifically to “Dead Fingers Talk.”

“This novel is, according to the publisher, constructed

out of his three earlier novels. The author is obsessed with the themes of drug addiction and homosexuality and the fantasy world of science-fiction.

“The literary style is, for all but the most resolute reader, impenetrable,” continued the decision. “There is no narrative; disjointed scenes are assembled by a ‘montage’ technique; phrases and sentences recur in apparently random sequence. “In this linguistic porridge some of the lumps are inevitably unpalatable. The author’s manner of writing has so effectively restricted his potential reading public that in our opinion no further restriction seems called for. “Our decision is therefore that the book is not indecent within the meaning of the Indecent Publications Act, 1963.”