Postmodernism and Cold War Military Technology in the Fiction of Don DeLillo and William S. Burroughs

Melanie Suzanne Parker

Ph. D

Department of English Literature

August 2008

Volume One Postmodernism and Cold War Military Technology in the Fiction of Don DeLillo and William S. Burroughs

This thesisexplores Don DeLillo's and William S. Burroughs' ongoing fictional engagementswith the intimacy betweenCold War military technology and postmodern networked culture. Thesenovelists respondfrom seeminglydivergent perspectivesto the social and historiographicaluncertainty generatedby networked militarization. For DeLillo, this takesthe form of a neo-realistnarrative reconsideration of history, designedto emphasisethe effects of the Cold War unconsciouspropagated by the speed and disseminationof cultural data.By fictionalising the breaksand ambiguitiesin our everydayexperience of social reality, DeLillo's novels WhileNoise (1982) and Underworld (1998) require that the readerparticipate in metafictional processesof historical restoration.This thesis suggeststhat DeLillo's rewrite of history works to exposethe military initiatives underpinningcultural life; thereby reinstatingthe societal 'balance' and equilibrium otherwiselost to networked subjectivity. Burroughs"response takesthe form of a counter-assaultdesigned to overthrow and replacethe 'control machinery' operatingthrough the military-technological information system.By using avant-gardemethods of linguistic resistancein the 'Nova' trilogy (1962-1964)to break the 'associationallines' of control, and by redirecting the application of Cold War military-technological researchin the 'Red Night' trilogy (1981-1987),Burroughs' narrativeroutines work to fashion retroactive counter-historiesof utopian possibility. This thesis investigateshow Burroughsuses the postmodernhistorical fragmentation derived from military-technological ascendancyas a springboardfor uninhibited fictional escapism.Although divergent in terms of their engagementwith militarization and networkedinformation culture, the fiction of DeLillo and Burroughs supportsa reassessmentof the 'de-realised' postmodernsociety identified by Fredric Jameson,Paul Virilio and JeanBaudrillard. For example,Jameson sees the intimacy of military and networked information technology as symptomaticof the postmodernsituation. However, as DeLillo and Burroughs recognise,rather than being symptomatic,the mergerbetween military and information networks taking place during the Cold War has helpedestablish postmodernism. This thesis,then, will draw upon DeLillo's and Burroughs' fictional engagementsas a meansto reorient and consolidateexisting postmodernanalyses. Contents

Introduction I

Critical Responsesto DeLillo and Burroughs 9

DeLillo and Burroughs:Fictional Responsesto Military-Technological Culture 18

Chapter One: Cold War Containment and Biotechnological Risk in Don DeLillo's

"ite Noise 27

Cold War Simulation: The ReaganEra 31

ContainmentIdentity in "ite Noise 37

Media Risk Contaimnent 47

Community Risk Containment 57

SimulatedDisaster andNuclear Contingency 62

Consumerismand the Military Complex 67

ContainmentMeltdown 74

Chapter Two: William S. Burroughs' Biotechnological Mythology: Narratives of

Cold War Resistancefrom the Nova Trilogy to Cities of the Red Night 85

Cut-ups: Viral Pandemicsand Textual Resistance 90

The Nova Conspiracy 96

GovernmentAgency Mind Control Experimentation 103 Burroughs' 'Guerrilla Serniotics' and the Retum to Narrative 107

Burroughs' Scientific Revolt and GovernmentAgency Exposure 112

Brion Gysin's Gobi Desert Myth and Cities of the RedNight 117

BiotechnologicalConspiracy 122

Burroughs' Viral Technologies:The 'Germs' of Political Criticism 128

Fictional Escapism 133

Chapter Three: Posthuman Potentials in William S. Burroughs' The PI"e ofDead

Roads and The WesternLands 142

The JohnsonFamily: 'A Potential America' 148

Burroughs' Biotechnological Takeover 157

Cybernetics:The Military-Technological Body 161

JohnsonFamily Genetics 166

Yhe WesternLands: A Hybrid Text 173

The Post-HumanistProject 181

Chapter Four: Information War and the Militarization of Media Technologiesin

Don DeLillo's Undenvorld 192

Technoscienceand National Identity: The Radio Era 201

Radio:Military Developmentand Propaganda 205

Televisionand Satellite: The ImageWar 213

TheKennedy Assassination as Historical 'Interruption' 220

DomesticMilitarization and Vietnam 229 Vietnam and Battlefield Innovation 234

The Internet: DeLillo's Information Bomb 241

The Loss of Military-Technological Consciousness:Networking 251

TechnologicalTransformation 255

Conclusion: Don DeLillo and William S. Burroughs: Historical Neo-Realism or

Utopian Escape? 261

Bibliography 270 Introduction

Every position on postmodcrnismin culture-whethcr apologiaor stigmatization-is also at one and the sametime, and necessarily,an implicitly or explicitly political stanceon the natureof multinational capitalismtoday. ' (Fredric Jameson)

According to Fredric Jameson,all conceptsof postmodernism.provide an ideological responseto the conditionsof a late-capitalistsociety. This set of global economic relations,otherwise identified as the post-industrialor consumersociety, makeapparent the evolution of capital from the growth of industrialism,to the developmentof advancedtechnological forms of production and information distribution. From Jameson'sperspective, the easiestway to understandthe conceptof postmodernityis to think of it as an attemptto historicize this techno-capitalistpresent in an age incapableof thinking historically in the first place.This frustrating condition leadsto a kind of 'historical deafness'whereby serialisedculture attemptsto recuperatethe loss of historicity in a 'spasmodic', 'intermittent' and 'desperate'fashion. 2 In fact, 'culture' has becomea product in its own right, and so postmodernismcan be describedas 'the consumptionof sheercommodification as a process'.3 In this sense,postmodernism is not necessarilythe cultural dominant of a brand new social configuration, but rather it is a perceptualshift denoting thesealterations in the economicsystem. The relationship betweenthe late-capitalisteconomic base and the cultural superstructuretakes the form of a continuousinteraction prone to ambiguity and fluctuation. Therefore,the certainty of totalising and stableconcepts becomes engulfed by the heterogeneityof a system subjectto perpetualfeedback.

Jamesonattributes the economicpreparation for postmodernism.to the introduction of new technologies,consumer products and media networks taking place during the 1950s.The material shortagesof World War Two had somewhatdissipated by this stage,meaning that the burgeoningconsumer society was ready to accommodate

1Fredric Jameson,Poshnodernism, or the Cultural Logic ofLate Capitalism, (Durham: Duke University I)rcss.S, 1991),3, (Jameson'semphases). 2 Ibid. Poshnodernis7mintroduction, A 3 Ibid.: introduction, x 2 a new era of techno-scientificresearch and innovation. As a result of theseprogressive forces of production and consumerdemand, society now facesa situation in which

aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-sccming goods (from clothing to airplanes) at ever greater rates of turnover, now assigns an increasingly essential structural function and position to aesthetic innovation and expcrimentation. "

This senseof speedand urgency in cultural and commodity production causesthe following postmodernconstituents: 'a new depthlessness'which is prolongedand propagatedby a societyfixated on the image or 'simulacrum', a subsequent'weakening of historicity' affecting both public history and 'private temporality', and a schizophrenic' subjectivity determiningnew spatial aestheticsand emotional 5 'intensities'. Although Jamesonacknowledges this historical crisis as a worldwide phenomenon,he stipulatesthat theseconditions are particularly noticeablein American culture and society, and as suchthey spreadoutward acrossthe globe. Jamesonstates that eachof thesefactors contributesto a new historical situation in which the subject is forced to experienceand elucidatehistory through the simulationsand popular images we producein lieu of that history. Hence,the focus on technologicalprecision and networked communicationcapability has contributedto the fragmentationof our historiographical perceptionof everyday social reality. This type of historical and aestheticfragmentation is identifiable as a key motif of modernism;however it becomes subjectto an unprecedentedlevel of technological intensification within the postmodern situation.

I concurwith Jamesonthat the economicand aesthetic basis for postmodernism is tied to the technologicalinitiative of Americanenterprise since the 1950s.Crucially, this periodof aestheticand technological success was stimulated by the military- industrial requirementsof strategicCold War hostility. Thetechno-scientific research andadvancement enabling military precisionensured that the US/Sovietbinary oppositionremained in a perpetualstate of competition.Therefore, the continualfocus on weaponssystems and network communication capability engendered the

4 Ibid., 5. 5 Ibid., 6. 3 militarization of society at large. The consumersociety demanding'fresh wavesof ever more novel-seeminggoods' becameimplicated within military-industrial productivity as it mergedwith domestictechnologies and information networks. For journalist Fred J. Cook, the social and economicpressures experienced post-World War Two had created a new phenomenonin the United States,a power complex otherwiserecognised as the warfare state.6 First identified by PresidentEisenhower in his 1961 farewell address,this complex was describedas a combinationof military-industrial power basedupon two major assumptions.First, that national security could only be achievedthrough absolute power, and second,that American prosperity was now dependentupon the constant augmentationprovided by military expenditure.7 Justified by the spectreof Soviet expansionismand the threat of a nuclear attack upon the United States,the military- industrial complex becamethe organisingprinciple behind the domesticeconomy. As a result, it underpinnedall social relations and cultural outlets during the Cold War. In order to supportthe ongoing demandsof a warfare statedesigned around an 'imminent' threat, the US military outsourceda proportion of its manufacturingrequirements, and commissionedprivate industry to developand produceits intelligence hardwareand weaponssystems. In this sense,the domesticconsumer became involved in a systemof military-industrial enhancementemploying the citizenry, and infiltrating the American householdvia technologicalproducts. Military expenditurewas to increaseyear on year throughoutthe Cold War, and by the winter of 1981President Reagan's administration had proposeda 32.6 billion dollar add-onto the defencebudgets for 1981 and 1982.8In total, Reagansought 200 billion dollars in acceleratedweapons programmes, including investment in the B-2 Stealthbomber, one-hundredMX missiles, six Trident submarines,three thousandcruise missiles, one-hundredB-1 bombersand investmentin command,control and communicationssystems for US nuclear strategicdefence. 9 By 1983,Reagan had announcedhis plan for the 'Strategic DefenseInitiative' (SDI), a satellite systemdesigned to provide 'a spaceshield to protect the nation against

6 SeeFred J. Cook, The WarfareState, (New York: Macmillan, 1962),376 pp. 7 SeeIbid. 8 SeeFrances Fitzgerald, Way Out Yllere in the Blue: Reagan,Star Warsand the End of the Cold War, (New York: Simon & Schuster,2000), 148. 9 Ibid., 148. 4 destructionby Soviet nuclear missiles'.10 Although theseplans never cameto fruition in the way that the Reaganadministration had envisagedthem, the commitmentto a warfare stateremained central to US domesticand foreign policy. When consideringthe Reaganyears in particular, the link betweennational prosperity and the warfare state becomesquestionable. During this period, Americans faced high levels of unemployment,and the nation moved from being the largestcreditor to the largest " debtor. This unfaltering commitmentto the military-industrial complex is paradoxical becauseprolonged investmentin military hardwareis a proven drain on national resources,and a harshimpediment to domesticeconomic growth. The postmodern situation,then, can to an extent be attributed to the military-industrial drive for supremacy,a systemresponsible for distancingthe subjectfrom unambiguoushistorical reality. Jamesondoes not explore the relationship betweenCold War military- industrialism and postmodernismin any great detail. Rather, he insinuatesthat American military and economicglobal supremacyis relatedto postmodemculture, and as such it concealsa dark undersideof exploitation and political violence." Therefore,this thesis will reconsiderJameson's critical analysis in Postmodernism,or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) in order to demonstratethese links betweenCold War militarization and the technologicalnetwork. Through this interrelationship,I intend to reorient Jameson'swork by showing that the intimacies betweenmilitary and technologicalnetworks are not symptomaticof postmodernism,but rather that they help establishpostmodernism in certain ways. In this sense,Jameson's identification of postmodernculture becomesa conceptgrounded by the disseminationof Cold War discoursesand military-technological influence. In Ae Vietnam War atid Postmodernity (1999), Michael Bibby is critical of Jameson'sassessment of Vietnam as 'the first 13 terrible postmodernistwar'. He setsout to demonstrateslippages in Jameson's narrativesof postmodernity,by underlining how the policies and technologiesshaping

10Ibid., 15. 1 SeeCoral Bell, 7heReagan Paradox. * American Foreign Policy in the 1980s,(New Brunswick NJ: RutgersUniversity Press,1989), 224 pp. 12Ibid., 5. 13Quoted in Michael Bibby, 71e rietnam War and Poshnodernity,(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,1999), introduction, xiv. 5 the Vietnam War are not expressionsof postmodernism,but are constitutiveof the postmoderncondition. Similarly, I intend to re-evaluateJameson's analysis so that it becomespossible to trace a techno-scientificand aesthetictrajectory, from the speedand urgency of the Cold War, to the information flows and historical disorientation indicative of the postmodernsituation. In order to reassessJameson's postmodernism, and demonstratethis meshing betweenmilitary production and technological sophistication,it is important to investigatethe cultural and literary forces conveying thesecircumstances. Therefore, I will analysethe fiction of Don DeLillo and William S. Burroughsto show how these writers rewrite the collective degenerationof a networked information society,while simultaneouslyasserting a critical responseto theseconditions. I havechosen to look at selectednovels by DeLillo and Burroughs for two distinct reasons.First, they both display an extendedfictional engagementwith the correlation betweenmilitary- technology and networked postmodemism,and second,they approachthe problem from fictional perspectivesthat are ostensiblyopposed. For DeLillo, this takesthe form of a realist reconsiderationof our Cold War historical unconsciousdesigned to highlight and reconcilethe military-technological breaksin contemporarysocial experience.In contrast,Burroughs fictionalises techno-scientific possibilities from choice historical fragments,in order that we may embark on an escapefrom prescribedsocial reality altogether.This thesiswill compareand explore thesetwo fictional approaches, highlight the critical benefits of each,and finally demonstratehow they shedlight on the interrelationshipbetween postmodernism and the military-industrial complex. DeLillo and Burroughs are both concernedwith the role of the novel as a means for deciphering,reconfiguring and reacting to the political and cultural climate forming our perceptionof social reality. However, as I have indicated, thesewriters employ very different fictional methodsto engagewith, and respondto, the conflicts and ambiguities of socio-historicalexperience. For DeLillo, fiction can be a historical researchmethod for examiningthe marginalised'comers' of human experiencethat are often eclipsedby the magnitudeand 'magnetic force' of public events.As far as he is concerned,the writer wants to 'see inside the humanworks to locate the neural strandsthat link him to 6 men and women who shapehistory'. 14By linking togetherthe public and the private, DeLillo believesthat fiction may reinforce the historical record of 'genius, ruthlessness, military mastery' and 'eloquent self-sacrifice' with the memoriesand emotional nuances otherwiselost or misrepresentedby documentaryevidence":

If form it's It's [ I Nbybe the any art can accommodatecontemporary culture, the novel. so malleable ... challengefor the novelist is to stretchhis art to the point where it can finally describewhat's happening aroundhim I still think that's possible.16

By fictionalising theseunconscious aspects of the national record, DeLillo endeavoursto restorea senseof historical equilibrium, and addresssome of the societalconfusions causedby techno-culturalrepresentation. Conversely,William S. Burroughs considersfiction to be a meansof 'guerrilla' resistanceagainst the systemsof control transmitting their supremacyvia contemporary communicationnetworks. By incorporating fragmentsof social reality and history into the fabric of his fiction, Burroughs intendsto initiate narrativeroutines that reconfigure documentaryhistory with counter-narrativealternatives of heterogeneityand liberation. He is interestedin exploring the 'turning points in history' that are tantamountto 'entirely different possibilit[ies] for the Americas'.17 Burroughs' purpose,then, is to be 'taken literally' so that he may 'expose the true criminality of our times' via these processesof historical absorption.Through thesecounter-historical 'routines' he setsout to initiate fictional worlds of possibility basedon a reversalof the control apparatus defining the limits of cultural life and production.18 Through this precise'manipulation of word and image' Burroughs believesthat the novel filled with new techno-scientific 19 potentialsmay createa revolutionary 4alterationin the reader'sconsciousness'.

14 Don DeLiflo, 'The Power of History', ne New York Times,Sunday September 7,1997, accessedvia httD: /Lww-w. com/libm/hooks/090797article3. btnil. " Ibid. -niyqmes. 16 DeLillo's interview with David Streitfield, 'Don DcLillo's Hidden Truths' in The WashingtonPost, (November 11,1997), accessedvia www.Rgrival. com/delflio/ddinterivews. html. " V. William S. Burroughs' interview with Vale, 'Under Psychic Attack', in Burroughs Live: The CollectedInterviews of William S Burroughs 1960-97, ed. Sylv&e Lotringcr, (New York: Semiotcxt(c), 2001), 558. 18Burroughs" 1961 interview with Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg, 'The Birth Time-Death Gimmick', in ibid., 581. 15'Ibid., 581. 7

Despitetheir divergent fictional approaches,both writers focus on the interpretativeproblems occurring in a contemporarysociety no longer capableof discerninga coherenthistoriography. DeLillo and Burroughs effectively concur with Jamesonthat this inability to engagein a critical assessmentof the recentpast is the late- result of an over-proliferation of information and technologicalproduction in the capitalist era. As a consequenceof this excess,the contemporarysubject suffersthe symptomsof a debilitating disorientationthat dislocatescultural life and production from its historical precedents.However, DeLillo and Burroughs believe that the principal causeof this social and historical confusion is the military-industrial complex directing the technologicalprecision of the Cold War. As far as DeLillo is concerned, this refinement in military-technologiesand information distribution causeda 'senseof dangerthat an enormouscataclysm might take place, affecting virtually everyoneon the planet'.20 Since the height of the Cold War, this senseof dangerhas been disseminated through the information networks facilitated by military innovation, and thereforeit has evolved into an indefinablethreat both comprehensiveand 'specific' in nature.For DeLillo this has causeda situation where 'the world isn't going to be destroyed,but you 21 don't feel safe anymorein your plane or train or office or auditorium'. With strategic is nuclearweapons systems and researchinto biological warfare developingin tandem,it not surprisingthat DeLillo's fiction taps into the residualanxieties of Cold War testing anddevelopment. This anxietyis a productof externalthreats and networked anxiety, but it also reflects the paradoxicalactivities of the warfare statein safeguardingthe nation with nuclear and chemical agentsharmful to the American populace.As William Blum hashighlighted:

Approximately 60,000 military personnelwere usedas human subjectsin the 1940sto test two chemical agents,mustard gas and lewisite (blister gas).Most of thesesubjects were not informed of the natureof the experimentsand neverreceived medical follow-up after their participation in the research. Additionally, someof thesehuman subjectswere threatenedwith imprisonmentat Fort Leavenworthif they discussedthese experiments with anyone,including their wives, parentsand family doctors.For decades,the Pentagondenied that the researchhad taken place, resulting in decadesof suffering for many veteranswho becameill after secrettestingý2

20DeLino's interview with GabePell in the Daily Princetonian, Princeton University, P ctober 16,2002), accessedvia hM:/_Wýnval. conVdelillo/ddintervicws. html. IbicL 22Wiffiam Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, (London- Zed Books 2003), 2. S

As Blum demonstrates,this type of nuclear and biological testing beganduring the formative yearsof the Cold War and continued at a number of military compoundsup until the 1990s.This seriesof government'programmes' used soldiersand civilians as guineapigs to test the fallout effects at nuclear explosion sites and chart the physical symptomsof a range of chemical and biological contaminants:

And in the decadesbetween the 1940sand 1990s,what do we find? A remarkablevariety of government programs,either formally. or in effect, using soldiersas guineapigs-marched to nuclearexplosion sites, with pilots then sentthrough mushroomclouds; subjectedto chemical and biological weapons experiments;behaviour modification experimentsthat washedtheir brains with LSD, exposureto the dioxin Agent Orangein Korea Vietnam [ I list [ I literally of and ... the goeson ... millions of experimental subjects,seldom given a choiceor adequateinformation, often with disastrouseffects to their Physical and/or mentalhealth, rarely with proper medical care or evenmonitoring. 23

In the fiction of DeLillo and Burroughs then, the omnipresentsense of anxiety and military-technological dangeris not just specific to the imminenceof nuclearwar, but is also indicative of the rangeof covert biological and chemical weaponscultivated during the Cold War and beyond. For DeLillo, the subsequentfeelings of intangible military- technologicalthreat, propagatean overall socio-cultural climate of 'randomness', 'ambiguity' and 'chaos', that causesa 'deeply unsettledfeeling about our grip on 24 reality'. Subsequently,the paranoid subject caughtwithin systemsof information exchangeand technological speedbegins to feel as though history has been manipulated by unseenforces of control. For Burroughs, such historical fragmentation and societaluncertainty has beencaused by, andpropagates, a controlmachine of 'nationalsecurity' intent on monopolisingknowledge acquisition and technological superiority:

What arc you getting out of national security?7be Cold War is an essentialfactor in niaintaining the establishmentof the West and in Russia,and has all the marks of a deal under the table. Top secret classifiedresearch is not top secretbecause the Russiansmight find out about it. The Russiansalready know and in most casesare well aheadof the West.Top secretresearch is top secretbecause establishmentsdo not want young peopleof the world to find out what they are doine

23Ibid., 3. 24 DcLiflo's interview with Andiony DcCurtis, 'An Outsider in this Society' in Introducing Don DeLillo, cd- Frank Untricchia, (Durham: Duke University Press,1991), 48. 25 William S. Buffou& and Daniel Odier, 7he Job: Interviews with William S Burroughs, (New York: Grove Press,1970), 59. 9

The Cold War conflict, accordingto Burroughs' observations,is part of an all- encompassinggame logic whereby East and West adhereto a structureof 'Mutually AssuredDestruction' (MAD). This perpetually delayedthreat of 'hot' warfare constitutesa bid to maintain and monopolisethe global balanceof power and superiority. Therefore,the speedand precision of military-technological research initiatives take precedence,while the improvementof the social project becomesprone to a kind of developmentalinactivity. Although the military-industrial complex supportingcontemporary society works to increasechannels of communicationand technologicalresources for the domesticpopulace, it effectively causesa degeneration of knowledge.As Burroughs suggests,vested military interestsdirect scientific and technologicalresearch endeavours toward weaponsenhancement, but this knowledgeis concealedfrom the society it affects. To exacerbatethis situation, the surplus of information generatedby network technologiesfurther prevent the subjectfrom critically interpreting and contextualisingthis complex as a whole. It is in this sensethat the military-industrial escalationcontributes to the subjectivedisorientation and historical decline indicative of postmodernityin general.Before I return to the fictional engagementswith militarization and networked postmodernismespoused by DeLillo and Burroughs, it is important to considerhow other critics have respondedto their novels.By doing so, I can contextualisethis analysisamidst other critical viewpoints, and emphasisehow my military-technological perspectiveon thesewriters contributes new knowledgeto literary criticism and postmoderntheory.

Critical Responsesto DeLillo and Burroughs

Although DeLillo and Burroughs champion seeminglydivergent literary points of view, both novelists reflect the conditions of postmodernism,in their writing. Despite this, therehas not beenan extendedcomparative analYsis of their fictional approachesand, to date,no onehas investigated the Cold War military-technologicalcontexts shaping their literaryengagement with postmodernconditions. Therefore, I will summarisea varied selectionof critical responsesto eachnovelist, and underscore why this thesis contributesa newperspective on DeLillo andBurroughs. Furthermore, I will emphasise 10 why this textual analysisis distinct from existing work in the way that it reorients establishedtheory on the foundationsof postmodemculture. A large proportion of existing criticism on DeLillo's writing has tendedto focus on the profound and heterogeneousqualities of contemporaryAmerican life capturedin the pagesof his novels. The montageof stylistic qualities, tones and narrativevoices that DeLillo blendstogether seemto provide what Frank Lentricchia has describedas 'the essentialtone of contemporaryAmerica'. 26As a result of this fictional anatomyof the American nation, DeLillo's novels are generally received as acts of socio-cultural criticism designedto highlight how the constitution and direction of culture 27 simultaneously'dictates the shapeand fate of the selr. This relationship between collective public behavioursand identity, and the inward introspectionsof the individual or private self have spawneda number of different analyseson the nature of subjectivity in DeLillo's fiction. Therefore,this provides an ideal starting-point with which to investigateand chart his critical reception. For Daniel Aaron, the key to being able to 'read Don DeLillo' is to recognise that his novels intentionally mystify the readerwith the sheerimpenetrability of cultural outlets, disparateinformation networks and unexplainedphenomena circulating within our contemporarysociety. Consequently,the charactersDeLillo placesat the centreof his narrativestend to becomepre-occupied with the conspiraciesand media crisesthat 28 'flourish in the technological climate'. Aaron feels that DeLillo's charactersare the 'beneficiaries of a technologythey can't control' and that as such they tend to be 'shadowy figures doubly dangerousbecause they are ignorant of their ignorance'.29 The socio-culturalclimate within which DeLillo's protagonistsreside has becomeso difficult to interpret that quite often they attempt to locate cryptic meanings,patterns and associationsin order to piecetogether an interpretation of national life. Therefore,the discontinuousfate of the culture most certainly dictatesthe fate of individual subjectivity. This type of indecipherabletechnological systemis also a central feature of ThomasPynchon's novels, particularly Gravity's Rainbow (1973) his postmodern.opus

26 FrankUntriochia, "The American Writer as Bad Citizcn', in LentricchiaIntroducing Don DeLillo, (Durham:Duke University Press, 199 1), 1. 21 Ibid.,2. 28 DanielAaron, 'How to ReadDon DeLillo', in Lentricchia,introducing Don DeLillo, 67. 29Ibid., 70. 11 focusing on the design,production and distribution of V-2 rocketsby the German 30 military at the end of World War Two. Pynchon's influence upon DeLillo and Burroughs is notable because his cryptic narratives delineate information networks encompassing Cold War technology, the activities of the security state and the confusion of the paranoid subject. Burroughs and DeLillo both analyse the insidious nature of this unfathomable network; however DeLillo's treatment of these relations has been described in terms of 'systems theory'. Tom LeClair's analysis of Don DeLillo and the systems novel concurs with this technological treatment of the impenetrability of social reality. For LeClair, DeLillo's novels are 'deceptively artful' and 'mysteriously profound' treatments of American life as it is altered by the communication systems of 31 the postindustrial era. Subsequently, the subject is prone to incorporation into 'saving and destroying' communication loops that convey information, and then complicate it by disseminating it through channels of feedback and replication. LeClair compares DeLillo's writing to the epistemological and scientific paradigms of systems theory, which he describes as 'a metascience, rather than as a scientific discipline with its own 32 rules of experimentationand proof. This analogy is useful in LeClair's analysis becauseit accountsfor the nature of the communicationfeedback loop as an all- encompassingand complex interpretative framework denying the subject of any meaningful social orientation. As far as LeClair is concerned,the counterbalanceto the totalising natureof our technological systemis the 'mystery' and technological dread that DeLillo refusesto incorporateinto the textures and logic of the communication network. Throughoutthis thesisI referto the varietyof political, economicand technological'systems' directing American life andinteractions during the ColdWar. Thesesystems can be split into two separateand yet interrelatedcategories: first, the organisational,such as the political infrastructure,military-economic relations and the subsequentideological regulation of society;and second, the technological,such as weaponsadvancement and cybernetics. For the mostpart, it canbe difficult to define 30 7bornasPynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, first publishedin 1973,(New York: PenguinClassics, 1995), 760 PP- 3' TOMLeClair, In the Loop: Don DeLillo -andthe SystemsNovel, (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1987), 1. 32Ibid., 3. 12 and describehow thesesystems influence and interact with one another.However, the systemstheory that LeClair aligns with DeLillo's novels provides someexplanation for the complexitiesof this all-pervadingterm. The interdisciplinary analysisof systems theory suggeststhat all phenomena,both social and scientific, are subjectto a form of abstractorganisation independent of their substance,type or scale.Systems theory investigatesthese organising principles, usually with mathematicalmodels, in order to identify the componentscommon to all systems.In doing so, this multi-facetedtheory is able to demonstratethat autonomoussystems, such as the economicand the technological,not only sharea similar form of arrangement,but that their connectivity allows them to interact with one anotherand changeover time. In this sense,the organisationaland technologicalareas highlighted aboverelate to one anotheras part of an immensecomplex and adaptivesystem subject to positive and negativefeedback loops. Thesefeedback loops convey information about the changingnature of the system in questionand, as LeClair is aware,this causesthe 'saving and destroying' channelsof information that complicatesocial and historical organisationfor the postmodem subject.In terms of my analysis,then, it is important to note that eachof the individual 4systems' I describeare interrelated,and that structural adaptationsoccur to accommodatemovement in the social, economicand technological milieu. Other critics have consideredthe conflict betweenindividuality and collective subjectivity as it is transmittedvia contemporaryculture and communicationchannels. For example,Laura Barrett's considerationof intertextuality and the postmodern sublime describesour tenuousgrip on socio-historical reality, and highlights how DeLillo's novels recogniseour 'indebtednessto previous representations'as a meansto orient ourselvesin the heterogeneousconfusions of the present.33 Likewise, Tim Engles' analysisof collective subjectivity and "fantasiesof the white selr in "ite Noise, considersthe quest for white middle-classAmerican individualism in the face of 34 paralysingambiguities causedby the representationalinstability of American culture. Therefore, it is clear that the majority of criticism on DeLillo's novels highlights the

33I-aura Barrett, 'How the Dead Speakto the Living: Intcrtexhmhty and the PostmodcrnSublime in "ite Noise'. Journal OfAfodernLiterature, 25.2 (2001-2002),98. 34 Tim Engles, 'Who arc You Literally?: Fantasiesof the White Self in "ite Noise', Modern Fiction Studies,45.3 (1999), 755-787. 13 disintegrationof self-autonomycaused by an over-proliferation of information in the postmodemsociety. Since the publication of DeLillo's most controversial novel, Libra (1988), an focus intertextual reconsideration of the Kennedy assassination, critics have tended to on key statements made by DeLillo about the loss of historical clarity and sense suffered as an aftershock of this violent event. As I have already indicated, DeLillo seesfiction as an almost cathartic method for confronting and 'working through' our historical confusion. Therefore, critical analyses from this point onward have tended to intimate the loss of historical totality in DeLillo's texts. In their considerations of Underworld (1998), DeLillo's fictionalisation of forty years of fragmentary public and private 36 7 experience, Phillip Ne135,Timothy Parrish and Peter Knigh? have each focused on the ramifications of this historical breakdown. For Nel, this analysis takes the form a debate about the dialectical quality of the novel as a response to the periodising concepts of modernism and postmodernism. As far as Parrish is concerned, Underworld captures the indicators of a postmodern.technological culture more concerned with the instant gratification of mass media representation and communication. Finally, according to Peter Knight, Underworld, with its excessive narrative interconnections and paranoid nostalgia constitutes a kind of postmodem resonance for the loss of 'secure' identity construction. 39 All of the critical analysesI havejust describedcontemplate, in one way or another,the relationshipbetween communication technologies, collective subjectivity and postmodernculture. However, none of theseperspectives have, in any great detail, accountedfor the military-industrial basesfortifying and propagatingthese interconnectedareas. By highlighting the meshing of Cold War militarization and postmodernculture as it manifestsin two of DeLillo's novels, "ite Noise (1982) and Underworld (1998), 1 intend in this thesis to fill in the military-industrial subtexts,and associationsotherwise under-researched in terms of DeLillo's fictional output. By

35 Phillip Ncl, 'A Small Incisive Shock: Modern Forms, PostrnodcrnPolitics, and the Role of the Avant- Gardein Underworld, Modem Fiction Studfes,45.3 (1999), 724-752. m Timothy Parrish, 'From Hoover's FBI to Eiscnstcin's Unterwelt: DeLillo Directs the Postmodern Novel', Modem Fiction Studfes,45.3, (1999), 697. 37 PeterKnight, 'Everything is Connected:Underworld's SecretHistory of Paranoia, Modern Fiction Studies,45.3, (1999), 811-836. " Ibid., 815. 14 consideringthese novels as historiographicalappraisals designed to exposeand respond to the veiled military-technological intimacies shapingpostmodern culture, this research proposesa new critical framework with which to approachDeLillo's fictional anatomy of American society. Critical analysisof William S. Burroughs' novels and personalphilosophy has tendedto accumulatearound the textual experimentationof the early fictional routines, dating as far back as the 1950sand early1960s.His theoriesconcerning authorial production and the importanceof the 'cut-up' methodas a meansfor counter- revolutionary force havebeen well-documented since then, with the majority of critical accountsfocusing on Burroughs' violent aversionto the 'word virus' replicating control. As Robin Lydenberg has highlighted in her considerationof radical theory and practice in Burroughs' fiction, the 'cacophony' createdby intertextual, or 'cut-up' experimentationliberates the readerfrom the grammar and logic of the sentence,and as a consequenceit also freesus from our prescribedroles as speakersand listeners hopelessly the 39This type debate replicating conditions of control. of about authorship and the ownershipof languageis a standardconsideration of Burroughs' stylistic methodology,and so it is pertinent to begin with theseperspectives on counter-narrative force.

For Lydenberg,the intertextual cut-up experimentationthat Burroughs' espoused for a number of years,can be describedas a kind of 'negative poetics' intent on defying the rules of copyright, ownership,identity and convention.40 In this sense,the cut-up narrativeencourages a kind of non-linearreading in which 'the whole exists simultaneously,sensed almost subliminally by the readerin vaguefeelings of familiarity,dislocation, premonition'. 41 This type of experimentationis an exercisein 'negativity' becauseit worksagainst the reverenceof the word, andinspires a kind of destructiveforce in the reader.Consequently, Lydenberg believes that Burroughs' textualexperimentation is ableto transgressthe boundariesof subjectiveidentity and communicationalcontrol. Similarly, Todd Tietchenhas recognised this type of counter-

39 Robin Lydcnbcrg, If brd Cultures.- Ra&cal Theoryand Practice in William & Burroughs'Fiction, (Urbana:Univcrsity of Illinois Press,1987), 47. 40IbicL, 49. 41lbicl., 48. 15 narrativedevice in the 'postmodem activism' of Burroughs' Nova trilogy. According to Tietchen,Burroughs' cut-up philosophy employs the samemodes of production responsiblefor 'massifying society' in order that it may introduce rupturesin the ideological universeof the control machinery.Referred to as 'Guerrilla Serniotics',or 'Culture Jamming', this kind of postmodern'radical (re)productivity attemptsto 42 discoverthe gap in discoursesof control. Therefore,Burroughs actively encourageshis readersto recognisethe constructionof their subjectivity via consumedideologies, and to: 'afterwards employ the samechannels responsible for their disseminationto interrogateand reanimatethese implanted texts in a way that leadsto liberation from 43 their influence. In his critical analysisof Burroughs and the Beat Generation,Jonathan Paul VS. Eburnerefers to this kind of subjectivity. He considersa Cold War American cultural environmentin which 'individual identity had becomeinexorably bound up with stifling artistic, societal,and existential norms'.44 In this sense,identity becomesan oppressive regulatorypractice of 'cultural formation' designedto control and maintain the behavioursof the populace.As far as Eburne is concerned,Burroughs makes'trouble' for theseregulatory practicesof cultural formation by questioningthe 'selir as the most privileged signifier. The cut-up routines offer this kind of resistanceby proposing multiple subjectpositions and shifting identity configurations with which to destabilise acceptednotions of narrativeunity, charactercohesiveness and 'linguistic propriety'. In additionto thesetextual forms of reconfigurationand guerrilla resistance, criticshave also identified a kind of performativityin Burroughs'writing. This often relatesto the developmentof the all-malecounter-communities that havebeen a central focussince the Nova novels.For JamieRussell, these alternative modes of communal existenceplace the homosexualmale at the centreof the narrative,and inspire a kind of 'reclamatorychallenge to the heterosexualdominant's discourses' and modes of binary 45 control. Russellbelieves that Burroughs'increasingly radical textual and sexual

42 Todd Tictchcti, 'Languageout of Language:Excavating the Roots of Culture Jammingand PostmOdem Acti-vismfrom William S. Burroughs'Nova Trilogy, Discourse, 43 23.2 (2001), 107-129. lbiC I 10. 44 JonathanPaul Ebumc, "Trafficidng in the Void: Burroughs,Kcrouac, and the Consumptionof Otherness',Modern Fiction Studies,43.1 (1997), 53-92. 43Jamic Russell, Queer Burroughs (New York: Palgravc,200 1), 8 1. 16 politics drew upon the anti-establishmentdiscourses of the 1960s,and so The Nova trilogy and the later'Wild Boy' texts of the 1970sdocument the subjectivity imposed upon the gay man during this period.46 Jennie Skerl also identifies this movementfrom the experimentalcut-up routinesto narrativesbuilt aroundthe resistanceof all-male counter-communities.However, rather than solely focus on Burroughs' reclamationof gay male identity she suggeststhat his fiction takesthe form of a two-phasewriting 47 project. The first phaseconsists of the textual experimentationresponsible for the expansionof technical innovations like the cut-up, and the secondphase constitutes a return to narrativethat enablesthe creation of new mythologies intent on re-establishing the fight againstthe control system.Skerl acknowledgesthat this secondphase writing differs from the earlier routines becauseBurroughs' new imaginary opensthe way for humanpotential and social changethrough metaphorand fantasy. In Mising Up Ae Marks: 7he Amodern Burroughs, (1997), Timothy S. Murphy providesa comprehensiveanalysis of Burroughs' social resistance.By plotting an amoderncourse that highlights the failures of modernist cultural enterpriseand challengesthe apparentinadequacies of postmodernindeterminacy, Murphy demonstrateshow Burroughs' writing constitutesan attempt to 'wise up the marks' and liberate the subject from the societal and bodily control impeding the improvementof " humancondition. Burroughs' amodernstance against social control is ultimately viewed in terms of a violent revolutionary upsurgemanifesting in eachand every one of his novels, experimentalroutines and collaborative projects. Ratherthan compartmentaliseBurroughs' writing in terms of a two-phase project, or movement,from non-linear narrative routines to gender-specificmythologies, I have chosento considerBurroughs' fiction as a continuous evolutionary trajectory toward socio-culturalresistance, reversal and transcendentalescape. As an isolated statement,this relatesto the critical considerationsI havejust considered.However, the Cold War military-technological basis shapingthis thesis differentiates it from existing

46 Ibid, 84. 47Jennie SkcrL 'FreedomThrough Fantasyin the RecentNavels of William S. Burroughs, in William 9 BurroughsAI the Front.- Cfifical Reception,eds. Jcm-dc Skcrl and Robin Lydcnbcrg, (Urbana: Southern Illinois Un%-crsityPress, 1991), 189. 48Timothy S. Murphy, Up 117sing 7heAlarks. 7heAmodern Bun-oughs,(Berkeley: University of California Press,1997), 256 pp. 17 analyses.Although eachof the critics I have mentionedare awareof the Cold War conditioning contributing to Burroughs' literary-counterassaults, none have chosento explore his counter-historicalreversals of gameplanet ascendancyand military precision.This analysisof textual resistanceand narrative potentiality constitutesa new perspective,because it demonstrateshow Burroughsappropriates and redirectsCold War military escalationand techno-scientificresearch toward a liberating post-human escape.I am suggesting,then, that this reconfigurationof military-technological supremacyforms the most successfulmeans in Burroughs' literary 'arsenal' for initiating control resistanceand utopian zonesof possibility. By foregroundinga comparativestudy of DeLillo and Buroughs, and by investigating their extended fictional engagementwith military-technological networking, this thesis constitutesan original critical interpretationhitherto overlookedin terms of both novelists. Furthermore,existing critical analyseson the literary output of thesewriters have been basedaround accepted perspectives on the origins and indicators of a postmodem culture. This thesisis different in the way that it usesfictional analysis not only to situate the novelswithin postmodemculture, but to usethem as meansto reorient the postmodemapproaches espoused by such critics as Fredric Jameson,Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio. As I have suggested,for Jamesonthe intimacy of militarization and networkedtechnology is 'expressive', or symptomatic,of postmodernismin general. However, I intend to demonstratethat this military-technological intimacy provides the foundationsfor postmodemconditions to develop. Consequently,this textual analysis also shedslight on JeanBaudrillard's considerationof a 'de-realised' technocratic societyprone to 'potentialization' beyond 49Baudrillard is our control. concernedwith the simulationsand social degenerationcaused by technological speedand dissemination; however he does not considerin any detail the military origins underpinningthis system.Paul Virilio, on the other hand, provides a detailed accountof the military-technological infrastructure responsiblefor a trans-political systemand societalnon-development. -50 However, Virilio's detailed military-technological account does not analysethe postmodemcultural texts conveying and respondingto these

49J= Baudrillard4Fatal &rategies, e& yunFlen-ling, hans. Philip ficitchman, and W. G. J. Niesluchowski, firstpublished 1983. (London: Pluto, 199014 1. ' PaulVuilio, Pure if ar, ed.Syl, ýire Lotringer,(Ncw York: Sciniotext(e), 1983), 27. 18 conditions.Therefore, this thesis not only reorients Jameson'swork, but also have discussed consolidatespostmodern and military theory more generally.Now that I existing critical viewpoints on DeLillo and Burroughs, and statedhow this analysis fictional contributesnew knowledgeto this field, it is prudent to return to the contrasting engagementsexplored by thesewriters, and summarisean outline for the thesis as a whole.

DeLillo and Burroughs: Fictional Responses to MilitaMTechnological Culture

DeLillo believesthat the fiction writer is drawn to the awe of large-scalepublic events, from the national sporting victory to televised scenesof disasterand warfare, because the sheerimmensity of thesehistorical occasionsinspires a deep desireto 'enter the narrative'.51 The 'nearly palpable lure' of large eventsbecomes part of a questto absorb, 'flesh out' and masterthe remnantsof documentarymaterial that compriseour limited graspof history.52 However, this very desireto reinvigorate the scrapsand fragmentsof historical experiencestems from the loss of 'manageablereality' and coherent temporality causedby their representationin the first place. In responseto this degenerativecultural condition, DeLillo has statedthat 'there is a deeply self-referential 53 elementin our lives that wasn't there before'. This kind of media-generated introspectionostensibly confirms Jameson'sobservation that we are now forced to experiencehistory by way of our 'pop images' and simulations of historical events, and that as suchwe have lost our grip on the intricacies and significance of social reality. DeLillo is more than aware of the Cold War military-industrial schemacontributing to this historical and cultural disorientation, particularly in terms of the unspokenor unconscioustechnological interconnectionsconveying the speed,instantaneity and precisionof military researchorigins:

51DeLillo, 'The Power of History', 7he New York Times, (Sunday September 7,1997). 52Ibid. 53Delfflo's interview with Anthony DcCurtis, 'An Outsider in the Society' in Lcntricchia, Introducing Don DeLillo, 48. 19

The n-dcrowavc,the VCR remote,the telephoneredial button and other time-collapsingdevices may make us feel that our ordinary householdtechnology rcflects somethingthat flows through the deepmind of the 54 culture, an impatientcraving for time itself to move faster.

As a result of the 'time-collapsing' effect of thesedomestic technologies, the subject becomesfurther detachedfrom the military significance framing their development. Therefore,the associationsand significanceof the military complex mutate into a kind of localisedthreat, or Cold War unconscious,always on the periphery of the frantic representationsand informational flows of the present. For DeLillo, the 'light of history is aloof and regal. The final flash of the half- century-the final iconic fury-belongs to the fireball and mushroomcloud of the nuclearbomb'. 55 From this integralmoment of Cold War militarizationonward, all formsof technologicaland cultural production became infused with the magnitudeand responsibilityof nuclearpower. DeLillo recognisesthe ramificationsof this meshingof ColdWar techno-scienceand postmodem culture in termsof a collectiveschizophrenia denyingour ability to identify andregister the symbolicpotency of our times.The writer of fiction, then,may embark on a creativemission to reinstatethe experienceof the individualthrough the ingenuityof the text; to vocalisea microcosmof historyagainst the vastand uncontrollable forces of representationcaused by military-technological doniinationand nuclear fear:

Against the force of history, so powerful, visible and real, the novelist posesthe idiosyncratic self Here it is, sly, mazed,mercurial, scaredhalf-crazy. It is also free and undivided, the only thing that can match the enormousdimensions of social reality.

As far as DeLillo is concerned,then, the only way to inspire a senseof historical equilibrium and reconcile someof the breaks and fissures in Cold War military consciousnessis to fictionalise individual experienceas it relatesto the magnitude of public events.By focusing on postmodemschizophrenic behaviours, the 'scared half- crazy' responsesof the individual subject to historical disorientation, DeLillo is able to

54DeLillo 'The Power History', The New York Times, (Sunday September , of 7,1997). 55Ibid. 20 highlight the Cold War unconsciousand therefore initiate a critical dialogue on its debilitating effects. However, in order to accommodatethe gradationsand timbre of contemporary culture, DeLillo realisesthat the novel, by its very nature, must 'engineer a swerve' from the compositionthat binds 'history to what has been reported, rumoured, confirmed or solemnly chanted'.56 Therefore, it is inevitable that the writer of fiction will, when dealingwith historical reality, break someof the 'codes and contracts' of that reality in order to 'imagine deeply' certain 'unreliable regions of experience'. Consequently,the novel becomesa kind of release;it is the 'suspensionof reality that history needsto escapeits own brutal confinements'.57 Ultimately, DeLillo believes that this unconscious releaseis what enablesthe novel to reconcile our personalrelationship with collective historical reality, and counterthe resulting uneaseof fragmentary subjective experience. By reconfiguring the remnantsof history to suit his ideological stanceon individualand collective Cold War relations,DeLillo initiatesa dialoguebetween the textures,inventions and biases of fiction, andthe semi-documentaryrecords and materialsderived from socialreality. In orderto shedfurther light on this interplay betweenhistoricity and fictional imagination,I will align DeLillo's narrativeproject with FredricJameson's analysis in YhePolitical Unconscious:Narrative as a Socially SymbolicAct, (1981). Accordingto Jameson'sopening statement, the literarytext must 'alwayshistoricize' in orderthat narrativeachieve its statusas the ultimatemeans of culturalanalysis. In accordancewith the confusionsand complications of the late- capitalistsystem, history has become inaccessible to us exceptthrough narrative texts whereit takesthe form of a 'political unconscious',or buriedhistory of political relations.In orderto 'unmask'socio-historical artefacts to revealthe symbolic frameworkgoverning their constructionand dissemination, Jameson believes that a 58 literaryhermeneutic' is required. Hence,narrative becomes a sociallysymbolic act ableto reinstatethe ideologicalconflicts of our historicalunconscious, and initiate processesof dialogicalopposition. DeLillo's realistfiction createsthese symbolic

56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Fredric Jameson,77ze Political Unconscious.- Narrative as a Socially SymbolicAct, (London: Methucn, 1981),20. 21 conditionsby incorporating Cold War historical fragmentationinto the fabric of the fictional imaginary. By merging the social reality of public history with fictionalised private perspectives,DeLillo not only createsa literary 'subtext' to reveal the military- industrial unconscious,but he also initiates the meanswith which to questionits detrimentaleffects. In direct contrastwith DeLillo's realist approachto Cold War historical rewriting and resolution are Burroughs' counter-historicalnarrative routines of utopian possibility and transcendentalescape. For Burroughs,the primary motivation for writing novels is to explore alternative social realities basedaround certain historical potentialities that did not flourish in the confines of this world. For Burroughs 'reality is simply the whole input, and I don't seeany lines at all. A dream is just as real as a table. There are levels of reality, of course,but there's no 'this is real and that isn't'. 59Therefore, the fictional narrative may posea viable societal alternative to be 'taken literally'. It operatesas a manipulationof word and image specifically designedto initiate a revolutionary change in the reader'sconsciousness, a semiotic standagainst dogmatic control. As far is Burroughsis concerned,the game logic of Cold War opposition is part of an overriding control system,or 'machine', intent on maintaining the human condition in a stateof developmentaland evolutionary inertia. Rather than direct researchinitiatives toward methodsof societaland bodily improvement, Burroughs feels that the control machinery purposelyblocks thesekinds of discoveriesby monopolising and directing knowledge toward weaponsenhancement: 'No, I don't seeany salvation in the machine, in the machineryor technology or computing machinesin the hands of the presentindividuals 60 and groups in power on the planet'. As a result of this military deployment of science and technology,the binary opposition of the Cold War remains in a perpetual state of 9game play', and society at large becomesprone to a kind of de-escalationin terms of unified improvement. As I have already suggested,Burroughs concurswith DeLillo that the primary causeof our collective subjectivity, societal degenerationand historical crises is this Cold War militarization underpinning postmodernculture and technological production.

59 Burroughs' 1996 interview with JurgenPloog, 'Writing in the Future', in Lotringcr, Burroughs Live, 626, 60Burroughs and Odier, TheJob, 60. 22

However, ratherthan createfictional subtextswith which to showcasethe Cold War historical unconsciousand restore a senseof balance,Burroughs feels that a total rejection of social reality and military-historical establishmentis required in order to progress:

Now you take a formula like Nationalism-Army-Police-trouble with other stonc-agetribcs-and when they start using atomic bombsinstead of stoneaxes--closing time, gentlemen Well looks like somefolks figure the only solution to this messis to blow up the set and Stanover. 61

Burroughs statesthat if we continue to deploy techno-scientific researchtoward the enhancementof arms precision,then we will eventually wipe out 'civilisation' altogether.Consequently, methods of literary resistancemust be formulated to counter the military-industrial control apparatus.Burroughs initiates various kinds of narrative assaultupon the societaland technologicalpurveyors of control. Theseinclude experimentaltextual routines designedto negatethe associationallines maintaining (-viral' power, and the creation of revolutionary fictional counter-communitiesintent on overthrowingthe systemin its entirety. However, in order that thesecounter-communities may flourish in a 'zone' exemptfrom the totalising conflicts and control regimesof this world, Burroughs realisesthat he must fictionalise worlds of continually evolving possibility. Rather than draw fragmentsof social reality into the narrative structurefor purposesof historical reinforcement,Burroughs' novels deliberately use the breaksand fissuresin our historical consciousnessas a catalyst for counter-historicalalternatives. These alternativeworlds, or zones,incorporate fragmentary historical resonancesso that they may becomesubject to perpetualprocesses of reconfiguration and reversal.By ensuring that the counter-historicalfragment remainsin a state of performative ambiguity and fluctuation, the subject can then embracethe utopian freedomsto be gained from heterogeneous potentialities.Burroughs' fiction and personalphilosophy, then, exploits ratherthan resolvesthe conditions of military-industrial escalationand postmodern confusion.He believesthat through thesehalf-formed fictional counter-potentials,the subjectmay commandeerthe techno-scientific control apparatusdirecting the limits of

61 lbidL,72. 23

like social reality and global conflict: 'Technology I believe is quite neutral. It's a is hammeryou can hit someoneover the headwith. But nothing used as a neutral agent, 62 otherwiseit's quite useless'. In this sense,the historical resonancesBurroughs creates for the techno-scientificadvancements of the Cold War becomethe basis for transcendentalprogrammes designed to uncap the limits of bodily possibility, and initiate escape-routesfrom the planet's constraintsand weaknesses. This counter-historicalassault on the limitations of social reality requirestextual mappingtechniques in order to convey its potentiality as a form of utopian escape:

Writing is a form of scif-reproduction,and in a real sensea writer lives on in his works. Writing is the processof making maps,spatial and social maps.It's the role of art and creativethinking to give us orientationin space,like mapsof space.63

As far as Burroughs is concerned,the novel should chart new spatial and social frontiers emancipatedfrom the limitations and boundariesof this world. By reconfiguring social and historical resonancesinto the fabric of his fiction, he usesthe fragmentationand inconsistencyof our social and historical experienceas an escape-routeto uncultivated potentiality. Burroughs' subversiveapproach contrasts markedly with DeLillo's fictional methodsof historical reconsideration,because it rejects the confines of socio-historical experiencealtogether, and postulatespossibilities in direct opposition with the past, presentand future of our social reality. Rather than provide accuratejournalistic accountsof 'just whatpeople do' in orderto betterunderstand the conditionsof our socio-politicalenvironment, Burroughs suggests that we 'rework' thesefactual observationsinto completelynew modesof existence.64 In orderto furtherunderstand a theoreticalframework for Burroughs' utopian/escapistfictional counter-historiesand DeLillo's historicalreconsideration, it is usefulto referto Linda Hutcheon'sstudy of historiographicalmetafiction in Narcissistic Narrative(1984). Hutcheon recognises metafiction, or'fiction that includeswithin itself a commentaryon its narrativeand/or linguistic identity' asanother manifestation of

62 Burroughs 1981interview with Arthur Shingles 'Mutation, Utopia and Magic', in Lotringcr, Burroughs Live, 518. 63 Burroughs' 1980interview with Robin Adams, 'Vn-al lbeory' in Lotringa, Burroughs Live, 494. 64Burroughs and Odier, TheJob, 43. 24 postmodemity.65As such, the historiographicaltext producedunder these conditions worksto positionitself within aspectsof historyand discourse, while alsomaintaining its senseof fictional autonomy.The subsequentdialogue taking place between social relations,the writer of fiction andthe audience,works to initiate a changein the forces of literaryproduction that turnsthe readerinto a 'collaborator'instead of a consumerof literarytexts. Consequently, in metafiction,the writer takeson the role of celebrated manufacturerof a socialproduct brandishing the narrativepotential to promotesocial changethrough reader participation. Although DeLiflo's fiction setsup this kind of literarycollaboration in orderto reconsiderCold War historiography,Burroughs' fictional possibleworlds conceive of a muchmore extreme method of reader participation. Hutcheon explains that:

In fiction, languageis but fictional 'other' [ I by the fictive all mpructitational, of a world' ... created referentsof signs. In metafiction, however,this fact is madeexplicit and, while he reads,the readerlives in a world which he is forced to acknowledgeas fictional. However, paradoxicallythe text also demands that he participate,that he engagehimself intellectually, imaginatively, and affectively in its co-creation. This two-way pull is the paradoxof the reader.I'lie text's own paradoxis that it is both narcissisticallY self-reflcxivc and yet focusedoutward, orientedtoward the rcaderý6

This self-awarenessof fictional artifice providesDeLillo with the meansto include"the readerin processesof Cold War military-technologicalre-writing that suggest.new ways of interpretinghistoriographical experience. This fictional engagementis narcissisticin the way that it is focusedinward on imaginativeartifice, andyet it alsoholds up a mirror to this world of experience.Burroughs, on the otherhand, takes this onestage further by transformingthe historicalcrises caused by military-industrialprecision and proliferationaltogether. Through processes of narrativedefamiliarisation, Burroughs laysbare the apparatusdirecting our ailing perceptionof socialreality, andsubjects it to processesof textualreconfiguration aimed at initiating socialchange and uninhibited evolutionaryadvancement. What differentiatesBurroughs' approach to Cold War mechanismsand postmodern culture from DeLillo's realiststance, then, is this productionof transformativeworlds of indeterminacyand flux. Burroughsdoes not

65Linda Hutcheon, Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox, (London: Methum 1984), 1. 66Ibid., 7. 25 intend his fiction to be an accuraterepresentation of social reality, but rather he suggests that the readerparticipate in the creation of alternativeworlds subjectto their own rules of historical engagement. Now that I have outlined how Burroughs and DeLillo engagewith the meshing of military and technological networking, and have discussedtheir divergent approaches to the problem of postmodemrepresentation, I will provide a brief synopsisof this thesis.Chapter One focuseson Cold War containmentnarratives and biotechnological risks in DeLillo's WhiteNoise. I will suggestthat the charactersof the novel are subject to a collective historical unconsciousthat deprivesthem of the ability to interpret cultural data, contextualisehistorical experienceand identify biotechnologicalhazards. As a consequence,central protagonist,Jack Gladney attemptsto maintain the perceived safety of a Cold War containmentidentity in order to rationalisethe techno-scientific threatsencroaching on his esteemeddomestic sphere.By viewing this Cold War unconsciousas part of a 'return of the repressed,' I will demonstratehow the novel fictionalises the veiled significance of military-technologies as they come to the surface of contemporaryconsumer and information networks. ChapterTwo will continue this biotechnological focus by investigating William S. Burroughs' mythological Cold War resistancefrom the 'Nova' trilogy comprising of Me SoftMachine (1961), 7he Ticket that Exploded (1962) and Nova Express(1964) to the first novel of the 'Red Night' trilogy, Cities of the RedNight (1981). 1 will chart the movementfrom Burroughs'textual resistance and 'guerrilla semiotics'in the early novels,to the developmentof a new nuclear/biotechnologicalmythology in Cities.By comparingBurroughs' bio-technological narratives with examplesof government agencyresearch and clandestine experimentation, I will highlightBurroughs' mission to createfictional counter-histories intent on underminingand escaping the technological ascendancyof the Cold War controlapparatus. ChapterThree will considerthe remainderof the RedNight trilogy, Ihe Placeof DeadRoads (1983) and Yhe WesternLands (1987), as part of an over-arching questfor posthumanpotential basedon a creative use of biotechnological research.By aligning Burroughs' fictional potentialities with the military-technological contexts informing cybernetic systemstheory and genetics,I will suggestthat Burroughs' posthuman 26 project is a techno-scientific reversion,intent on initiating a planetary and transcendental escapeinto utopian realms of possibility. Burroughs' fiction, then, usesa combination of military-technological productivity and postmodernhistorical indeterminacyto engender a transformationof the social project. Finally, ChapterFour will return to, and expandupon, the historiographical themesdiscussed in Chapter One. I will analyseDeLillo's Underworld (1998) from the samesub-textual perspective used to considerCold War containmentidentity and socio- historical disorientation in WhiteNoise. In Underworld, this historical unconscious punctuatesthe fi7agmentarystructure of the narrative; thus denoting the loss of historical clarity causedby the merger betweenmilitary and media technologies.Rather than draw obvious associationallines betweenmilitary-technological advancementand contemporaryinformation culture, the novel highlights the breaks,interruptions and inconsistenciesin everyday social experience.Subsequently, we are encouragedto considerand respondto the effects of postmodernhistorical degeneration.By linking theserepresentational gaps to the media technologiesprevalent throughout the narrative- including radio, satellite, television and computer networking/the internet- I will suggest that it is possibleto piece together a sub-textualmilitary trajectory from Cold War technologicalinnovation to the generationof a contemporary'information bomb'. In this sense,the forty years of fragmentarypublic and private history conveyedin the novel via massmedia representationbecomes subject to processesof historiographical reconsiderationand reassessment.As I have set out to demonstrate,each of the novels examinedin this thesis acknowledgeand engagewith military-technological networking. Although DeLillo and Burroughs champion markedly different approaches to the role of narrative, I have no doubt that their fictional accountsof Cold War militarization and socio-historical uncertainty give credenceto a new perspectiveon the foundationsof postmodernism. 27

Chapter One: Cold War Containment and Biotechnological Riskin Don DeLillols "Ite Noise

You can seeheroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroesacross a counter-and they both the [ ) Their is but deep.Their are on sides of counter ... patriotism quiet values sustainour national life. I have used the words 'they' and 'their' in speakingof theseheroes. I could say 'you' and' our' becauseI am addressingthe heroesof whom I speak-you, the citizens of this blessed landL (PresidentRonald Reagan)

The aboveextract from Reagan'sInaugural Address, dated January 20th 198 1, conveysthe emblematicnature of the official discourseof nationalidentity andpride usedto unitethe populationafter the recenttraumas of the VietnamWar, Watergate andthe economicinstability of the Carteradministration. By invokinga symbolic vision of industrious,proud American citizens committed to fan-dlymorals, communitybonds and 'liberty for all', Reaganhad managedto createa powerfitil narrativeof nationhoodthat commandedloyalty andrepelled all forms of ambiguity andopposition. By targetingand valorising the efforts of working individualsand local community,Reagan was able to securesupport for his conservativevalues, economicrecovery commitment and national defence plans, whilst detachingthem from the realitiesof the military-industrialpolicy underpinningtheir development. Consequently,this narrativecontributed to a leadershipbased upon ambitious concepts,storytelling and the revival of Americantraditions that workedby separatingthe Americancitizen from the military-econornicrealities sustaining 'nationallife'.

The characterMurray Siskind from Don DeLillo's novel WhiteNoise, (1984) doesn'tbuy it. He questionsthe secretivenature of socio-politicalsymbolism, the meaningveiled by communal'mystery' andlayers of 'cultural material' andthe intangibility hiddenbeneath officially sanctionednarratives of nationhoodand citizenship:

Everything is in concealed symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material. Bid it is data, psychic absolutely. The large doors slide open, they close unbidden. Energy waves, incident

1 President Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Address, West Front of the US Capitol, (January 20,1981), accessedvia the ReaganFoundation website: hLtp://www. reaRanfoundation.org/. 28 radiation All the lettersand numbers are here, all the colorsof the spectrum,all thevoices and sounds,all the codewords and ceremonial phrases. It is just a questionof deciphering,rearranging, peelingoff the layersof unspeakability.2

Experiencedas 'energy waves' and 'incident radiation', the concealedsignificance Murray can only experienceas subliminal fragments are derived from the military- industrial basesdirecting the nuclear arms race. Fascinatedby the networks and systemsof meaning obscuredby an over-abundanceof cultural data, Murray unknowingly attemptsto locate the military-industrial logic disconnectedfrom the symbolic rhetoric of 'national life', and by doing so unearth the ambiguity and opposition containedon the boundariesof national consciousness. By considering the disengagementtaking place betweensymbolic narratives of nationhoodand the military-industrial'Psychic data' containedbeneath, it is possibleto view DeLillo's "ite Noiseas a fictionalisationof the communalCold War unconsciouscaused by 1980sdomestic containment culture. DeLillo's narrative responseto this unconscioushistorical condition is comparablewith Fredric Jameson's7he Political Unconscious(198 1), a theoreticalconsideration of the chronologyof literary forms, andthe buriedhistorical narratives and social experiencescontained within culturaltexts. These submerged socio-historical narrativesconvey the political relationsand the history of subjectivityas it permeates throughthe surfaceof culturalexperience. For Jameson,this unconsciousconcerns 'the constructionof the bourgeoissubject in emergentcapitalism and its schizophrenicdisintegration in our own times.3 Hence,the subjectis incapableof a direct historicalexperience of political relationsand subjectivestruggle. In this sense,the literarytext becomesan importantmeans for ideologicalcriticism, and the mostsuccessful method for decipheringthe socio-politicalexperiences at the marginsof our consciouscomprehension. In particular,the novel createsan intricate hermeneuticdesigned to decipherand critically assessconcealed subjective social relations,while simultaneouslyconveying their debilitatingeffects. In "Ite Noise, DeLillo engageswith this kind of political unconsciousas it is evidentin the social andcultural experiences of a domesticsphere infused with veiled Cold War anxieties

2 Don DeLillo, JMte Noise,first published1982, (London: Picador, 2002ý 37-38,hereafter cited as WN. 3 FredricJameson, M Political Unconscious:Narrative as a SociallySymbolic Act, (London: Methuen,1981), 9. 29 and rnilitary-technolOgicalnetworks. The symptoms of this unconsciousmilitary- technological condition are under-researchedin terms of the novel. Therefore, this deficiency justifies an interdisciplinary analysis of Cold War containmentnarratives, their historical impact, and DeLillo's fictionalisation of their socio-political effects. However, before I begin this focusedanalysis of "ite Noise, I must first address existing critical studies and pose some pertinent questionsabout the novel's treatment of containment in the Cold War military-industrial complex. The massdissemination of containment culture provides a specific Cold War angle on the novel that, so far, has not been addressedby other critics of DeLillo's fiction. Previous analyseshave centred on the 'dialogic' nature of white middle class identity in the novel, for example,Tim Engles' considerationof the regulatory practicesthat simultaneouslyracialize the 'other' while assertingwhite individuality and exceptionaliSm.4 Engles' reflection on white American subjecthoodcan be aligned with the narratives of containment and national identity shapingthis study; however theseCold War associationsare never investigatedin his work. Other research,such as Laura Barrett's article on intertextualityand the postmodern sublimein nite Noise,investigate the trespassingof genreboundaries and the fragility of identity constructionin the novel;however these postmodern conditions 5 arenot contextualisedwith the nuclearthreat developing in tandemwith them Moreover,Ursula K Heise'swork on risk narrativeand the contemporarynovel, althoughtaking into accountinsights into contemporaryrisk cultureand simulated risk management,does not considerthe responsesof a containmentsociety in relationwith risk analysis.' 'Merefore,I intendto elaborateon theseareas by understandingnite Noiseas a Cold War narrativethat respondsto military- scientificrisks, symbolic containment strategies and postmoderndislocations as socio-politicalconditions developing in symbiosis.I shall identify how the novel exposesdominant Reagan era containmentnarratives and collective identity codesby situatingpotential danger within the homeand the local neighbourhood.As a consequence,underlying currents of nuclearand military-scientific threat are intimatedthat paradoxicallycompromise and reinforce American narrative 4 Tim Engles,'Who a;e you Literally?:Fantasies of the White Self in "ite Noise',Modern Fiction Studiev, 45.3, (1999), 762. 5 LauraBarrett, 'How the DeadSpeak to the Living: Intcrtextualityand the Postmodern Sublime in 9%iteNoise', Journal ofModern.Literature, 25.2, (2001-2002), 97-113. 6 UrsulaK. Heise,'Toxins, Drugsand Global Systems:Risk andNarrative in the Contemporary Novel', AmericanLiterature, 74.4, (2002), 747-778. 30 enclosure.The suppressedanxiety generated by the technologiesof the military- industrialcomplex manifest in the novel's domesticscene as uncontrollable fears of dissolution.This apprehensionis disconnectedfrom socio-historicalsignificance, andso masksthe totalisingeffects of the nuclearsystem. Rather than mention nuclearrisk explicitly, the novel exploresthe effectsof living within a containment culturewhereby all kinds of potentialthreat are deliberately eradicated from national consciousnessand placed upon a negative'other'. I will demonstrate,then, how the undercurrentof nuclearand biotechnological. fear conveyedin the novel canbe describedas a 'return of the repressed',as it encroachesupon the strategic unconsciousof Cold War containment. In orderto understandthe symbiosisbetween political unconscious,military- industrialproduction and Cold War containmentnarratives in Mte Noise,it is vital to highlight their influenceon coherenthistoricity andcollective identity construction.First, to what extentdoes the replicationof containmentculture in the novel leadto the conditionsof acutehistorical disorientation identified by Fredric Jamesonin ThePolitical Unconscious,and moreprominently in Postmodernism (first publishedin 1984)7.Second, how doesthis containmentcondition impact upon collectivesubjectivity and the individual's ability to critically interpretand assess the profusionof culturaldata surrounding them? As far asJameson is concerned,we havemoved from conceptsof historicaltemporality to a new spatialand aesthetic logic. As a resultof this shift, historicaltime is lost to the instantaneityof the 'spectacle'and we areno longerable to 'unify the past,present and future of our own biographicalexperience or psychiclife'. 8 If narrativesof containmentstem from the military-industrialbases causing this lossof temporalitythen is the novel's narrativeable to counteractthis, or doesit merelybecome a reflectionof this Cold War historicaldisorientation?

By applyingJameson's approach to the risk cultureand contingency prevalentin the novel, I will investigatewhether Cold War containmentnarratives purposelyweaken the individual's responseto crisismanagement. Through key comparisonsof televisedrepresentations of disaster,small-scale household hazards, simulatedcontingency plans and the real event,I will considerhow the subjectin

7 Fredric J=eson, Postmodernism,or the Cultural Logic ofLate Capitalism, (Durbarn: DAe University Press, 1991), 472 pp. 8 Ibid., 27. 31

Mte Noise assessesand respondsto internal risk. By associatingthis fictional risk culture with the nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile island, and the nuclear contingency planning proposedby the Federal Emergency ManagementAgency (FEMA) during the 1980s,I will argue that the novel showcasesthe intangible and yet all-pervasive nature of nuclear risk directing international Cold War strategy and domestic policy. This system of nuclear deterrenceand the regulation of national behavioursindicate the dominanceof the military-industrial complex in both public and private spheres.As a corollary of this chapter,then, I intend to demonstratethe novel's fictionalisation of local culture, consumerismand collective identity as powerftd reflections of the socio-economic framework circulating US military dominanceduring the Reaganera. Before embarking on a close examination of the text, I will highlight the integral role of national containment in shaping domestic policy andbehaviour during the Reaganadrninistration.

Cold War Simulation: The Reagan Era

Strategicnarratives of nationhoodwere central to Reagan'srhetoric throughout his termsof office, andhis 1983address on 'Defenseand National Security' is no exceptionto this rule. Relyingupon hyperbolic language as opposedto factual analysis,this key speechon the escalationof US andSoviet hostilities, simplified defencepolicy for a domesticpopulace gripped by narrativesof nationalenclosure andCold War nuclear risk:

Thereis no logical way that you can say,let's spendx billion dollarsless. You canonly saywhich Partof our defensemeasures do vvebelieve we cando withoutand still havesecurity against all contingencies?Anyone in the Congresswho advocatesa percentageor a specificdollar cut in defense spendingshould be madeto saywhat part of our defenseshe would eliminateand he shouldbe candid enTjh to acknowledgethat his cutsmean cutting our commitmentsto alliesor inviting greaterrisk or both.

Thus,the addressavoided actual statistics and projected expenditure in favour of thematicnational allegiance and a diatribeon potentialthreats and hostilities, which aimedto questionthe loyalty andreasoning of potentialdissidents opposed to the military-econornicexpansion. This doctrinecan be consideredas a strategyto

9 President Ronald Reagan's Address to the Nation of Defense and National Security, (March 23, 1983), accessedvia the ReaganFoundation website: ht! p: //www. reapanfoundation.or 32 neutralisepublic scrutinyand opposition via nationaldefence rhetoric devoid of informationalsubstance. Despite the circulationand replicationof official discourse on defenceand security, the Americanpopulation would havelearned little aboutthe intricaciesof foreignpolicy andmilitary expenditurebecause official accounts harnessedand promoted a kind of communalunconscious. As historianFrances Fitzgeraldhas noted:

Americans have always been sceptical of politicians and experts, but during the Cold War they trusted their Government life death [ ] to look back the the late vvith national and ... yet over public record of 1970sand 1980sis to be struck by how little of what was said about these subjectshad anything to do with reality. It is to enter a world of phantoms and mirages.10

The communalunconscious fuelled by the 'phantomsand mirages'of the public recordenabled an invasivesecurity state and an acceptanceof nuclearstalemate designednot only to containthe communistaggressor, but regulatedomestic values andbehaviours. By securingthe approvalof middle-classAmerica via the promiseof economicstability andthe restorationof nationalstrength, the Reaganadministration was initially ableto rousevital public supportfor theseincreases in armsexpenditure andmilitary expansion.This nationalsecurity drive hadproved popular during Reagan'spresidential campaign because the representationof a secureand united Americannation, safeguarded from 'outside' threats,provided a positivevision of Americansupremacy after the combatlosses and hardships of the previousdecade. The strategicderrionization of the SovietUnion asthe 'Evil Empire' andcommunism as an aggressiveideology placing American liberty in jeopardy,revived the Cold War tensionsof previousdecades and destroyedthe agreementsinstigated by earlier presidentialnegotiations. This dernonizationconstituted a reproductionof the Cold War paranoiaand binary hostility of the 1950sand early 1960s,the simulationof a tried andtested containment structure that convenientlysituated risks andthreats to the populaceoutside of nationalboundaries, while glossingover the military- industrialpscalation. This narrativeof enclosureand nuclear threat proved useful to the Reagan administratioabecause it affordedthe idealconditions for the codificationand controlof the nationvia domesticpolicies designed to regulatemoral and social

10Frances Fitzgerald,Way out Therein theBlue: Reaga?;Star Warsand theEnd of theCold War, (New York: Simonand Schuster,2000116. 33 behaviour.Paradoxically, the increasedpublic fear of nuclearattack provided justification for thegrowing intensityof the armsrace and the possessionof nuclear power,whilst concurrentlysupplying a vehiclefor the New Right policy crusade concerningfamily values,sex education, pornography and censorship, homosexual rights,abortion, drug abuseand religion. Onesuch feature of conservativepolicy on socialissues during this ongoingclimate of moralregulation was the 'war on drugs', instigatedto providean official stanceon the increaseof drug abuseand drug-related crime.By 1986this agendahad evolved into the 'Just SayNo' mediacampaign frontedby Ronaldand Nancy Reagan. As JamesDer Derianhas stated:

The war againstnarco-terrorism is bettermarked, with Nancyand RonaldReagan in 1986sitting on a sofasomewhere in the WhiteHouse, giving the Americanpublic the first high-level,televised debriefingon the 'war on drugs'.At a time whenGorbachev seemed intent m unilaterallycalling off the Cold War,and Khaddaffi preferred to sulk in his tentrather am executehis threatto bring terrorismhome to the US, narco-terrorismmoved up theranks to becomethe mostimmediate and dire foreignthreat to the US.' 1

This discursivemedia strategy was intendedto promotepublic faith in the containmentof the SouthAmerican 'narco-tefforism' that hadbegun to propagate gangrelated crime and violence in US cities.As Der Derianoutlines, the demonizationof the Cold War binary 'other', andthe enclosureof national boundarieswas strategicallyreplicated with the 'war on drugs' at a time whenCold War hostilitieswere beginning to 'thaw' andother external threats diminish. By instigatinga massivemedia campaign designed to incite public moraloutrage at the drugthreat jeopardising; the local community,the administrationwas once again able to propagateCold War moraland behavioural containment with externalthreats. Thesestrict domesticpolicies constitute a resurgenceof 1950sand early 1960ssocial concernsand conditions, a kind of historicalreplay of nationaldefence, domestic policy andcontainment ideology emulated and reproduced to fuel the latter portion of the Cold War. By displacingnational 'in-security' onto an alien 'Other', the Reaganadministration simultaneously created an internalsystem of codificationand controlwhile alsodeflecting attention from domesticinstabilities. In this sense, internalacts of terror in the fonn of gangwarfare, the emergenceof sectsand militia groups,domestic bombings and technological failures, although able to jeopardise

"James Der DerianAnddiplanac)4 Spies, Terror, Speedand War, (Lmdon: Blackwell, 1992), 108. 34 official systemsof simulationand denial, could be projectedoutside of national borders.

Alan Nadel's considerationof American Cold War containment culture during the 1950sand 1960sexamines the disseminationof contaimnent as a meansto control the unparalleledlanguage of terror and apocalypsethat emergedin connectionwith increasedtesting and possession of nuclearweapons:

Very the bomb initially American [ Ia shortly after exploded upon consciousness ... national narrative developedto control the fear and responsibility endemic to possessingatomic power. The central motif of that narrative was 'containment' inAbich insecurity Aas absorbedby intemal security, intcrnationalism by global strategy,apocalypse and utopia by a Christian theological mandate,and xenophobia, the fear of the Other - by courtship, the activity in which Othemessis the necessary supplementto seduction.12

The implementationof containmentworked to absorband control the insecuritiesof the nuclearage, and by doingso it placedall signsof 'Otherness'outside of national borders.'Me conceptof Sovietcontainment began with the political turbulence experiencedafter World War Two. By 1946,antagonisms between Moscow and Washingtonhad reachedboiling-point as both nations vied for an advantagein the powerstruggle left by the defeatof Gernmny.The two nationsstipulated safeguards andsecurity by meansthat intensifiedthe fearsof the other,and these fears widened existingideological tensions:

Stalin's refusal to abandondominance in Eastern Europe was matched by Truman's unvAllingnessto concedeSoviet supremacybeyond Russia's o%Nnborders. What Stalin sac as critical to Russia's national security the Truman administration viewed as a violation of the right of national to self- determination, a betrayal of democratic principles, and a cover for the spreadof communism.13

For the Trumanadministration, this 'violation' contravenedthe principleof all nationsworking within the structureof the UnitedNations. Made confident by America'smonopoly of atomicbombs and bolstered by its economicsuperiority, Trumanaligned his leadershipwith escalatinganti-Soviet opinion. In responseto this assertion,Stalin took stepsto confiscatematerials from occupiedterritories, and forcedthe EasternEuropean Satellite countries to ceaseAnglo-American trade. By " Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narrative, Postmodernismand the Atomic Age, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 14. 13Paul S. Boyer et al., 77ieEnduring rision: A History ofthe American People, secondedition, (Lexington, Mass: Heath Press, 1990), 938. 35

February 1946, Stalin had proclaimed that there would be no lasting peacewith in capitalism, and that the Soviet Union would overcomethe Americans' superiority 14 F. Kennan, weaponsdevelopment. Two weeks after this announcement,George the American Charg6 d' aftres in Moscow sent a detailed telegram to Washington regarding the Soviet threat. During the war, Kennan had frequently assertedthe problem of Soviet expansionism,and until this point his advocacy of toughness against communismhad failed to find a receptive audience.Kennan's telegram detailed the 'inevitability' of American conflict with the Soviet Union, and stated he that it would be 'foolish' to Uy and negotiate terms with Moscow. Instead, recommendeda US foreign policy of 'long-term, patient, but firm and vigilant 15 containment of Russianexpansive tendencies. Kennan felt that containmentwould force the Soviets to retract when faced with unfaltering resistance.These statements worked to amplify mutual hostilities, and escalatea conflict waged by economic In pressure,nuclear intimidation and propagandarather than by traditional warfare. it later years, Kennan apologisedfor the content of his telegram and admitted that worked as a primer designedto engagethe public with ideas of a communist conspiracy.16 In addition to the containment of Soviet geo-political and economic expansionism,came ideas of domestic containment and behavioural control as describedby Nadel in his study of containment culture. Not only did containment work to encloseand inhibit Russian opposition, but it also influenced and encircled an array of American attitudes and activities under the auspiceof the burgeoning securitystate. As a centralfeature of the crisisatmosphere of the 1950sand 1960s,domestic containmentwas enhanced by public belief in conservativeviews, domesticity and Christianreligion asthe pathto socialand economic stability. These moral and behaviouralvalues provided the Americanpublic with a senseof stability to counteractthe nuclearthreat. In this sense,the similaritiesbetween 1950S domesticityand foreign policy, andthe renewalof Sovietalienation and traditional valuesduring the 1980sbecomes clear; however the Reaganera conception of nationalidentity functionsas a strategicreplica or simulationof an earlierset of Americancultural and societal conditions. This simulationof previouscultural,

14 Ibid., 939. 15Quoted in Ibid., 939. 16Ibid., 940. 36 economic,military andpolitical circumstancestherefore operates through an official discourseof illusion and myth designedto curtail public fear andopposition. By recognisingcontainment as the centralmotive of a 'nationalnarrative' to pre-empt dialogueand absorb anxiety, Nadel highlights the self-regulatorynature of official Cold War history.Thus, the subjectis caughtin a systemof vastand impenetrable story-tellingthat explainsaway all contingencies,a systemthat "ite Noisesatirises with its own narrativeingenuity. By upholdinga systemof binaryoppositions and alienation,these narratives of containinenteffectively set in motiona 'courtship' with the 'Other' that would orderglobal strategy and national identity throughoutthe yearsof Cold War impasse.The 'Us' and 'Them' binaryopposition between US and Sovietrelations was a necessaryfeature of the containmentculture of the period becausethe constructionof a Sovietmentality emphasised the Americancounter- responseto that opposingmentality. By figuring the SovietUnion asa perverse threatand an 'evil seductress',US policy makerswere in a positionto impose multiplenarratives of nationalcontainment that justified the regulationof social behaviourand ideological beliefs on domesticsoil. Hence,the juxtaposition of 'Us' and'Them' identitiesduring the Cold War signifiedthe rangeof ideologicalbinaries usedto containindividual political, sexual,and social actions during the period. Moreover,because containment culture replaced coherent global meta-historieswith localisedand fragmentary narratives designed to regulateinternal behaviours and the representationof externalthreats, for Nadel,it signifiedthe formulationof a kind of 'proto-postmodernism'developing in tandemwith nucleardeterrence. I am suggestingthat the foundationsestablished by theseprototype conditionsof postmodemnarrative disorder and Mutually AssuredDestruction (MAD), setthe stagefor the strategicreplication of containmentculture via serial signsand simulacra, during the 1980s.Ingrained within the fragmentaryand fluctuating narrativessupporting the Cold War binary system,the representational flux developed to maintainthe racefor nuclearsppremacy implemented what Jean Baudrillard considers'the impoverishment'of politics to a systemof 'banal 17 strategies'. This is an 'obscene'system of surplusinformation, culture and meaning that enablesa cycle of historicalreplication that becomesincreasingly detached from its strategicorigin:

17J= Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, a Jim Fleming, Tuns. by Phillip l3eitchman W. G.J. Niesluchchowski, and first published 1983, (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 14. 37

When everything is political, it is the end of the political as destiny, it is the beginning of the political as culture, and meansthe immediate impoverishment of this political culture. When everything becomescultural, it is the end of culture as destiny: it is the beginning of culture as politics, and meansthe immediate impoverishment of this cultural politics. The sameis true for the social, for history, economy and sex."'

For Baudrillard, the cyclical incorporation of culture and politics into a 'cultural politics' relatesto the weakening of all aspectsof the social system History and the military-industrial economy also becomelinked and incorporated into this chain of knowledge impoverishment. Accordingly, Reagan's containment revival can be placed within BaudrilIard's system of banalisationthrough excessbecause the Simulation of containment structuresendorses the 'illusion' of meaningftd social relations, whilst instigating public inertia through the promotion of disorienting information flows. This processof simulation functions tactically, becauseofficial containment narratives attempt to restrain public opposition and responsevia the replication, trivialisation and generalisationof policy designedto disorient the masses.The simulated containment strategy of the 1980s,then, had the same objective as its 1950spredecessor: to eradicatedomestic fears and weaknessesby projecting them onto oppositions within the international arena.However, the informational excessresulting from this 'banal' system has madeit increasingly difficult for the contemporary subject to understandthe cultural and historical data generatedwithin the simulated Cold War system As the following analysiswill show, in DeLillo's "ite Noise the central charactersare subject to the historical disorientation and social de-realisation symptotnatic of a containment identity.

Containment Identity in Mte Noise

The eventsin nite Noisetake placeamidst the local communityof Blacksmith,a deliberatelygeneric illustration of 1980ssmall town America,where central charactersJack and Babette Gladney lead a chaoticexistence bringing up four children,Heinrich, Steffie,Denise and Wilder. Despiteconventional surface appearancesDeLillo haspurposely highlighted the unconventionalnature of this family unit by noting that threeof the above-mentionedchildren are the productof previousmarriages, and that the parentsare unnervingly reliant uponthese children

18Ibid., 57. 38 for insight,comfort and security. At first, the novel appearsto takethe form of a conventionaldomestic drama focused upon the daily routineof homelife, work and colleagues,local neighbourhood,the shoppingmall andtelevision, but asthe narrativeprogresses we becomeaware of a drive to subvertnot only the confinesof genre,but alsogeneric representations of domesticity,American pastimes and traditionalbehavioural codes. nite Noisedeconstructs the replicationof traditional moralvalues and family bondsby developingdysfunctional characters who perceive threatsto personalhealth and safety within Reagan'sesteemed domestic sphere. This senseof risk intensifiesas Jack and Babette are overcome by an uncontrollablefear of death,which framesa chainof eventsleading to a disasterplot basedaround a chemicalspillage, and a bizarrerevenge plot linked to Jack'squest for a drugto suppressexistential fears about death. DeLillo thereforedestabilises the domestic narrativeby introducinga disasterscenario. Due to a tank car derailmentpoisonous chemicalsare released into the atmosphereforming a toxic cloudover the town. The Gladneyfamily becomeembroiled within the subsequentevacuation, but duringthe journeyto a makeshiftrefugee camp, Jack becomes exposed to the gasesin the atmosphere.For the remainderof the novel Jackis left to ponderhis bodily deteriorationand the possibledetriment to life expectancythis incidenthas incurred. By highlightingthe interactionsbetween the individualsubject, the family unit andthe local community,nite Noisealludes to the simulacraof Cold War identity constructionand the 'official' narrativesregulating moral and social behaviour.'Me containmentidentity resultingfrom theseregulations is evaluatedand critiquedthrough the characterisationof JackGladney, and the relationshiphe has with family andcolleagues. This individual and collectiveconstruction of privileged identity functionsby effacingsocio-historical origins, and capitalising on the knowledgeimpoverishment resulting from the disseminationof containmentculture. As a resultof this socialenclosure, Jack feels a senseof uneaseand 'otherness'when encountering'unfamiliar typesof people',a senseof differencethat not only emphasiseswhat Tim Englescalls an intrusion'on the presumptionsof middle-class whitenessto universality',but also 'the Us and 7hemCold War binary' directing socialrelations on domesticsoil and internationally.19 The town unified by its local collegeand the demographicof wealthywhite studentsdescending upon the town

19 Engles, 'Who are You Literally? ', 755. 39 eachsemester. Jack is a committedacademic at the university,working within the departmentof 'Hitler Studies',and the remainderof his daily experienceconsists of observationsabout the universitycampus, the shoppingmall andthe family home. Other'types' of peopleare not usuallyencountered in his containedenvironment, andsuch exposure to culturaldiversity only tendsto occurby watchingtelevision:

But Blacksmith is nowhere near a large city. We don't feel threatenedand aggrieved in quite the same way other towns do. We're not smack in the path of history and its contaminations.If our complaints have a focal point, it would be the TV setýwhere the outer torment lurks, causing fears and secret desires.(WN. 85)

The erosionof historicalconsequence caused by the over-abundanceof a national containmentculture has effectively caused Jack to considerhistory as a threatening contaminant.By watchingtelevision he embarkson a 'courtship',to useNadel's term,with the 'outer tonnent' and'fear' generatedby differenceand otherness, a focal point for 'secretdesires' similar to the nuclearcourtship between the US and the Soviets.Jack's personal unease is meantto epitomisewhite, middle-classdenial basedupon a standardisedcollective identity and mistrustof heterogeneity, apprehensionsand prejudices synonymous with Cold War containmentanxiety. The enclosureof white Americanidentity andsociety from'outside' or 'alien' influences, andthe escalationof Cold War apprehensionwas replicated by the Reagan administrationas a meansto safeguardthe unity andsecurity of the nationby demonizingfigurative threats to nationalidentity. Therefore, Jack's desire to categoriseand separate 'unfamiliar typesof people'can be viewedas symptomatic of the containmenttendencies embedded within suchcollective conditioning. By adheringto a narrativeof white middleclass authority Jack has forsaken self- autonomyin favour of the collectiveproject of simulatednational identity. Therefore,in accordancewith this falsecontainment consciousness, he constructsan acceptablemiddle class status in orderto feel integratedand accepted by the self- regulatoryand insularlocal community.In this sense,the novelworks in opposition to the spirit of frontier individualismby focusingon a subjectivitythat is reliant on the perceptionand conceptions of others.As I shall highlight, this constructionof socialbonds and the collectiveacceptance of containmentsimulacra, provide the basisfor Jack'signorance, passivity and critical indifferenceas the novel progresses. 40

The novel beginswith whatJack describes as a 'spectacle',the returnof the universitystudents to the College-on-the-Hill.He describesthe convoyof station wagonsfilled with studentpossessions, and the sharedstatus between the proud parentsbecause it confumistheir distinctionas a 'collectionof like-minded'and 'spiritually akin' people:

The parents stand sun-dazednear their automobiles, seeingimages of themselvesin every direction. The conscientioussuntans. The well-made facesand wry looks. They feel a senseof renewal, of communal recognition. The women crisp and alert, in diet trim, knowing people's names.Their husbandscontent to measureout the time, distant but ungrudging, accomplishedin parenthood, something about them suggestingmassive insurance coverage. (OW. 3)

Jack's first-person narration perpetually alternatesfrom presentto past tense,at certain times intimating the self-awarenessof hindsight, while at other times disclosing his perceptive ignorance.These presenttense observationscentre upon the shallow surface qualities of the community, the 'conscientious suntans' and 'well- made' facesthat convey a level of artificial perfection. Jack feels a senseof empathy and comfort from the annualgathering becausethe families representcollective experienceand reinforce the recognition of familiar traits and attitudes. Here, the novel outlines the dual nature of American identity formation basedupon simultaneousself-recognition and collective identification. The parentssee superficial mirror 'images of themselves' everywherethey look, the kind of replicated imagesindicative of a media-saturatedsociety. Jack and Babette are able to relate with this congregationbecause each family constitutes a copy within an ongoing chain of containment simulacra,supporting normative behaviour. Family bonds, community expectationsand status are transmitted via this system of familial replication, therefore maintaining the dominant narratives of social control. Furthermore, this materialistic 'spectacle' reveals Jack's willingness to categoriseand make assumptionsabout membersof the local community. By making value judgements about other people he is actively participating in processesof domestic containment becauseindividuals are fused into a collective massof shared characteristics,and differentiation is excluded in favour of sharednorms and values. By classifying this congregation of parents in terms of a superficial collective of surface appearancesand socio-econornictrappings, Jack attemptsto eradicate ambiguity and uneasefrom his enclosedperception of neighbourhood life. Moreover, 41 he usesthis act of collectiveidentification to reinforcehis own self-imageas an 'accomplished'parent, husband and member of the local elite; eventhough his previousmarriage reveals a personalhistory in conflict with uniform valuesand behaviours.Because self-autononry has been overwhelmed by systemsof social reassuranceand approval Jack deliberately seeks the constantrespect and admiration of his family andcolleagues, and relies on his statusas a Universitylecturer in the Departmentof Hitler studiesto amplify his senseof importanceand respectability. Jackreminiscences about recent events and conversations with ironic hindsight:

The chancellor warned against uhat he called my tendencyto make a feeble presentationof self He strongly suggestedI gain weight. Hewanted me to "grow out- into Hitler. He himself was tall, jowly, big-footed dull [ ] If I become he to be paunchy, ruddy, and ... could more ugly, seemed suggesting,it would help my career enormously. So Hitler gave me somethingto grow into and develop toward, tentative as I have sometimesbeen in the effort. (WN. 16-17)

Thesevisual emblemsof academicachievement and personal excess are integral to his fragile identity constructionbecause they immediatelymark him out as a reputablesociety member and authority figure. However, the spectacleand ceremony of Jack'sacademic lifestyle masksan inability to engagewith conceptsof diversity, socialconflict andthe historicalambiguity behind contemporary narratives of containment.The chancellor'sadvice that Jackgain weight andwork on his 'presentationof selir highlightsthe extentto which surfaceappearance and staged personatake precedenceover knowledgeacquisition and balanced historical analysis in the insularcollege society. This inability to engagewith historicalconflict and differenceframes Jack's status as Head of Hitler Studies,because the historical 'impoverishment'resulting from the containmentsystem has comproniised his ability to recognisethe horror of the Nazi regime,and the Germantechnological contributionto the Cold War armsrace. Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973)works as an unconsciousnarrative influence here, as DeLillo invokesthe shadowof Nazismand the Germanmilitary-scientific achievement contributing to Cold War weaponsdevelopment. Like Reaganinvoking a passionatenational rhetoricof socialand economic reform divorcedfrom socialrealities and reasoned analysis,Jack claims to be chief authorityon the Hitler leadershipwithout acknowledgingbalanced historical insight. Jack is especiallyproud of his contributionsto the subject,as his conversationwith Murray Siskindreveals:

op, 42

He is now your I-litler, Gladney's Hitler. It must be deeply satisfying for you. The college is intemationally known as a result of Hitler studies.It has an identity, a senseof achievement You've evolved an entire systemaround this figure, a structure with countless substructuresand interrelated fields of study, a history within history. I marvel at the effort. It was masterful, shrewd and stunningly pre-emptive. (WN., 12)

'Mis contribution thus centreson an analysis of Hitter as an icon, a reffled image divorced from historical memory. The containment impulse has worked to repress the atrocities of the past to the point that history has becomea sanitisedstudy of Hitler's rhetoric and 'public performances': 'Advanced Nazism, three hours a week [ ]a designedto historical theoretical ... courseof study cultivate perspective, rigor and mature insight into the continuing massappeal of fascist tyranny, with special emphasison parades,rallies and uniforms' (WN. 25). This lack of inclusive insight is made possible becauseAmerican containment conditions eradicatethe systemic threat of historical culpability and inference. 'Gladney's Hitler' has enabledthe college to gain an international reputation basedon Jack's implementation of an interrelated system of knowledge, complete with substructuresand intricacies of interpretation. However, it is glaringly obvious that Jack's analysesare built upon an uncompromising and imbalancedview of the subject, conditions causedby the surplus of information circulating within a banal system of containmentsimulacra, and public inertia. The information surplus generatedto support strategiesof containment, including Jack's system of study, has not only detachedhistorical analysis from its point of origin, but has also initiated a systemwhereby the subject is unable to interpret historical contexts and plot their own thoughts and actions along a historical trajectory.

In Fatal Strategies, JeanBaudrillard statesthat this set of debilitating conditions generates'senseless signs, signs that point nowhere' and disappoint our 2' 'demand for meaning'. Ultimately, for Baudrillard, the subject becomes 4anaesthetized' because the political and the historical have become'perfectly forrnless and impotent, in perfect solidarity, yet paralyzed,perfectly frozen in a worldwide complex', which is an 'ecstasy of communication' accessibleto all and yet completely 'soluble' 21Similarly, in PostmodernismFredric Jameson . notes that an understandingof the full implications of the historical moment is made

20 Bau(fiiiiard, Fatal Strategies, 52. 21Ibid., 66-67. 43 impossibleby the breakdownof the signifyingchain, thus rendering the individual incapableof recognisinghistorical reality becauseevents have been transformed into 'heapsof fragments'and displaced narratives. 22Jameson highlights the lossof historicalclarity andsignificance to pasticheand simulacra, - the processionof copieswithout an original andthe 'de-realisationof the whole surroundingworld of everydayreality': this mesmerizingnew aestheticmode itself emergedas an elaboratedsymptom of the waning of our historicity, lived history in [ ] this to of our possibility of experiencing some active way ... approach the presentby way of the art languageof the simulacrum, or of the pastiche of the stereotypicalpast, endows resentreality and the opcrmessof presenthistory with the spell and distanceof a glossy mirage.23

HistorianFrances Fitzgerald has described the Cold War Americaof the 1970sand 80s as a world submergedin 'phantoms and mirages' createdto distancethe subject from political and historical clarity. 24Therefore, it is logical to align this de- realisation and Jack's lack of historical perspectivewith the 'glossy mirage' and 'waning' of 'historicity' experiencedas aspectsof Jameson'spostmodern situation. This is a situation in which 'we are condemnedto seekhistory by way of our own pop images and simulacra of that history, which itself remains forever out of 25These illusions reach'. andsimulations emphasise the ambiguityof the postmodern conditionas history becomesdetached from fixed meaningsand representations, and the 'meta-narrative'and homogenous ideological control gives way to heterogeneous representation.The individual may experiencethe liberatingeffects of postmodern heterogeneity,but it is stipulatedthat the emergenceof a new aestheticmode will leadto a new senseof superficialityin relationto personaland collective experience. Hence,Jack is unableto experiencehistory in any productiveway; ratherhe adheres to a historicalrecord, both personaland collective, that rejectsdiversity and heterogeneousrepresentation in favour of replicatedhomogeneity, itself a by-product of postmodernde-realisation. The novel exploresthis lack of unificationand orientation in ternis of a selectiveidentification with history on both an individualand national scale, thereforemeaning that Jackis ableto devotehis acaderniclife to the studyof Hitler 22 Jameson, Postmodemism, 27. 23Ibid., 21. 24 See footnote on page 6. 25Ibid., 26. 44 without onceacknowledging the devastationof the holocaust.He is unableto relate what he describesas the 'signs' and'clues' of Hitler Studiesto the persecutionand massmurder of the Jewishpeople; instead he remainsmystified and fascinated by the 'image-gloss' and mystery of his chosensubject:

films, Every semesterI arrangedfor a screeningof background footage. This consistedof propaganda scenesshot at party congresses,outtakes from mystical epics featuring paradesof gymnastsand mountaineers-a collection I'd edited into an impressionistic eighty-minute documentary.Crowd scenespredominated. Close-up jostled shots of thousandsof people outside a stadiurn after a Goebbels speech,people surging, massing,bursting through the traffic. (WN. 25)

This selectiveresponse to the Nazi paradesand propaganda exercises can be explainedby consideringthe narrativeproduction of history. Jackcannot recognise Jewishpersecution because his own montageof the pasthas displaced suffering and death.In otherwords, critical methodology,narrative craft andvisual impression havesupplanted comprehensive factual consideration, and so balancedhistorical analysisgives way to the aestheticmode indicative of the 'waning of our historicity'. The atrocitiesof the Holocaustappear to havebeen engulfed by Jack'snarrative interpretationof Nan tyrannyas a 4mysticalepic', to the extentthat human aberrationsand violent eventshave been neutralised and assimilated by personal rendering. The Historians' Debate of the early 1980scaused serious public controversy becauseleading cultural critics andhistorians began to considerwhether valid accountsof the Holocaustcould be achievedvia written historicalaccounts. These concernsstemmed from the thoughtthat personalagendas and potential revisionist motivescould contaminatenarrative history andevents of the past,as Dominick LaCapra.has argued:

The historians [ I that viewsof revisionist were ... symptomaticof a neonationalistresurgence was mostprominent on thepart of conservativeforces that wantedto rewritethat Nazi pastin orderto providea 'Positive' or affirmativeGerman identity in thepresent. 26

Narrativehistory is subjectto interpretationand factualimbalance if usedto serve personaland political objectivessuch as the neonationalistand conservative agendas LaCapra outlines as responsible for a Nazi 'rewrite'; however the narrative form can

26 Dominick La Capra,Representing the Holocaust.- Histo?>% Aeory, Trauma. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 43. 45 alsobe employedto confrontand 'work through'personal traumas by considering the importanceof interpretationupon past and present understanding. The Holocaust debateis primarily an issueof subjectpositions, contextualisation and objectivity becausethese variables will producedifferent intonations and doctrines. Most importantly,though, it is importantto rememberthat the inflectionsproduced by differenttheoretical perspectives possess the powerto alternarrative representations of events.Saul Friedlander has noted that attemptsto integratethe Nazi periodinto everydaysocial history could potentially cause the 'relativization' of humanitarian crimes:

For the historian, the vvideningand nuancing of the picture is of the essence.BiA the 'bistoricization' [ I ... could not mean so much a uidening of the picture, as a 'shift of focus'. From that perspective,the insistence [ ] long-range indeed I decisive on ... social trends could relativize N&hat still consider as the historiographical approachto that period.27

The selectivebias functioning within containmentculture is comparablewith this re- working and 'relativization' of history,because damaging events and political atrocitiesmay be 'glossedover' or removedfrom official accountsthrough the 'shift of focus' and 'nuancing'of which Friedlanderspeaks. Similarly, Alan Nadel's discussionof nuclearcontainment highlights how 'officially sanctioned'meta- narrativeshave functioned to selectcertain ruling historicalinterpretations in competitionwith socio-historicaldiversity: 'divided in this way, meta-narratives becomeparticularly legible as discourses that functionto separatesubstance from waste,to selectevents that will be representedas history, andto affectthe repetition 28 of privilegednarratives'. Justas the political inflectionssurrounding the Historians' debatehave had the powerto alter interpretationsof the Holocaustand shift the historiographicalfocus, so doesthe nuclearcontainment narrative have the capability to selectthe eventsthat will constitutethe future historicalrecord. In this sense,conWriment narratives have had the powerto unify and codify the US nation,while promotingthose narrative accounts beneficial for the nuclear, technologicaland general military-economic power relations of the late-capitalist moment.However, nuclear containment narratives differ from the 'relativization' of the Holocaustbecause rather than attemptto re-intepretan eventthat hasalready

27Saul Friedlander,An Essay on Nazism: Reflections on Kitsch and Death, (London: Harper Collins, 1984), 104. 28Nadel, ContainmentCulture, 4 (Nadel's emphases). 46 takenplace, containment systems attempt to historiciseand record an eventthat has 29 not takenplace, and that in doingso would meanthe endof historyaltogether. For Nadel,then, the powerof nucleardiscourse is integralto notionsof postmodernity becauseit consumeshistory and'renders impossible' the conditionsfor reliable historicalaccounts. Although the relativizationof the Historians'debate and the attemptsof containmentnarratives to historicise an event that has not taken place render the sameconcerns about the validity of written history, they also differ in the sensethat one tries to efface past eventsbeyond reasonablecomprehension, while the other attemptsto assimilatea potential future event that is otherwise unrepresentable. If we return to the novel, then, we can understandthat Jack's academiccareer is built uponthis revisionistimpulse, the drive to recordand interpret those aspects of the historicalrecord that he viewsas privileged or integral.However, contrary to thosehistorians instigating politically inflectednarratives of the past,Jack's apparent disregardfor accountsof the Holocaustand the horrorsof the fascistregime do not stemfrom suchspecific political motivation.Rather, his studyof Hitler is a symptom of the generalweakening of historicalmemory contemporaneous with simulated Cold War containmentnarratives. His denialof a comprehensivehistoriography is not necessarilya voluntarycondition but a consequenceof the disorientation resultingfrom containmentnarratives in the first place.Ironically, it is this type of subjectdisorientation that enablesthe postmoderncontainment narrative to replicate anddisseminate as a privilegedhistorical account. This occursbecause the individual no longerpossesses the critical skill to challengeand reftite knowledgeclaims within a systemwhere signifier andsignified no longerrelate to oneanother. This fictionalisationof Jack'ssubjective disorientation relates to the question I posedearlier, on the extentto which containmentconditions lead to the lossof historicity describedby FredricJameson. As theseexamples of Jack'sacademic pursuitsand local communityexperience suggest, such disorientation is both a voluntaryand involuntary condition central to containmentsociety and identity. The novel's containmentculture is a direct resultof the military-technologicalrelations responsiblefor an involuntaryhistorical disintegration in the present.However, a voluntarysubmission to containmentsubjectivity also operatesto weakenthe socio- historicalartefact. For Jackand his family, containmentidentity providesa kind of

29Ibid., 4. 47 blissful ignorance,a historicalweakening that reassertsthe familiar anderadicates threats,hostility, differenceand ambiguity. These conditions indicate that the containmentculture functions as a symptomoý andreaction to the Cold War historicalunconscious dislocating the political contentof everydaylife. Subsequently,Jack relies on the factsof Hitler's life anddeath as a meansto grasp onto somethingsecure in contrastwith the ambiguityand threat residing on the bordersof his containmentexistence. He recountsthe smallestdetails of Hitler's past,as if they werea part of someover-arching scheme designed to repairthe breaksand fissuresin his containmentidentity: 'Hitler calledhimself the lonely [ ] to in firee- wandererout of nothingness... spoke people endlessmonologues, associating,as if the languagecame from somevastness beyond the world andhe wassimply the mediumof revelation'(WN. 72). TheseHitler sound-biteswork to furtheremphasise Jack's dislocation from the balancedhistorical record because they appearin the text asisolated facts and intedections divorced from context.As the novel progressesand Jack's containment identity is strainedunder the pressureof ambiguityand domestic threat, we recognisethat his relianceupon privileged history is alsocompromised by thesedomestic pressures and the confusionsgenerated by a returnof the historicallyrepressed. Therefore, we mustturn our attentionto the officially sanctionednarratives and references framing Jack's experience and negatinghis criticaljudgment.

Media Risk Containment

Jack'scontainment identity andsocio-historical disorientation also supports his assertionthat political atrocities,disasters and personal tragedies can only happen beyondnational borders, typically in Third World Countries,and that the strength andsecurity of middle-classAmerican identity is the very reasonthat individualsin privilegedsocietal positions have nothing to fear:

Thesethings happen to poor peoplewho live in exposedareas. Society is setup in sucha way that it's the the impact disasters[ ] I'm poorand uneducatedwhosuffer the main of naturaland man-made ... a collegeprofessor. Did you eversee a collegeprofessor rowing a boatdown his own streetin oneof thoseTV floods?(WN. 114) 48

Jack'sassertion about the poor andunfortunate living in exposedareas is underminedby the natureof his rhetoricalquestioning. By framinghis statement with a glib remarkabout college professors in televisedfloods he exposesthe underlyinginsecurity compromising his containmentidentity. This parochialself- delusionthat educatedpeople living in affluentareas are unlikely to sufferthe main impactof man-madeand natural disasters is supportedby the flow of information circulatingwithin the containmentsystem, the surplusof massmedia reports and imagesseemingly confirming that disastersonly happenelsewhere and to unfortimatepeople. Jack's sense of securityand enclosure is enforcedby television representationbecause images of povertyand suffering in distantcountries work to accentuatethe official narrativesof Americanstrength and superiority. The novel emphasisesthat televisionmedia is oneof the primarymeans of comprehending contemporaryexistence, and that spectaclesof violenceand catastrophe can be used to unitethe nationinto a communalgaze. The TV disastershould inspire a level of identificationand sorrow, but Jackis mostlygratified that his statusas an American citizensafeguards him from naturalcatastrophe and technological failure. This narrow-mindedview of global sufferingand the subsequentreinforcement of containmentnarratives it invokescan be explainedin termsof the over-abundanceof banalinformation circulating throughout postmodern society. Subjects like Jackare anaesthetisedand disoriented by this decentredprofusion of culturalmaterial, and as a resultthey cannotframe their perspectivewith socio-historicalsignificance. The surplusof informationcirculating in this systemnegates any attemptat social enlightenmentbecause the sheervolume and velocity of its disseminationcancels out meaningwith uniformity, a conditionBaudrillard identifies in Fatal Strategies:

Themasses are also made of thisuseless gluttony of informationthat claims to enlightenAhen it only encumbersspace and cancels itself out in silentequivalence. Noone can do anything about this circularityof themasses and information. The two phenomena fit each other: the masses have no opinions,nor does information inform them: one and the other continue monstrously to feed each other- thespeed of the rotation of informationincreasing the -Aright of themasses, bid not at all their levelof consciousness."

Ihis obesesystem of de-contextualisedmedia consumption by the massesincreases the volumeof cultural informationcirculating from onenetwork to another.

30Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, 9 1. 49

However,this excessdoes nothing for culturalconsciousness and critical depth.As far asBaudrillard is concerned,the over-representationof war andcatastrophe on a globalscale is centralto this stateof unconsciousnessand public ennuibecause even though we are exposedto duplicate narratives of nuclear destruction and technological death, we still cannot really imagine or understandthese totalising acts as realities:

There is no for in the [ ] terrorism, inflation necessitynor credibility us events of ... and nuclear war. We are exposedto an over-reprcscntationof these things by the media, but still we can't really imagine them. All of that for us, is simply obscene,since images in the media are made to be seenbut not really looked at, hallucinated in -silhouette,absorbed-like sex absorbsthe voyeur: from a diStanCe.31

By its very natureas an act of total destruction,we cannotunderstand the absolute implicationsof nuclearwar. Becausethe nuclearevent is disseminatedthrough mediachannels we evenbecome disoriented from its representation,since media imagesfulfil only a superficialdesire to view without engagingin critical assessment.Consequently, the subjectindulges in a voyeuristicgaze which takesin imagesof deathand destruction without everreally interpretingthem beyond surface-level.

The Gladney family gather together on a Friday evening to watch television and eat Chinesetakeaway, an act of ritualised mass media consumption. Babettehas instigated 'TV night' as a family tradition, a conditioned and repetitive norm intended to 'de-glamorize' the children's perception of media representation. However, contrary to Babette's intention, this ritual and repetitive act causesthe family's reliance upon television to regulate personalexperience and collective Unable awareness. to piece together the facts of the presentin any other way, and disoriented from historical precedents,the family formulate their subject-position through television consumption. Earlier in the novel, Jack considershow television is the only medium through which the security and enclosureof his local community be can compromised,the only meansof disturbing the contained domestic sceneby 'torments', exposing the 'fears' and 'secret desires' existing beyond national Contrary Babette's enclosure. to belief that this collective viewing exercise strips media representationof glarnour, it effectively encouragesa form of technological

31Ibid., 65. 50 fascinationand dread that captivatesthe childrenand the parentsalike. The family areengrossed by disasterfootage on networknews because it inducesthe aforementioned'anaesthetising' effect. This media-inducedde-sensitivity reinforces containmentidentity and detaches the individualfrom personalrisk andthe constraintsof mortality:

That night, a Friday, we gatheredin front of the set, as was the custom and the rule, with take-out Chinese.There were floods, earthquakes,mud slides, erupting volcanoes.We'd never before been so to duty [ ] Heinrich I bored [ ] We otherwise silent, attentive our ... was not sullen, was not ... were watching housesslide into the ocean,whole villages crackle and ignite in a massof advancing lava. Every disastermade us wish for more, for somethingbigger, grander,more sweeping.(WN- 64)

The family crave these increasingly horrifying scenesbecause they are conditioned to believe that their subject statusprotects them from misfortune. Jack reminisces about how the family gatheredin front of disasterscenes as part of some 'duty' and 'custom' designedto reassertthe safety of the containedsphere. These self-delusions of infallibility are supported by the media flows complementing containmentculture, flows that disseminateand replicate a surplus of information. As a consequenceof this system of knowledge saturation,the family no longer possessthe critical distanceto associatethe reality behind the de-contextualisedimage. Media power is strengthenedby the representationof natural and man-madecatastrophes because viewing figures are maximised by shocking media 'spectacles'. Moreover, media information flows maximise the primacy of containment culture by intensifying communal image addiction, and silencing the populacewith a plethora of information defusing opposition with equivalence.Initially, Jack is puzzled and concernedabout his family's reaction to theseviolent images so he seeksthe advice of Alfonse Stompanato,the chairman of American environmentsat the university. Alfonse suggeststhat people are intrigued and entertainedby tragedy because'we need an occasionalcatastrophe to break up the incessantbombardment of information' (WN. 66). Paradoxically, the 'occasional catastrophe' impacts upon the overload responsiblefor this "incessantbombardment' in the first place; thus perpetuatinga cycle of knowledge saturation and disorientation. Alfonse insists that these images are fascinating so long as they are happening elsewhereand to other people; therefore supporting the narrative that disaster,death and destruction can only happen outside personaland national boundaries.The externalisationof mass- 51 dying via televisionbroadcasts thus aids the maintenanceand dissemination of containmentcodes by highlightingthe relativesafety of the televisionspectator. Jack andhis family arebrought together by televisionviewing; an act that they believe strengthensfamilial bondsand therefore upholds and sustains the tenetsof collective identity.However, as Fredric Jameson has noted, this type of media-reliant behaviour

effectively abolish[es] any practical senseof the future and of the collective project, thereby the Oinking future to fantasies and inexplicable cataclysm, abandoning of change of sheercatastrophe 32 from visions of 'terrorism' on the social level to those of canceron the personal.

On the surface,Jack and his family feel integratedinto their societyand shielded from threatsby watchingthese external images from the confinesof their contained environment.However, this voyeuristicconsumption of deathand destruction distancesthe family from any real collectiveproject by highlightingthe alienation sustainingthe Gladney'sconception of communalAmerican life. As Jameson highlights,this abolitionof the collectiveproject begins with sharedfantasies of catastropheon the sociallevel, but thesefantasies may alsomanifest in visionsof degenerationon a personallevel; a symptomthat Jackand his family will display throughoutthe courseof the narrative. JeremyGreen's study of spectaclesof violencein DeLillo's fiction draws attentionto the way that 'actsof violenceperformed in a stylisedway aretypical of a cultureof simulationand repetition', meaning that violent eventsand disaster footage become'cinematic episodes' causing the 'routinization' and'banalization' of violenceand the 'weakeningof historicalmemory'. " In the media-dominatedage historicalrepresentation is in part controlledby the flow andrepetition of images, andtherefore individual and collectiveexperience of history is dictatedby image reproduction:

To the notIon of broadcastdisaster as a culturally binding form, DeLillo introduces a historical dimension: in the past, collective identities were formed around iconic celebrity images-,now they are also establishedaround repeated spectaclesof violence and catastrophe.34

32Jameson, Postmodernism, 46. 33 JeremyGreen, 'Disaster Footage: Spectaclesof Violence in DeLillo's Fiction', Modem Fiction Studies, 45.3, (1999), 573. 34Ibid., 573. 52

Thesepostmodern conditions have helped instigate the breakdownof coherent historicity,and as a resultthe Gladneyfamily can only shapepersonal experience via externalreproductions of technologicalfailure and sanitisedhuman suffering. Whereaspreviously collective identities were reinforced by the cult of celebrityand affirmativeimages of nationalsuccess, now in this climateof socio-historical uncertainty,all hopeof a positivecollective project is lost asidentities are formed aroundacts of violencecommitted against others. However, despite the effortsmade to containand project the consequencesof disasterelsewhere, this fascinationwith televiseddeath ultimately accentuates Jack and Babette's personal weakness and susceptibility.In spiteof the proposedcomfort and security generated by the reproductionof televiseddisaster, it is obviousthat the humanbody has become ensnaredby technologicalsystems, often with devastatingeffects. Simulated containmentconditions have failed to accountfor the suddenimpact of technological collapsewithin imposedborders. The growing list of hazadous incidents, accidents andbiotechnological threats occurring within the Gladney'scomfort zone demonstratesthat nuclearcontainment culture is subjectto interruptionand breakdownfrom within. The deconstructionof personalidentity in nite Noiseexposes the 'collective falseconsciousness' of nationalidentity. Iberefore, the novel questionsthe simulationof Cold War anxietiesand identity codesduring the Reaganera by displayingthe historicaldisorientation contemporaneous with the continuing enclosureof Americanculture and beliefs. The socio-culturalorigins of these containmentsimulations can, in part, be attributedto a figurativestate of national fgermophobia' during the 1950s,the fear of a highly contagiouscommunist 'disease' which threatenedto contaminatethe national'body'. This fear of infectionhelped to enforcedominant containment narratives upon the populationby generatinga sense of threatbased around the potentialusurpation of Americanlife by degenerateforces. This figurativeanxiety, combined with the actualthreat generated by nucleartesting andpotential warfare, proved potent enough to mergethe codesof bodily and nationalhealth. In this sense,physical health and well-being became inextricably tied with the rhetoricof nationalsecurity, and accordingly a don-dnantAmerican subject positionwas created to withstandexternal threats. Because the type andlevel of threathas been subject to changethroughout the Cold War, so hascontainment 53 identitybeen subject to a numberof narrativeshifts andalterations in keepingwith the matrix of opposition. Therefore,individuals like JackGladney must contendwith a ftirther level of disorientationand uncertainty in additionto the deteriorationof historyby containmentsimulation. Identity becomesa fluid andunstable concept, influenced by the perceivedthreats and degenerate forces of that particularmoment. The aforementionedsimulated 'social body' works to expelforms of contaminationby the Other,not only to thwartthe spreadof communismbut to eradicateabject, deviantand corrupting behavioursuch as drug useand homosexuality on both a local andnational scale. The revival of thesestructures of self-enclosureduring the 1980saided the potencyof Reagan'ssymbolic rhetoric of defenceand domestic reform,by stressingthe needto deterrisks to nationalintegrity. The novel,then, deconstructsthis replicationof nationalcontainment identity by threateningJack Gladney'sself-autonomy and lifestyle choiceswith a returnof the repressed,the unspeakable,unquantifiable and yet all-encompassingfears indicative of an eraof potentialnuclear destruction. Initially, Jackis contentwithin this stateof parochialenclosure, and accepts unquestioninglywhat we recogniseas the simulacraof nationalCold War codesand behaviouralconstraints. However, he becomessubject to an identitycrisis that manifestsa numberof anxietiesand paranoia about personal safety within the domesticsphere. From the beginningof the novel he registersa senseof unexplained dreadfiltering throughoutdomestic life:

I woketo the grip of a deathsweat. Defenseless against my OwnTacking fears. A pauseat the centerof my being.I lackedthe will andphysical strength to get out of bedand move through the darkhouse, clutchingwalls andstair rails. To feel my way, reinhabitmy body,re-enter the world. Sweattrickled downmy ribs. The digital readingon the clock-radiowas 3: 51. Alwaysodd numbersat timeslike this. Whatdoes it mean?Is deathodd numbered? (WN. 47)

These'racking fears' areso consumingthat eventhe time on the clock radio sparks existentialconcerns and questions about the interconnectionsand overall meaning of life anddeath. Synonymous with the timer on a nucleardevice, the digital readingon the clock takeson someunknown significance for Jack.The odd numbersappear to relateto someover-arching conspiracy or schemebecause this nuclearassociation remainson the peripheryof wilful understanding.As a resultof his unconscious 54 condition,Jack has become a paranoidsubject sensing ambivalent significance in everydayobjects. On the onehand these symptoms signify Jack'sparalysing old of body acknowledgementof dissolution,but on the otherhand they constitutea subconsciousquestioning of the artificiality of autonomousselfhood. Jack's initial acceptanceof a safeand contained individual and communalidentity is gradually giving way to the fearsand paranoia glossed over by narrativesof segregation, Americanexceptionalism and enclosure.As a result,he feelsinsecure and despite the comfortsand safety of the domesticrealm, daily life constitutesa risk to personal healthand safety. Paradoxically, the containmentcodes originally anaesthetising Jack'sfear exacerbatepersonal anxiety by repressingconcerns that shouldbe confrontedand 'worked tluough'. This consumingobsession with deathsignifies a subconsciousresponse to living in the nuclearage, thus causing the Gladneyfamily to focusupon exposure to healthrisks andthe subsequentdeterioration of the humanbody. The potentialfor nuclearobliteration is diffusedinto an everydaydomestic panic, a conditionthat paradoxicallyjeopardises and yet perpetuatesnarratives of containment.On the one hand,nuclear threat provides the basisand justification for narrativesof containment andCold War culturalconditioning, but, on the otherhand, nuclear threat has the capabilityto breakdown these narratives by projectinga permanentstate of emergencyonto the domesticdomain. Hence, containment narratives and identities aresubject to a stateof flux dependingon the level andtype of threatpervading the domesticscene at anygiven time. This intangiblethreat becomes prefigured within a varietyof biotechnologicaldomestic risks. Heinrich, undoubtedly named after the SS leaderHeinrich Himn-Jer, becomes a focusfor this unhealthyobsession because Jack believeshis teenagedson is prematurelylosing his hair:

Heinrich'shairline is beginningto recede.I wonderabout this. Did his motherconsume some kind of gene-piercingsubstanceAen she was pregnant? Am I at fault somehow?Have I raisedhim, unwittingly,in the vicinity of a chemicaldump site, in the pathof air currentsthat carryindustrial degeneration, [ ] Man's in history in the tides wastescapable of scalp glorioussunsets? ... guilt and of his own bloodhas been complicated by technology,the daily seepingfalsehearted death. (ffW. 22)

Jack'sperception of man'shistorical guilt andthe 'tides of blood' complicatedby technologyappear reminiscent of Jameson'sthoughts about the blood andterror 55 constituting the military-industrial compleX.35 Although he is unawareof the implicit connectionsbetween military-technological developmentand his own daily anxiety, Jack is able to sensethe 'falsehearteddeath' seepingthrough domestictechnologies. Jack and Babette experiencethis overwhelming fear of deathto such an extent that Jack begins to questionwhether he has put his family at risk by unwittingly exposing them to toxic substanceswithin the household.They begin to feel besiegedby biological and technological risks in the home and local community becausethe nuclear threat residing on the margins of their consciousnessbegins to manifest within small-scaletechnological hazards.In the early stagesof the novel, Denise reprimandsBabette for purchasingchewing gum becauseit has beenproven to cause cancer in laboratory animals, the local grade school is evacuatedbecause the children were suffering from'headaches and eye irritations, tasting metal in their mouths' (WN. 35), and the radio urges the local community to boil water before consumption. The visibility of the small-scalehealth risk denotesthe reproduction of Cold War "germophobia', becausecitizens develop a senseof paranoia about sourcesof 'contamination' and succumbto containmentnarratives as a meansto maintain personaland national 'integrity'. However, this condition perpetuatesa culture of risk by inciting a perpetual state contingency designedto justify systemsof Cold War regulation.

Even though Jack is exposedto a toxic spillage during a localised disaster, "ite Noise doesnot centre on one 'technological accident', but accentuatesthe widespreadnature of twentieth-century risk society in general.The work of sociologist Ulrich Beck, whose analysis of risk society is basedon the changing nature of global relations shedsfurther light on the novel's relentlessrisk culture. Beck proposesthat the nature of the modem technological risk differs from earlier concernsbecause 'social risk positions' have evolved.36 Previously, the wealthy had been geographically and financially contained from the natural dangersand catastrophesexperienced by the poor, but the contemporaryrisk has taken the form of a global phenomenonvia pollution, global warming and other forms of environmental decay; therefore even privileged social groups face the potential for misfortune and suffering.

31 Jameson,Postmadervism, 5. 36Quoted in AlanScott, 'Risk Societyor AngstSociety? Two Views of RiskConsciousness and Community', in TheRisk Society and Beyond.. Critical Issuesfor Social 71eory, eds. Barbara Adam et al.,(London: Sage Publications, 2000), 36. 56

Theseanalyses can be extendedto addressthe potentialconsequences of living within a networkedtechnological society based upon incessant nuclear competition.Military networktechnologies, weapons systems and strategies of defencehave been developed to fulfil the dual purposeof regulatingbinary Cold War oppositionwhile providingthe justification for domesticcontainment. However, such systemsand innovations have had the potential to createturbulence and social instability through the risk of total breakdown. Obviously, the testing and possession of nuclear weaponry posesa substantialrisk to domestic safety, but official narratives of containment and deterrencehave provided the justification for this type of arms escalationand social control. Nuclear researchand military biotechnological developmentis entrenchedin institutional rules and practices,a factor ultimately meaningthat the nuclear industry is concealedfrom public view. As Alan Irwin et al. have noted with referenceto this clandestinesystem: 'Turning first to considerthe public saliency of ongoing disputesabout nuclear weaponry, it would seemthat the risks engenderedby such technologieshave been all but neglectedto the dustbin of history'. 37 This level of historical effacementis directed by paradoxical discoursesof I arms control'. When these are combined with the public's inability to interpret nuclear risk directly, it leadsnot only to the projection of that risk onto the domestic realm, but also causesthe subject's inability to differentiate betweensimulated contingency and actual disaster.Disoriented by the unstablenarratives propagating containment culture and deterrence,and anaesthetisedby the supporting media representationsof catastrophe,subjects like Jack Gladney are unable to assessthe difference betweenthe actual event and its simulation. Subsequently,a state of permanentpreparedness for large-scaledisaster prevails where the simulated event becomesinterchangeable with the actual disaster.DeLillo addressesthis condition in "ite Noise through the 'airborne toxic event', a tank car derailment leaking noxious into chemicals the surrounding atmosphere.The event conveysthe de-realisationof nuclear risk, and the indefinable threat posed by biological weaponsdevelopment by projecting the potential for massdevastation onto a chancetechnological accident. As I demonstrate, shall the Gladneys' mystified responseto this accident emphasises how contingency planning has supersededreality with simulated responsesdevoid of historical foundation.

37 Alan Irwin, et al., 'Nuclear Risks: Three Problematics', in Ibid., 79. 57

Community Risk Containment

The abrupt interruption of the chemical accident puncturesthe establisheddomestic scenea third of the way through the novel; thus forming one incident amidst many perceiveddomestic risks. The event takes on a cinematic quality becauseDeLillo cuts the action into the main body of the text, and the narrative begins to usethe exaggeratedrhetoric of the media news broadcastto describethe developmentof the spillage. Initially the radio reports that Heinrich avidly listens to convey the derailment of a tank car and the smoke rising from the sceneof the wreckage. Gradually this accident becomesa 'toxic spillage', then a 'feathery plume', and eventually an 'airborne toxic event' (WN. I 11). In "ite Noise no social comprehensionexists beyond the simulacra,of the event, and becauseof this de- contextualisationthe Gladneys;seem to accepttheir 'role' in the cinematicincident. Jackand Babette fail to recognisethe seriousnessof the situationuntil the very last minutebecause they canonly formulatepersonal experience via the selective representationthat surroundsthem The family continueto listento the radio broadcastand even watch the toxic cloud form over the city, but fail to pay much heedto the sirensoutside: 'It wasn't until a secondnoise became audible in the pulse of the powerfulsirens that we thoughtto effecta pausein our little episodeof decoroushysteria' (WN. 118).As the disasterprogresses the family actuallyseem disappointedby lack of nationalmedia coverage and sensationalism surrounding the proceedings.Consequently unable to orient what they are experiencingvia television discoursesand official narrativesof containment,the Gladneyssimply do not know how to respondto the disasterin a sensiblemanner. Furthermore, Jack's reliance uponvisual recognition and 'mediaspeak'to interpretthe actionde-realises the event evenftirther becausenow he canonly conceiveof the evacuationas a live television episode'rather than a legitimatethreat. After twenty minutesof indecisionand disagreement, the family decideto follow the instructionsbellowing from a loudspeakerto 'evacuateall placesof residence',due to the incoming'cloud of deadlychemicals' (WN. 119)by heading for the abandonedboy-scout carnp, where the RedCross are dispensing 'juice and coffee'. En route,Jack decides to get out of the car to fill it with gasand in the processwalks straightinto the toxic cloud,blatantly placing himself at risk of contamination.The Gladneysare continually divorced from proceedingsand cannot 58 comprehendthe failure of technologiesbecause, as conduitsfor containment,they separatethe sub ect from proceedingseven further. Even though the family cannot instantlyunderstand the magnitudeof the toxic eventwithout the interventionof mediarepresentation, with narrativehindsight Jack can differentiate the randomness of the naturaldisaster from the potentialchaos of humandevice: 'This wasa death madein the laboratory,defined and measurable, but we thoughtof it at the time in a simpleand primitive way, assome seasonal perversity of the earthlike a flood or tornado,something not subjectto control' (WN. 127).Only after his self-inflicted exposureto potentiallylethal toxins canJack begin to recognisethe ironiesand inconsistenciesof a systemof containmentand deterrence built uponthe potentialfor man-madetechnological disaster; a systemill-equipped for suchdisasters because it supersedesthe real eventwith simulatedcontingency scenarios and externalised representationsof catastrophe.In retrospect,Jack recognises that actsof natural devastationseem more acceptable than products of man-madetechno-scientific intervention.In this sense,the 'defimedand measurable'products of laboratory developmentalluding to biologicaland nuclear weapons precision can be absorbed by the naturalforces beyond human manipulation and control. The mobilisationof the civilian populationto a makeshiftcamp away from the sceneof the spillageis reminiscentof the conditionsassociated with the movementof political andenvironmental refugees. By makingthis associationthe readeris facedwith historicalculpability as it resurfacesthrough narrative events and situationalresemblance. Ironically, the Gladneyfamily's decisionto leavethe family homeand follow the adviceof the loudspeakersreflects the televisedscenes of dispossessionand suffering they areused to watchingtogether on a Fridaynight; thusemphasising how the boundariesof personalcontainment have been compromised.At the camp,Jack is told to provideinformation about the natureof his exposureto the chemicalsubstance. During this consultationhe learnsthat the evacuationis beingmanaged by the statecontingency programme, 'SIMUVAC, an acronymfor 'simulatedevacuation'. Jack points out that this eventis real andnot a simulation,only to be told that they areusing the toxic spillageas a modelfor future simulations.The eventis thus so de-realisedby this chainof simulacrathat the SIMUVAC representativesfail to recogniSethe potentialfor actualfatality: 59

The insertion curve isn't as smooth as,%e would like. There's a probability excess.Plus %%hichwe don't have our victims laid out Aherewe'd want them if this was an actual simulation. In other words we're forced to take our victims as Av find them You have to make allowancesfor the fact that everything we seetonight is real. (WN. 139)

The toxic event has not produced any real deathsand Jack's exposure,although potentially lethal, fails to produce any immediate symptoms.The shift to present tensenarration at this point highlights the immediacy of the contingencysituation, and yet there is little evidenceto suggesta stateof emergency.This lack of fatalities and mass-devastationimpacts upon SIMUVAC's computerisedprobability exercise, and so they set about modiýring the data in order to cast a detailed projection for future simulations. In this sense,the real event appearsless traumatic than the subsequentsimulated copies it will generate.During Jack's consultation,the SIMUVAC representativeinputs personaldetails into a statistical databasesuch as age, medical history, and the conditions of his exposureto the substanceleaking from the tank car, a chemical referred to as 'Nyodene D'. The databaseprints out probability statistics relating to Jack's exposure,but surprisingly this information fails to provide Jack with a tangible senseof life and death. From this moment onward he is left with an overwhelming uncertainty about the seriousnessof his condition becausefifty years of lived experiencehave been instantaneouslyreduced to charts of indecipherabledata. 'Ibis confusion and uncertainty only servesto highlight the generalanxiety attachedto Jack's fear of risk and fatality before the toxic event; therefore emphasisingthe culture of risk paradoxically developing in conjunction with containment. At the beginning of this chapter, I questionedhow the containment disorientation causedby the Cold War historical unconsciousimpacts on collective subj ectivity and the assessmentof cultural data. Primarily, Jack's reliance upon collective identification, and the massconsumption of televised spectaclesof disaster,demonstrates how collective subjectivity becomesa method for eradicating threats to personaland national security. However, this impulse to project disasteronto external bodies causesa representationaldislocation whereby the individual can no longer recogniseand react to hazardoussituations. Consequently,the cultural data that should forewarn and safeguardthe Gladney family becomesimplicated in the risk scenario.This is becausethe collective subject has becomeincapable of assessingand differentiating between internal and external threats. 60

Previousstudies of TMiteNoise have focusedupon the similaritiesbetween the 'airbornetoxic event' andthe accidentat the ThreeMile Island(TMI) nuclear reactornear Middletown, Pennsylvania, on 280,March 1979.38These studies have describedTMI asa precursorto the meltdownat Chernobylin 1986,but whatthey havenot addressedis that suchevents highlight how nationalcontainment propagates its own cycle of disaster.During the ThreeMile Islandincident, a chainof complex factorsled to a partialmeltdown of the TMI-2 reactorcore meaning that radioactive wasteescaped from the facility andpolluted the local atmosphere.However, accordingto the fact sheetprovided by the US NuclearRegulatory Commission (NRC) only very small off-site releasesof radioactivityoccurred during the incident, andthese were allegedlycontained with the minimumof harmto the local environment.This official report detailsa deterministsummary of the accident suggestingthat certaintechnologies create an inevitablelevel of risk andthat sufficient-forms of managementand contingency are operating at federaland state levels-to"contain' disasters and minimise civilian threat:

The NRC's regional office in King of Prussia,Pennsylvania, was notified at 7: 45a.m. on March 28. By 8:00, NRC Headquartersin Washington D. C. Azs alerted and the NRC OperationsCenter in Bethesda,Maryland, was activated. The regional office promptly dispatchedthe first team of inspectorsto the site and other agencies,such as the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, also mobilized their responseteams. Helicopters hired by TMI's ovNner,General Public Utilities Nuclear, and the Department of Energy were sampling radioactivity in the atmosphere the by [ ] At 9: 15 the White House, 11:00 above plant midday ... a.m., %usnotified and at a.m., all non- essentialpersonnel were ordered off the plant's premises.39

The detailsof the NRC fact sheetfocus public attentionupon the containment operationsput into actionafter the eventand the promptresponse and dispatch times of the governmentagencies involved in the containmentoperation. However, the fact sheetfails to considerthe causeof the accidentin termsof prior managementand communicationsfailures. The potentialfor disasterbegan when the plant experienced a mechanicalor electricalfailure which causedthe main feedwaterpumps to stop running,causing the systemto overheat.As a resultof this chainof events,the reactorautomatically shut down. Further failure occurred when:

38 SeeGlen A. Love, 'Ecocriticism and Science:Toward Consilience', New Literary History, 30.3, 0 999) 561-576 and Bill Luckin, 'Nuclear Meltdown and the Culture of Risk', Technologyand Culture, 46.2, (2005), 393-399. 39 NRC Fact Sheeton the Three Mile Island Accident, United StatesNuclear Regulatory Commission, accessedvia: http: //www. nrc. gov/reading-nn/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mileisle.html. 61

The pilot-operatedrelief valveopened. The valve shouldhave closed when the pressuredecreased by a certainamount, but it did not. Signalsavailable to the operatorfailed to showthat the valve was still open.As a result coolingwater poured out of the ftek-opcn valve andcaused the reactor to overheat [ ] Therewas instrument level in Instead,the ... no that showedthe of coolant the core. operators judgedthe level of waterin the coreby the level in the pressurizer,and sinceit Aushigh, they assumedthat the corewas properly covered with coolant.40

Becausethe warning systemswere confusing, the operatorsdid not realisethat adequatecooling was not available and as a result the nuclear fuel beganto melt. Fortunately, a massiverelease of radiation into the surrounding environment was avoided becausethe integrity of the containmentunit was not breached.So while the NRC took a technological determinist stancewith regard to the accident at Three Mile Island, design faults and managementoversights neverthelesscreated the conditions for this accidentto take place. Andrew Hopkins' study of accident managementat the site suggeststhat:

Although the particular sequenceof events at Three Mile Island %%zsunprecedented, sectiom of the event sequencehad occurred previously. There had, in short, been wamings. Had thesemmings been 41 properly attendedto, the Three Mile Island have accident would not occurred.

It seemsimplicit within this particularcontainment structure that contingencyand crisismanagement took precedenceover daily runningand safety procedure, and thereforethe warningsigns of technologicalfailure werelost to the potentialcrisis scenario.By creatinga hyperrealmode of preparation,the containmentimpulse embeddedwithin Americancontrol systems effectively worked to createits own disaster.in onesense, containment structures are strengthened by threatssuch as naturaldisasters and technological breakdowns, because the binary logic of national enclosureseeks to characterisepotential threats and failures as externalconcerns and oppositiondivorced from internalsecurity. When a disasteroccurs within the encloseddomestic arena, containment narratives fail to providea sufficient explanationof events.The integrity of nationalboundaries is put into questiondue this denialof susceptibilityand possible weakness. Therefore, the containment narrativemay be redeemedand reinforced by the implementationof 'contingency plans' andclean-up operations to minimiseconsequences and effects.

40 Ibid. 41Andrew Ilopkins, 'Was Duce Mile Islanda NormalAccident? ', JournalofContingencies and CrisisManagement, 9.2, (June, 2001), 68. 62

JeanBaudrillard proposes that this systemof preventionattempts to capture the 'symbolic energy' of 'material destruction', and that the potential scenarioof disasterand evacuationwould releasegreater levels of panic than actual catastrophic events:

Here %Ncfall into full derision: lacking a real catastrophe,it YAlI be easyto unleasha simulated one, one mbich will be as good as the first and can even replace it [... ] On the pretenseof prevention, they materialize all the consequencesin the immediate future. How true it is that we cannot rely on chance 42 to bring on catastrophe:we have to firid its programmedequivalent in the preventive measures.

Three Mile Island cannot be describedas a simulated event, but the official response to the accident scenariocan be understoodas a product of the 'preventive measures' Baudrillard links to the programmedcatastrophe. In this instance,prevention, preparation and the spotlight upon potential threat createdthe scenefor disasterby taking precedenceover daily procedure and safety routine; thus acts of prevention becon-aself-fidfilling propheciesof future catastrophe.Similarly, the 'state program' SIMUVAC in nite Noise, stagesdisasters and crisis responseactivities as a means to plan and anticipate the actual event. As the following section will expound,the real catastropheis treated as a strategic training exercise for future disastersin a system where deterrenceovershadows reality.

Simulated Disaster and Nuclear Contingency

In a satirical fictionalisation of this phenomenonof preventive simulation, the SIMUVAC representativesreturn to Blacksmith shortly after the toxic spillage to retrospectively rehearsethe evacuation process:

Onthe way home I drovedown Elm intending to makea quickstop at the supermarket. The street was full of emergencyvehicles. Farther down I sawbodies scattered about. A manwith an armband blew a whistleat meand stepped in frontof mycar. I glimpsedother men in Mylexsuits. Stretcher-bearers ranacross the street. When the man with thewhistle drew closer, I wasable to makeout the letters on hisarmband: SIMUVAC. (W2V. 204)

Local cornmunity membershave been enlisted by SIMUVAC to take on the role of disaster 'victims, and so when Jack drives down the street he seesbodies scattered aboutand emergency vehicles waiting on standby.Ile SIMUVAC officials have

42BaudrWard, Fatal Strategies, 21-22. 63 goneto greatlengths to createa simulateddisaster for ftiture preventivemode mg, but ironically,the disorientationcaused by this chainof simulationoverwhelms reality andreduces the subject'sability to interpretthe immediacyof the crisis situation.Furthermore, the eventsof TbreeMile Islandare embedded into the toxic eventin the way that this fictional scenarioreflects the uncertaintyof the health hazardsfaced by the citizensof HarrisburgPennsylvania. The NRC fact sheet suggeststhat the levelsof radiationdetected in the surroundingarea posed a minimumlong-term threat to healthand safety:

Estimatesare that the averagedose to about 2 million people in the areawas only about I millirem. To put this into context, exposurefrom a full set of chest x-rays is about 6 millirem. Comparedto the natural radioactive backgrounddose of about 100-125 millirem per year for the area,the collective doseto the community from the accident was very small.43

Despitethe NRC's minimalradiation estimates and probability statistics, these official prognoseshave failed to dispelpanics about radioactivity in the soil andlocal watersupply, hair loss,vorniting, pet deathsand alleged increases in the numberof cancercases per year.Advice given duringthe incidentabout the evacuationof 'vulnerable'members of society,namely pregnant women and pre-school-age childrenwithin a five mile radiusof the site hascontinued to feedspeculation about the releaseof radioactivegases into the atmosphere.These concerns are depicted in the novel's bio-risk community,and aforementionedsymptoms such as Heinrich's hair lossand concernsabout the contaminationof the water-supplyfeature throughoutthe narrativeas aspects of an uncertainrisk culture.Moreover, the lack of clarity surroundingJack's exposure to the chemicalNyodene D duringthe toxic eventalso reflects the vaguenessof official reportsand statistics, and the resultant lossof public certainty:

I hadmy secondmedical checkup since the toxic event.No startlingnumbers on the printout This deathuzs still too deepto be glimpsed.My doctor,Sundar Chakravarty, asked me aboutthe sudden flurry of checkups.In thepast I'd alAmysbeen afraid to know. (WN-.204)

Previouslycontent to maintaina stateof containmentunconscious, Jack now craves the certaintyof a projectedlife expectancyand so consultswith his physician,Dr. SundarChakravarty, a minor characterwhose ethnicity contrasts with Jack'slimited

43NRC Fact Sheeton the Three Mile Island Accident, United StatesNuclear Regulatory Commission- 64 containmentidentity. Since the toxic eventhe hassought clarification on the unintelligiblestatistics produced by SIMUVAC, a questfor deepand meaningful interpretationto easeexistential fears. Ironically, now that Jackis readyto faceup to reality beyondthe boundariesof containment,the answershe requiresare beyond explanation.Just as the local communitymembers of Middletown,Pennsylvania havebeen unable to dispelthe senseof panicemanating from the ThreeMile Island accident,neither can Jack gain closureon the ramificationsof his exposurebecause he cannotpenetrate the layersof datapertaining to his condition. As seenin responseto the accidentat ThreeMile island,statistics and reports only servedto heighten existing anxieties about health and safety sternming from technological breakdownto all out nuclear war. In this sense,the toxic event and the efforts of SIMUVAC also reflect the contingency plans proposedby Reaganto minimise the catastropheof nuclear war. During 1981, Thomas Jones,Deputy Under-Secretaryof Defense for Researchand Engineering, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the need for a strong civil defenceagenda in the light of U. S./Soviet tensions.He notoriously suggestedthat the United Statescould recover from a nuclear strike within two years, and that the civilian population would survive if they built makeshift shelters: 'Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt top [ I If there on ... are enoughshovels to go around, everybody's 441bese going to make it'. comments once again reflect the lack of insight contained within official defencedoctrine becausenational symbolism has taken precedence over factual investigation. By highlighting these alleged survival chancesit was consideredthat the population would believe in the potential to win a nuclear war. Following theseill-advised comments,the Reaganadministration beganto consider the role of civil defenceas a possible alternative to the mutual liability of assured destruction, and therefore beganto devise civilian relocation plans. In 1982 the Federal Emergency ManagementAgency (FEMA) outlined an elaboratecivil defenceplan wherebycity residentswould flee to remotehost communitiesin the eventof nuclearattack. These plans were to work on the basisof self-helpand communityparticipation, but endorsementand community spirit proveddifficult to promoteunder the shadowof unthinkablenuclear destruction. Statisticshave shown that during 1981sixty percentof Americansthought that they

44Thomas K. Jones' intmiew with the Los Angeles Times, qwted in TimeMagazine, (Monday March 29,1982), accessedvia: bq: //www. time. comAimelmagazine/article/0.9171.923242-2.00.html. 65 would not survivea nuclearattack, and these figures rose by nine percentduring 198345Despite American did facethe . growingconcerns, the people not wantto prospectof threatsto the stabilityof daily domesticlife. FEMA's contingencyplans wereto be put into motionat statelevel, andseveral relatively small-scale evacuation experimentsrevealed the difficulties attachedto stagingsuch a considerablesocial programme.Jon Timothy Kelly hasdescribed how 'spirited' citizensin the townsof Burlington,Connecticut and Becket, Masschusetts decided to put the relocationplans to the test:

About 150 spirited Burlington residentsdrove the 65 miles up Route 8 to Becket, halting on two occasionsbecause autos ran out of gas. Upon reaching the host community, residentswere welcomed with the sign, 'Water contaminatedcold beer ahead' while two teenagersin surgical masks ominously scannedentrants with Geiger counters.71be citizens of Becket salutedthe evacueesfor carrying out the exercise in less than three of the allotted four hours.46

In additionto the ridiculousevacuation scenario played out by the local residents, Kelly alsostresses that the host communityof Becketwas approximately twelve miles from a missileplant, therefore making it a key targetfor a nuclearstrike. DeLillo recreatesthis ludicroussituation in nite Noiseby conveyingthe Gladneys' botchedevacuation attempt. The similarity betweenBurlington's evacuation 'rehearsal'and DeLillo's representationof small-town'simulated evacuation' procedureis clearlystriking. Jack'sdecision to leavethe safetyof the carto get gas, andSIMUVAC's managementof the relocationprocess replicate the farcicalevents of September1982. By creatingthe perceivedconditions of a nuclearstrike and attemptingto simulatethe evacuationof the civilian populace,the dominant contaimnentsystems attempted to 'act out' andpreclude the actualsequence of nucleardestruction. Containment narratives again create their own disaster,but this time the eventhas become a simulationfor the otherwiseunimaginable scene of nuclearwar. This simulatedevacuation and strategic war-game cannot reflect the reality of nucleardestruction because the eventwould obliterateall formsof representationand repetition. Consequently, the townsfolkof Burlingtonand Becket respondedto the unfathomableand de-realised government contingency plans with a mock evacuationexercise of their own.

45 Ibid. 46 JonTimothy Kelly, 'Thinking theUnthinkable: The Civil DefensePlan Debate in the 1980s', h presentedat the 26! Annual Conference,Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (June 2000). 66

Thesede-contextualised contingency plans stem from the developmentof what Paul Virilio calls 'pure war' or war of 'deterrence' whereby the possessionof 'increasingly sophisticatedweaponry detersthe enemy more and more', and at this 47 stagewar 'is no longer in its execution,but in its preparation'. Virilio identifies the 'fatal coupling' betweenthe U. S. and USSR as the major reasonfor this escalationof the arms race and the increasedthreat of nuclear war during the early 1980s.He notes that beneaththe rivalry and opposition U. S. and Soviet alienation servedto supporta unified effort in the sophistication'of the 'war-machine'.When referring to the 'war-machine', Virilio meansthe escalationof military-technological precision underpinning all strategic aspectsof the perpetualwar of deterrence.Therefore, arms negotiations and agreementsactually servedto strengthenarms development:

Agreementsbetween the Americans and the Soviets are agreementson perfecting the war-machine. That is their onlypurpose, period. And they are allied in this responsibility. There is absolutely no remission for either side.48

Two systemsare at work in the 'mutual' purpose of pure war, the 'system of defense 49 against an enemy' and the 'system of security against a threat'. In "ite Noise, the government sponsoredagency SIMUVAC focuses upon the outcome of the simulated event and remains in a state of preparation for a potential disaster.This disaster appearsto be a constantthreat, and yet it is de-realisedin its virtual reproduction. Once again, the novel emphasises;how subjectscan no longer interpret differentiate and betweendifferent kinds of cultural data. In this instance,the simulation and the actual event becomecross-wired so that the preparationfor potential emergencybecomes indistinguishable from the actual event. Hence, SIMUVAC's simulated contingency reflects and perpetuatesthe 'system of security against a threat' contributing to war-game development.Virilio takes his analysis further one step by noting the power of nuclear deterrenceto condition the population and changethe nature of the American territory:

Cities will be evacuated,a diasporaprovoked, territories disorganized. It's deregulation.The threat's hypothetical andcompletely phantasmic nature in the doctrineof nationalsecurity contributes toward the disintegration of territory.In the nameof security,in thename of protectioneverything is undone,

47 Paul Virilio, Pure War, (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983), 92. " Ibid., 120. 49Ibid., 104. 67 deregulated:economic relations, social relations, sexual relations, relations of moneyand power. We endup in a stateof defeat,vAthout there ever having been a war.50

The 'deregulation','disorganization' 'disintegration' and 'stateof defeat'of which Virilio speakstakes place in the nameof nationalsecurity and deterrence. The social, economicand trans-political conditions contributing to the perpetuationof the nuclearwar-game eventually spawn societal non-development, the devolutionof socialand economic relations and the overalldisorientation of the masses.As the armsrace speeds up, andthe technologicaland military-economicnetworks supportingthe machineryof war expand,so doesthe collectivesocial project de- escalatein orderto maintainthis systemof 'phantasmic'war. Virilio's stateof 'pure war' is not simplythe developmentof nuclearweapons, but the maintenanceof an intricatemilitary-economic and social system designed to propagateand perfect the logisticsof the war-game.In this sense,the consumerproducts, media information flows andsocial relations circulating in the domesticrealm each transmit and disseminatethis military-industrialinfrastructure. Bewildered and unsettled by this socialde-escalation and the waningof historicity implicit within postmodernity,the Gladneyfamily attemptto orientthemselves and interpret the 'layersof psychicdata' containedin consumeritems and household activities. Hence, nite Noisedepicts the semioticstruggle the subjectfaces when caught within a systemof social containmentand permanent military-industrial perfection. In orderto demonstrate this semioticstruggle, and the interconnectionsthe novel infersbetween domesticity, consumerismand Cold War military development,we mustnow focusour attention on the relevanceof Jack'scompulsive shopping habits.

Consumeiismand the Military ComIllex

Prior to his exposureto the Nyodene Derivative during the 'airborne toxic event', Jack was incapable of recognising the immediacy and magnitude of disasterbecause he was subject to a fragmented experienceof history, culture and society as refracted through narratives and norms of containment. Accordingly, the superficial distractions of television and shopping provided the Gladneyswith a false senseof

50Ibid., 104. 69 comfortand security, because these banal activities paradoxically anaesthetised the psychologicalfallout of a nuclearcontainment society:

I shoppedwith recklessabandon. I shoppedfor immediate needsand distant contingencies.I shopped for its own sake,looking and touching, inspecting merchandiseI had no intention of buying, then buying it. I sent clerks into their fabric books and pattern books to searchfor elusive designs.I began to grow in value and self regard. I filled myself out, found new aspectsof myself, located a person I'd forgotten existed. Brightness settled around me. (W2V-.84)

Jack and his family embracethe surfaceprosperity of the Reaganera by partaking of the massdesire to consumewith recklessabandon. By exerting the potency of purchasingpower Jack feels that his own personalvalue increasesand strengthensin tandem with the economy.Assuming office during a high period of inflation and unemployment, PresidentReagan initially gatheredsupport for his campaignby outlining proposedfiscal policies intendedto combat thesepressing domestic issues. Termed 'Reaganornics'by radio broadcasterPaul Harvey, thesepolicies were based 51 upon free market advocacyand neoliberal thought regarding trade. Reflecting the rhetoric of Reagan'scampaign promisesto lower taxes and reduce statecontrol, his economic plan implementedthe reduction of income taxes, particularly for those on the highest incomes, and an overall raise in deficit expenditureto its highest level since World War Two. Although the statistics show that inflation significantly decreasedand employment levels increasedduring Reagan'sterms of office, it has been constantly debatedto what extent Reaganomicswas responsiblefor these trends. The efforts of the Federal Reserveto resolve the problems of inflation, and the decline of oil prices resulting from supply shocks in the Middle East were overshadowedby the polished rhetoric of Reagan'spolicy. Furthermore,the combination of significant tax-cuts, the massiveincreases in defence expenditure during the period and the overall instability of the stock-market by the mid-1980s, eventually raised the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion. 52The United Statesmoved from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor. Consequently,it can be argued that Reagan'seconomic policy was successfulon a narrative level and that beneaththe perceived middle-class prosperity of official rhetoric laid the detrimental rarnifications of a perpetualwar economy.

51 See W. A- Niskancn, Reaganomics: An Insider's Account ofthe Policies and the People, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 363 pp. 52 Lou Cannon, Ronald Reagan: The Presidential History as Told 7hrough the Collection of the RonaldReagan Library andMuseum, (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 128. 69

Jack'scraving to buy for 'immediateneeds' and 'distantcontingencies' both $puzzles'and 'excites' him and the family 'gloried the event' and spectacleof a trip to the mall. However, this desire to purchaseis not basedon actual need; rather it forms part of a compulsion to collect reified material goods. Indicative of the demographictargeted during Reagan'scampaign, the Gladneyspartake of the apparentprosperity of the period, a problematic economic system feeding directly into military expansion.This consumercompulsion servesto mask the incoherence of containment identity with the instant gratification, contentmentand's elf regard' garneredfrom the consumerpurchase, a system of exchangethat simultaneously dulls containment anxiety and disseminatesit through military-econornic association. The novel addressesAmerican military-technological domination by linking Jack's consumerimpulses to the emergenceof a new kind of 'flatness' and 'superficiality'; a cultural phenomenonwhich Baudrillard describesas a fundamentalconstituent of the 'mutation' affecting the ecology of the human species.Daily exchangeis no longer basedupon human relations, but upon the 'acquisition of goods and messages':

We have reachedthe point, %&here'consumption' has graspedthe whole of life; where all activities are sequencedin the samecombinatorial mode; where the scheduleof gratification is outlived in advance, one hour at a time; and where the 'envircnment' is complete, completely climatized, furnished, and culturalized.53

Jack'scompulsive devotion to the supermarketand the mall belongsto the moment of sequential,climatised and total consumptionthat Baudrillarddescribes. This is a systemwhere consumer impulses have already been mapped out, andwhere the immediatesocial environment has been overwhelmed with a surplusof cultural materialthat swampsthe senses.Therefore, the subjectis unableto makethe associationbetween domestic consumption and its placewithin the systemof military-economicdevelopment aligned with Virilio's conceptionof 'pure war'. In this systemof perpetualdeterrence and permanent war-game opposition, domestic consumptionforms part of an all-encompassingmilitary economydedicated to the escalationof the armsrace and the rulesof global domination.The infrastructureof this military-industrialcomplex is not only composedof the armedforces, military researchagencies and civil government.Rather, the term canbe appliedto a much

53Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, 36. 70 broader spectrumof network flows and economic variables,that takes into account the funding and researchof private defencecontractors. The military complex, then, is a changing network of government and private groups, eachdisplaying vested social and material interestsin the perpetuationof sophisticatedweaponry and the military-strategic command of internal affhirs. The Cold War createdan indefinite period of defensiveconflict basedupon the continuous enhancementof these weaponssystems, and so a specialisedlabour force was required to producethese complex systemson a permanentbasis. As PeterW. Singer has noted in his analysis industry54 demand of privatemilitary , the resultof this n-filitary wasa massive economicintegration dedicated to defenceand national security. Therefore, multiple partnershipsbetween the Pentagonand private enterprises began to surface,and major manufacturersbegan to bid for highly lucrativemilitary contractsfor the developmentof advancedinformation networks and bespoke weaponry. In recent years,the likes of Boeing,private equity firm CarlyleGroup, General Electric and advancedtechnology manufacturer, Lockheed Martin haveeach secured contracts with the Pentagon.Therefore, the investorsand manufacturers providing services and goodsfor the domesticpopulace are an inherentpart of the military infrastructure. Unableto makethe circuit connectingconsumer activity with its military-economic counterpart,anaesthetised and perplexed subjects like Jackcan only experiencethis n-filitaryunderside as all-pervading dread. Jack'scolleague and friend,Murray Siskindviews himself as a cultural analystbecause he feelscompelled to investigateand interpret the American consumerimpulse. He describesthe supermarketas 'a revelation'(W. 38) therefore imbuingthe family shoppingtrip with a spiritualsignificance. He engagesin a theologicaldiscussion with Babetteabout Tibetan death, transition and rebirth, and statesthat the mall hasthe powerto spiritually regenerateus becauseit is rich in depthsof hiddensignificance. Murray's belief in the religiousawakening of the shoppingtrip seemsfarcical, but what he is referringto is the symbolismhe attributesto consumergoods, recreational pursuits and American culture. Murray feelsthe needto immersehimself in the 'Americanmagic and dread' (WN- 19) of televisionimages and consumerpackaging because he believesthat culturalproducts andsurface images contain hidden codes that enablethe individualto makesense of

54peter W. Singer, Corporate War?iors: The Mse of the lWvafised Mililmy Industry, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 3 50pp. 71 their personalontology. In contrast,Jack prefers to seekthe stabilityof the homogenousmeta-narrative and contains himself in official rhetoricand enclosed narrativestructures because of a needto assertthe simplerelationship between signifierand signified. Jack wishes to keepat baythe 'semioticnightmare' MY 103)that engulfall formsof culturalproduction; whereas Murray strivesto embrace the artisticlicence of this schizophreniccondition. By attemptingto locatehidden meaningand significance within consumeritems and television representation Murray denouncesa total acceptanceof surfaceimages, instead undertaking a study of the 'codes'and 'messages'to be foundin the 'self-referring'medium of television:

You have to learn how to look. You have to open yourself up to the data. TV offers incredible amounts of psychic data. It opensancient memories of world birth, it welcomesus into the grid, the network of little buzzing dots that make up the picture pattern. (WN: 5 1)

However, Murray's analysisof aestheticmodes, and his willingness to 'open' himself 'up to the data' fails to accountfor the loss of history and personalorigins aggravatedby these very forms of media reproduction and networked communication. As a result, he attemptsto trace 'world birth' via the pasticheof television programming, but fails to gamer a coherentinterpretation within these complex interrelated systemsof media saturation and information overflow. In a statementthat explainsMurray's inability to penetratethe hiddendepths of cultural data,Fredric Jameson notes the powerof culturaland material content to, ironically, $contaminate'real experienceand negate critical response: here too the contentseems somehow to contaminatethe form, only the miseryhere is themisery of happiness,or at leastcontentment (which is [ ] the really complacency),... the gratificationsof new car,the TV dinnerand your favoriteprogram on the sofa-which arenow themselvessecretly a misery,an unhappinessthat doesn'tknow its name,that has no way of telling itself apartfrom genuinesatisfaction and fWfilment55

For Jameson,domestic consumer routines become a form of regulatedmisery designed to dull the sensesand minimise critical oppositionwith the passing 'gratifications' of homeentertainments and throwaway goods. In this sense, Murray's fascination with the spiritualand sernioticdepth of cultural andconsumer

55Jameson, Postmodernism, 280. 72 materialis doomedto failurebecause, as a subjectliving within the postmodem climate,he lacksthe critical distanceto initiate a meaningfulinterpretation. Although he recognisesthat thereis a seriesof interrelationshipsand connections displayed in culturalmaterial, and that an underlyinglogic relatesthe domesticscene to a much moregrandiose design, he fails to understandthat theseare the totalising effects of the tililitary-industrialcomplex. Subsequently, Murray's sernioticanalyses are misguidedand misplaced.For example,when conversing with Jackabout their academicachievements and contributions, he fails to recogniseJack's study of Hitler as a productof historicalfragmentation and revisionism. To compoundthis lack of insight,he compareshis aforementionedplans to investigatethe culturaldata surroundingElvis Presley'ssinging career with that of Jack'sdevotion to Hitler studies.Murray maypossess the desireto locatethe significanceholding together the culturalproject, but like Jackhe lacksthe critical ability to recognisecontainment narrativesas part of a deliberatesystem of knowledgesaturation designed to stultify fear andopposition. Murray recognisesthe symptomsof the Cold War historical unconscious,the layersof socio-historicalmeaning and experience submerged in popularculture and social relations. Unfortunately he is ill-equippedto understand andmap their political significance,because he too is subjectto the schizophrenic dislocationsand confusionsof this unconsciouscondition. It is only after his exposureto NyodeneD that Jackbecomes aware of the homeand the shoppingmall as sourcesof indefinablediscomfort and dread: 'The supermarketshelves have been arranged. It happenedone day without warning. Thereis agitationand panic in the aisles,dismay in the facesof older shoppers.They walk in a fragmentedtrance, trying to figure out the pattern,discern the underlying logic' (WN. 325).'Ibe consequencesof the toxic eventinstigate a new senseof responsivenesswhich permitsJack to achievea very basiclevel of self-actualisation beyondcontainment codes and collective identity constraints.He canbegin to see how his actionsas a local communitymember and consumer relate to an underlying Gpattern'or 'logic'. However,due to the dislocationsand over-abundance of this societyhe cannotrecognise the military-industrialcomplex as a defmablesource. By exploringJack's struggle to cometo termswith the fragmentation,discrepancies and confusionsof acceptedcontainment narratives, the novel is ableto demonstratethe psychologicaldifficulties encounteredwhen attempting to assertself-autonomy and historical clarity. Jackhopes to achievepersonal stability by decipheringthe cultural 73 materialsaround hirn, but the novel suggeststhat underthese circumstances of extremesocio-historical uncertainty, the individualmust accept the spatialand temporalconfusions beyond the uniformity of containment.Jack's gradual recognitionof an over-archingconnectivity forces him to realisethat a complete relianceupon domestic enclosure heightens personal anxieties as opposed to alleviatingthern. Although he cannotcomprehend this, the homebecomes a site of dreadbecause the weightof possessionaccentuates the abjectwaste indicative of mortallimitations. Moreover, domesticity becomes a figurativepoint in the network of connectionssternming from the military-economicsystem, a point of accumulationfor the consurnablesthat enablethe escalationof the nucleararms race. Householditems have become ingrained with the 'psychicdataý', 'energy waves' and 'incident radiation'of a systemof nucleardeterrence; thus the imminentsense of Cold War dangerhas penetrated into the fabric of Jack'sdaily existence. Consequently,he throwsaway the materialobjects he hascollected over the yearsin an act of psychologicalpurification:

Therewas an immensity of things, an overburdening weight a connection,amortality. I stalked the rooms,flinging things into cardboard boxes. Plastic electric fans, burnt-out toasters, Star Trek needlepoints.It took, "tll overan hour to get everything down to thesidewalk. No one helped me. I didn'twant help or human understanding. I just wanted to getthe stuff out of thehouse. (WY. 262)

This purgingof consumerculpability in the military-econornicsystem is ren-dniscent of Alan Nadel's discussionof metanarrativesas constantlyevolving discourses used to separateofficial historical'substance' from cultural 'waste' products.56 Although this act of purificationrelates to Jack'sincreasing personal and social awareness, he still managesto replicatethe functionsof containmentby selectingthe personal memoriesand cultural artefacts to be retainedas privileged personal history. This abjecthousehold waste signifies the fragmentsand remnants of the military sideof the Americanconsumer legacy, as it breaksthrough imposed limits to hauntthe presentmoment as a 'return of the repressed'. Therefore,Jack's process of purificationand selection signifies another act of containmentdependency in the faceof historicalturmoil. A senseof compulsionand terror ovenvhelmsthis fascinationwith garbagebecause it displayshow easily nationalstructures and ideologies can be turnedto waste.He is facedwith the fusion

-'6NadeL Containment Culture, 4. 74 of humanand consumer waste, the darkunderside of consumerconsciousness: 'The full stenchhit me with shockingforce. Was this ours?Did it belongto us?Had we createdit? I took the bagout the garageand emptied it. The compressedbulk sat therelike an ironic modemsculpture' (WN. 258). The 'compressedbulk' of householdwaste also suggests the eventualoverload of technologicaland communicationsnetworks as they wind down andcollapse under the strainof too muchinformation and cultural production. What Jackis facedwith whenhe studies the compressedgarbage is the figurativedepiction of technologicaland organic death as it contaminatessacred domesticity. As Tom LeClair suggests:'DeLillo recycles Americanwaste into art to warn againstentropy, both thermo-dynamic and informational'.57 Consequently, the novel canbe interpretedas thematically and structurallyimplosive because the impulseto reduceand compress cultural and historicalmaterial, as metaphoricallyimplied with the Gladney'strash compactor, canlead to psychologicaland sociological meltdown. Therefore, it is importantto considerthe significanceof Jack'spsychological 'meltdown', anddraw some conclusionsabout the stateof containmentculture and identity at the closeof the novel.

Containment Meltdown

"He Noisereverses the risk scenarioby contemplatingthe containmentlink betweeninvoluntary exposure and willing consumptionof toxins.In the earlystages of the novel,Denise suspects that Babetteis taking unidentifiabledrugs and studies medicaljournals to confirmher suspicions.Begrudgingly, she shares this informationwith Jackwho thenattempts to confrontBabette about the mysterydrug Tylar'. The reasonsfor Babette'suse of Dylar remaina nTysteryuntil the last sectionof the novelwhen Jack discovers that shehas obtained this experimental dpsychopharmaceutical' to curbher fear of death,The magnitudeof her fear and desperationis revealedwhen she admits that sheobtained the drug in exchangefor sexualfavours, and was completelyprepared to committhese acts of adulteryin exchangefor ignoranceof her own mortality.Despite her protestationsthat the drug wasunsuccessful Jack becomes obsessed with the ideaof Dylar:

57Tom LeClair, In the Loop: DeLillo and the Systems Novel, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 212. 75

The drug could be dangerous,after all. And I was not a believer in easysolutions, somethingto swallow that would rid my soul of an ancient fear. But I could not help thinking about that saucer- benign shapedtablet. Would it ever work, could it work for someand not for others?It was the counterpart of the Nyodene menace.Tumbling from the back of my tongue down into my stomach. fear-of- The drug core dissolving, releasing benevolentchemicals into my bloodstream,flooding the deathpart in my brain. The pill itself silently self-destructing in a tiny inward burst, a polymer implosion, discreet, precise and considerate.(WN. 211)

Jack'spreoccupation with the 'saucer-shaped'tablet stemsfrom the fact that his Doctorhas been unable to easehis fearsabout Nyodene contamination, and so he decidesto formulatea planto track downand kill the Dylar companyrepresentative Willie Mink in orderto obtaina supply.Rather than seek revenge for his wife's dishonour,Jack's motives for committingmurder are driven by the smallhope that the releaseof 'benevolentchemicals' into his bloodstreamwill neutralisehis fear of deathand restore the selectivebalance of containmentidentity. Therefore,the Gladneys'hunt for an experimentaldrug to eradicate existentialfear is a reversalof the involuntaryrisk scenariodepicted in the airborne toxic event.Jack is now willing to go to extremelengths to track downa secretand potentiallylethal chemicalbecause he hopesto cancelout the possibleside-effects andpsychological trauma of his NyodeneD exposure.He movesfrom involuntary exposureto potentiallylethal toxins, to a self-destructiveacceptance of potentially lethal drugsbecause of this faint hopethat Dylar will suppressself-awareness and facilitatea returnto narrativesof comfort andsecurity. Ironically, these drastic attemptsto curbthe 'fear-of-deathpart' of the brainwith a form of drug-induced containmentare caused by the psychologicalmeltdown Jack and Babette experience as a consequenceof containmentin the first place.Just as Jack's trash compactor workedas a metaphoricaldemonstration of the thermo-dynarnicand informational entropythreatening technological and cultural systems of containment,so is the 'tiny inwardburst' and 'polymer implosion' of the Dylar pill indicativeof the same potentialde-escalation. Although, 'discreet', 'precise' and 'considerate'in its silent 'self-destruction',Dylar andthe containmentimpulse driving Jackto ingestit are derivedfrom the samebio-technological base as Nyodene D. Althoughhe cannot explainwhy, Jackrecognises Dylar asthe 'benigncounterpart' of theNyodene menace',the 'humanface' (WN.211) of biotechnologicalinnovation as it offershim a potentialescape from psychologicalinsecurity. However, as I havealready demonstratedin relationto the replicationof containmentnarratives as their own 76 cycleof disaster,this attemptto maskthe effectsof onechemical with that of another would ironically propagateanother cycle of uncertaintyand risk. Jackis unawareand incapableof realisingthat the Dylar is alsothe 'counterpart'of NyodeneD because both arethe typesof productsand innovations derived from, andcontributing to, the economicand technological scope of the military complex.Therefore, the Dylar inducesthe sameinsecurity and dread as Jack's exposure to the toxic spillage,and the threateningundercurrent upsetting the balanceof his lifestyle remainsundeterred. Jack's exposureto Nyodene D during the toxic event initiated a basic level of responsiveness,which causedhim to apprehendthe underlying instability surrounding his personal ontology. However, in accordancewith the shifts and self- regulating nature of containment,this journey toward enlightenmentand personal autonomy is not as straightforward as it seems.The toxic event doesnot instil an immediate senseof awarenessin Jack, rather it intensifies the existing military- industrial angst surfacing through personalenclosure and containedsocietal structures.What the event servesto highlight is the potential risk we all face on a daily basis in the home and neighbourhood,the de-contextualisedrisk that instigates insecurity and in doing so validates an endlesscycle of containment.Because of the uncertainty of his life expectancyand the temptations of Dylar, Jack continuesto obsessabout personalweakness and the imminence of death even though there is no physical evidenceof a degenerativehealth conditiolL As a result of this mental and physiological contemplation, Jack's narrative is inflected with an air of self- absorption as he becomesconvinced that the toxic exposurehas facilitated a spiritual and intellectual rebirth:

My airy moodreturned. I i&asadvancing in consciousness.I watched myself take each separate step. With eachseparate step, I becameaware of processes,components, things relating to otherthings. Waterfell to in drops.I things [ ]I I earth saw new ... sensed waspart of a networkof structuresand channels.I knewthe precisenature of events.I wasmoving closer to thingsin their actualstate as I approacheda violence,a smashingintensity (WN. 304-305).

Jack's'airy mood' (a veiled referenceto the ubiquitous'airborne toxic event') may leadhim to believethat he hasachieved a preciseunderstanding of events,but his pasttense reminiscence highlights his misunderstandingof the situation. Furthermore,the way that Jackdescribes this sceneas though he wasable to watch himselfin a kind of out of body experiencesuggests that he is subjectto the mental 77 fragmentationof a psychoticepisode. Although he sensesthe intensityand immediacyof the networkstructures and channels that constituteand dictate his identity,he mostcertainly fails 'to movecloser to thingsin their actualstate' and achievea higherlevel of consciousness.As a disorientedand anaesthetised postmodernsubject living underthe shadowof nuclearcontainment and contingency, Jackis deniedthe capabilityof contextualisinghimself within thesestructures. As mentionedpreviously with referenceto Baudrillard'sFatal Strategies,the over- productionof banalinformation through these channels and networks guarantees socialconfusion and inertia, while propagatingmilitary precisionand nuclear escalation.Psychologically ill-equipped to understandand interpret the cyclicallogic of Americancontainment culture, Jack confuses self-assertion and actualisation with his re-absorptioninto containmentunconscious. Jack'sfinal attemptto takecontrol of his fear occurswhen he decidesto obtaina supplyof Dylar from Willie Mink, the con-artistotherwise known as'Mr Gray' who suppliedBabette with the substanceat a seedymotel. Babette has already told him to forget it becausethe drug wasa confidencetrick, 'Fool's gold or whateverthe appropriateterm' (WN: 209).Nonetheless, he convinceshimself that the 'psychopharmaceutical'will easehis conditionand restore the comparativebliss of falseconsciousness. Ironically, this fixation evolvesinto a murderplot that critics 58 haveseen as a parodyof HumbertHumbert's murder of ClareQuilty in Lolita. Jack believesthat by shootingWillie Mink he will wipe out personalambiguity and irregularity;thus the fear of deathwill be supplantedby taking anotherlife:

Hereis my plan.Drive pastthe sceneseveral times, park somedistance from the scene,go backon foot, locateI& Grayunder his real nameor an ahas,shoot him threetimes in the viscerafor maximumpain, clearthe weaponof prints,place the weaponin the victim's statickyhand, find a crayonor lipstick tubeand scravAa crypticsuicide note on the full-lengthmirror, takethe victim's supplyof Dylar tablets,slip backinto the car,proceed to the expresswayentrance, head east toward Blacksmith(WN: 304)

Jack'snarrative account of the murderattempt, which suddenlyshifts to present tensefor dramaticirony, takeson the quality of a de-realisedcinematic episode. This is not only becausehis planningis reminiscentof a contrivedcrime dramawith little concernfor feasibility,but alsobecause Jack appears to 'act' the leadingrole in a

58See Barretý 'How the Dead Speakto the Living', 107. 78 revengeplot. In fact, the omnipresentviewing screen of audio-visualtechnologies is entrenchedin Jack'svivid rendering.The victim's handbecomes 'staticky' in the sameway asa televisionset, and the 'cryptic suicidenote' he intendsto leavewill be scrawledon a 'ftdl-length miffor', a potentmotif for Jack'scinematic treatment of the scene.Eventually, Jack drives to the motelwhere Willie is staying,My prepared to kill anotherman for a supplyof pills, but thingsfail to go to planbecause he is not preparedfor the scenethat unfolds.Willie's prolongedpersonal addiction to the drug hasinduced strange psychological side-effects whereby media-speak and television representationmerge with reality.This causeshim to sufferan exaggeratedform of postmodern,schizophrenia, whereby he canno longerdifferentiate between television footageand live eventsas they take placein front of him Consequently,Willie is only capableof limited andde-contextualized conversation beyond the mediated fragmentsof languagehe picks up from the TV:

I was doing important work. I envied myself I Aus literally embarked.Death without fear is an everydaything. You can live with it. I learned English watching American TV. I had American sex the first time in Port-O-San, Texas.Everything they said was true. I wish I could remember[ I Dylar failed, ... reluctantly. But it will definitely come. Maybe now, maybe never. The heat from your hand will make the gold-leafing stick to the wax paper.(WN. 308)

Willie Mink's exaggeratedschizophrenic condition of fragmentedsentence structuring,de-contextualised subject-matter and the symptomaticseparation of signifter. and signified reflects the potentialinstability of the Gladneyfamily's mediatedexperience. Jack and his family alreadyrely uponthe ritual consumptionof televisionas a meansto interpretsociety at large,and the subsequentdislocation of reality this engendersis in part responsiblefor Jack'stoxic exposure.Therefore, Willie's disconcertingcondition becomes an amplifiedreflection of the social malaisedisconnecting Iack from a coherentand complete sense of reality. In fact, Jackand Willie effectivelysuffer from the samecondition because both are distanced froný and anaesthetisedby, systemsof military-industrialregulation. Therefore,the Dylar comesto representthe self-replicatingcycle of Cold War military-industrialescalation, justification and containmentdegenerating the social projectas a whole. 79

Unableto identify Willie as a magnifiedprojection of his own condition,Jack carriesout the shootingand immediately gains a senseof self-righteousnessand pleasurefrom the deed:

I steppedback to survey the remains of the shatteringmoment, the sceneof squalid violence and lonely death at the shadowy fringes of society. This was my plan. Stepback, regard the squalor,make sure things were correctly placed. (WN. 313)

For a man gripped by an unbearablefear of deathhe seemsstrangely preoccupied with the thought of regarding the 'squalid violence' of his actions. However, his attempt to kill Willie, and contain his 'lonely death' at the 'fiinges of society' is thwarted becauseWillie mustersthe strength to pick up the gun and shoot Jack in the wrist. Immediately the 'smashing intensity' of the moment turns into confusion and disappointmentas Jack beginsto experiencefirst-hand the pain he has inflicted:

The world collapsedinward, all thosevivid textures and connectionsburied in mounds of ordinary stuff. I was disappointed.Hurt, stumed and disappointed.What had happenedto the higher plane of energy in which I'd carried on my scheme?The pain was searing.Blood coveredmy forearm, wrist and hand. I staggeredback, moaning, watching blood drip from the tips of my fingers. I was troubled [ ] The dimensions, and confused ... extra the superperceptions, were reducedto visual clutter, a whirling miscellany, meaningless.(WN. 313)

Jack'splan has not takeninto accountcontingency for retaliationby Willie, andthe visceralact of this unforeseenshooting obliterates the higherstate of consciousness andconnectivity that Jackbelieves he is experiencing.The momentarypsychosis compellinghim 'collaps[es]inward' in a figurativerepresentation of systems collapseand entropy. Furthermore, the 'vivid textures'and 'connections'that he sensesbecome consumed by 'ordinary stuT, andthe alleged'super perceptions' are reducedto meaninglessclutter becausethe extremechain of eventshe hasset into motionhave restored the basichuman instinct of compassion:'The old human muddlesand quirks wereset flowing again.Compassion, remorse, mercy' (WN-- 313).It takesan act of mindlessviolence for Jackto relateand empathise with anotherhuman being, and in doing so he canno longerrely uponmediated representationsof catastrophe,pain andsuffering to shapehis response.At this very moment,the mediatedor cinematicform of experiencethrough which Jackhas been ableto plan andexecute the shootingcomes to an end,and his first-handexperience of pain releaseshim from a misguidedself-obsession. This final act of containment 80 andrepression fails becausethe doubleshooting forces him to facethe trauniaand uncertaintyinherent within his socialsystem and subject-position; moreover he beginsto identify with the 'Other' embodiedin Willie Mink. The connectionsand perceptionsthat Jacksensed he wasa part of instantaneouslydisappear because, for this brief moment,the ruling narrativesof containmentand deterrence cannot accountfor the crushingreality he hasengendered. During this brief moment,the hiddensignificance, interconnections, and socio-historical experiences of the political unconsciousrise to the surfaceof Jack'srecognition in a transientreturn of the repressed.In this sense,the totalisinginfluence and perceived safety of containmentculture and identity rupturesto releasethe insecurity,immanence and visceralimpact of the event.The disorientationcaused by containmentidentity has enabledJack to carryout the shooting,but it couldnot suppressthe impactand corporalsignificance of the shooting. This is not to saythat Jackgains total enlightemnentafter the eventsof the shootinghave unfolded. Once he hasattended to his own wound,he dragsMink acrossthe floor andout into the streetwhere he attemptsto performmouth-to-mouth beforedriving him to a traumaroom run by local nuns.While in conversationwith SisterHermann Marie, Jackdisplays his naivetyconcerning religious beli4 not to mentionthe realitiesof humanpain andsuffering witnessed in the traumaroom on a daily basis.Furthermore, he cannotbring himselfto admitthat he wasresponsible for the shooting:'The original nun took me into a cubicleto work on my wound.I startedto giver her a versionof the shootingsbut sheshowed no interest.I told her it wasan old gun with feeblebullets' (WN. 316). AlthoughJack's fmal act of containmentis underminedby the crushingreality of the doubleshooting, Jack still cannotorient himself within a local communitybesieged by violenceand risk. Unableto contemplateand interpret the true natureof containmentas it maintains andcontributes to a systeminternal regulation, Jack remains confused, but also fascinated, by the cultural climateof which he is part. After the eventsof the shootinghave passed, he returnsto the banalroutine of his daily existencein the home,college and shopping mall. However,the collective safetyand enclosureof the local environmentis onceagain penetrated by a strange andintangible event. Jack's youngest son, Wilder leavesthe confmesof the house his with tricycle, takesit out onto the roadand peddles down the hill until he reaches highway the whereshocked motorists watch as the toddlerpeddles alongside them 81

Eventuallyhe loseshis balanceand falls down an embankmentin a'Multicolored tumble' (WN. 323).It turnsout that Wilder hasmanaged to crossthe expresswayand fall downthe embankmentinto a creekwithout harming himself whatsoever. After newsof this bizarreevent spreads, and Wilder is returnedto the apparentsafety of his parents'care, the family decideto visit the site of this miracle,a placewhere Jack sensesthat:

There is an anticipation in the air but it is not the expectanthum of a shirtsleevecrowd, a sandlot game,with coherentprecedents, a history of secureresponse. This waiting is introverted, uneven, ahnost backward and shy, tending toward silence. What else do we feel? Certainly there is awe, it is [ ] but don't know in dread (WN.- 324) all awe ... we whether we are watching wonder or

Prior to Wilder's tricycle feat,Jack could sense the comectivity of the systems encirclinghis existence,but couldnot contextualisethis hiddensignificance in relationwith a nationalinfrastructure of military-industrialdevelopment. Hence, this vaguenessled to harmfullevels of anxietyand confusion.Since Wilder's tricycle experience,this awarenessof networkedconnectivity has been replaced with feelings of 'awe', andJack makes no attemptsto searchfor hiddensignificance or order resultingfrom this freak event.Despite this, we arestill reniindedof the omnipresenceof Jack'stoxic exposurebecause he describesfeelings of anticipation 'in the air'. Ratherthan compare Wilder's feat with the 'coherentprecedents' and 'history of secureresponse' stemming from prescribedAmerican pastimes and normsof containment,Jack appears content to embracethe ambiguityand uncertaintyof postmodernsubjecthood. This changein subject-positionleads Jack to activelyavoid projected statistics and medical reports concerning his Nyodene exposure:Tr Chakravartywants to talk to me but I am makingit a point to stay away.He is eagerto seehow my deathis progressing.An interestingcase perhaps' (WN. 325).He now prefersto remainignorant of anypotential bodily degeneration andfeels content to live for the presentmoment, thus explainingthe final narrative shift from pastto presenttense. "ite Noise doesnot constitutea questfor self-enlightennientand autonomy throughthe recognitionof contaimnentand deterrence. This is becausethe characters renminunable to interpretand contextualise events and cultural data by the closeof the novel. Althougha changeof outlook hasbeen affected in Jack,it constitutes moreof an acceptanceof postmodemheterogeneity and flux asopposed to an 82 epiphany about self-identity and Cold War socio-cultural control. I am suggesting, then, that the novel showcasesthe impenetrability of self-regulating narratives of containment and opposition, and that rather than try to interpret and exposethese, the postmodemsubject would be better placed exploiting the lack of fixity resulting from this military-industrial environment. Once this acceptanceof uncertainty has been achieved,then subjectslike Jack may escapethe perpetualcycle of fear and containment dictating contemporaryexistence, and begin to perceive eventsbeyond the boundariesof self-regulating Cold War mediation. The American citizen remains separatedfrom the military-economic realities sustaining 'national life', and the presidential rhetoric of community enclosurecontinues unchallenged by significant serniotic interpretation. However, Jack's reducedreliance upon the official 'secure history of response' intimates the latent potential within postmodem subjectivity for a reconsiderationand acceptanceof those histories discardedas abject national waste. At the outset of this chapter I posed somequestions regarding the representationof Cold War containmentculture and identity in the novel.First, to what extentdoes the fictionalisationof culturalenclosure and containment identity in "ite Noise indicatethe waningof historicaleffect arguedby FredricJameson in ThePolitical Unconsciousand Postmodernism? Second, how doesthis bewildering conditionimpact upon the characters'ability to interpretcultural data and respond to internalrisk mechanisms?Finally, if containmentis an essentialfactor in the military-industrialcomplex shaping all socialand culturaloutput, then is this novel ableto counteractany subsequent loss of historicalgrounding? In answerto the first questionwe needonly to refer backto JackGladney's comfort in the secure boundariesof his local community,and the relief he garnersfrom his socialstatus as universitylecturer and respected citizen. The containmentidentity he hasembraced works to eradicateall fbýmsof ambiguityfrom the immediacyof the domestic sphere,and as suchthe Gladneyfamily feel certainthat catastropheonly strikesthose outsideof respectableborders, The waningof historicity is a crucial factor in Jack's characterisation,and asI haveargued, it explainshis lack of insight andperspective regardingNazi Germanyand the Holocaust.Although Jack is victim to the disorientationresulting from military-industrialrelations, he thriveson this separationfrom historicalculpability by acceptingthe dislocationsof a Cold War unconscious.My analysisof crisis-managementduring the 'airbornetoxic event' 83 relatesto this schizophrenicdisorientation because the charactersbecome subject to a form of postmodemde-realisation whereby the actualevent becomes a simulationfor contingencyplanning. In responseto nry secondquestion, then, the charactersare unableto respondto internalrisk appropriatelybecause they fail to recognisethe all- pervasivethreat of the rnilitary-industrialnetwork sustaining their domestic existence.Experienced as unknown torments on the peripheryof conscious interpretation,the containmentsubject in WhiteNoise cannot penetrate the hidden layersof significancecontained within informationnetworks and cultural data. It is only after Jackbecomes exposed to the toxic spillagethat the repressedanxieties of his containmentunconscious return to the surfaceas psychological meltdown. As I havenoted above, Jack's only releasefrom this cycle of containmentand Cold War anxietyoccurs at the closeof the narrativewhen he abandonsa 'securehistory of response'in favourof the uncertaintiesof postmodem,subjectivity. To answermy final question,although the novelhighlights the waningof historicityapparent in a military-industrialcontainment society, it is ableto counteractthis deteriorationby reflectingand satirising the fragmentsthat constitute pastevents. Historical resonance binds together this fictionalisationof containment cultureand risk, andthe similaritiesI havemade between the 'airbornetoxic event', ThreeMile Islandand FEMA's nuclearcontingency planning serve to demonstrate thk Ratherthan being a compliantreceptacle for the disorientingand fragmentary culturalconditions derived from the military-industrialcomplex, the noveluses these conditionsto promptisolated reconsiderations of Cold War history.These reconsiderationsreject totalising official accountsof nationalunity andpride in favour of alternativenarratives that constitutean analysisof the Cold War unconscious. DeLillo's treatmentof Cold War containmentculture and identity in nite Noiseprovides a framethrough which to revisitand critically reassess fragments of therecent past. These fragments are merged into the narrative in sucha waythat the resonanceof thereal event permeates throughout the text. Therefore, the novel both fictionalisesand resists the weakening of historicalmemory without being party to its degenerativeeffects. Although satirical in its treatmentof ColdWar risk culture andidentity construction, DeLillo's novel is groundedin therealities of the containmentsociety of the 1980s,and as such it attemptsto complementand reinforcethose aspects of historydiminished by containmentrepresentation. By 84 fictionalisingthe schizophrenicconfusions and symbolic fragmentation caused by the conditionsof the political unconscious,DeLillo is ableto initiate a hermeneutic that focuseson the 'unmaskingof culturalartefacts as socially symbolic actS,. 59Even thoughhis narrativeof containmentculture and identity conveyshistorical disorientation,it alsoconstitutes a successfulmethod for decipheringthe hidden significancethat 'reassert[s]the specificityof the political contentof everydaylife individual [ ] 60Therefore, DeLillo is fictionalise, andof ... experience. ableto and replicatethe unconsciousframework depriving the subjectof historicalresonance, while simultaneouslyengaging in a critical commentaryabout its effects.DeLillo's novelswork to conveythe concealedsymbolic messages contained within cultural material.Therefore, in orderto demonstratethis unifying themefiirther, I will return to this considerationof the Cold War historicalunconscious in my analysisof Underworldin ChapterFour. In contrastwith DeLillo's realistconsideration and commentary on Cold War military-industrialrelations are William S. Burroughs'vivid narrativecounter- historiesof military-scientificascendancy and nuclear/biological warfare. Instead of reinforcingthe historicalrecord via realistfiction, Burroughsconstructs mythical narrativezones in orderto oppose,and ultimately escape, the restraintsof Cold War binaryopposition and nuclear deterrence. The following chapterwill analysethe developmentof Burroughs'Cold War counter-historicalroutines, from the dystopian scientificviral controlsystems of the 'Nova' trilogy (1962-1967)to the nuclear mythologyof the first novel in the 'Red Night' trilogy, Citiesof theRedNight (1981). By analysingthe variousforms of linguistic resistanceand historical possibilitycontained within thesetexts I will demonstrateBurroughs' radical revisionistapproach to narrativecounter-history.

59 Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 20. 60Ibid., 22. 85

Chapter Two: William S. Burroughs' Biotechnological

Mythology: Narratives of Cold War Resistance from the Nova Trilogy to Cities of the Red Night

All of my work is directedagainst those who arc bent, through stupidity or design,on blowing up the planet or renderingit uninhabitable.1

We thought we could survive becauseof our intelligenceand technology.That's probablywhat we're going to be destroyedby. 2

The above extracts,taken from interviews with William S. Burroughs in 1964and 1981, highlight the continuation of nuclear arms developmentand military technological researchas constantconcerns throughout the Burroughs writing project. During this period, his body of fiction and personalphilosophy anticipatedthe emergenceof political analysisduring the 1980sby describingUS and Soviet Cold War hostilities as aspectsof an antagonistic'game planet', dedicatedto the impasseof total weapons advancement:

This is a gameplanet. All gamesarc hostile and basically thcrc is only one game,and that gameis war [ I One ... of the rules of this gameis that there cannotbe final victory since that would meanthe end of the war ga= Every player must believe in final victory and cndeavourto attain final victory with all his resources.In consequenceall eNistingtechnologies arc directedtowards producing total weaponsthat could end the gameby killing all players.3

Burroughsdescribes this securitydeadlock as a mutuallybeneficial system for the superpowersbecause the creationof virtual enmity strengthensthe presidingnetworks of nationaland global control. In this sense,the binaryoppositions of Eastand West can be viewedas complementary aspects of the 'machinery'of control,meaning that final victory andthe cessationof globalopposition is madeuntenable as all powersadhere to an overridingsystem of rulesand internal regulations. This virtual war gamemodel

1 William S. Burroughs" 1964 interview with ConradKnickcrbockcr, 'White Junk, in Burroughs Live: 7he CollectedInterviews of William & Burroughs, 1960-97,cd. Sylv&C Lotringcr, (New York: Semiotext(e), 2001), 81. 2 Burroughs' 1981interview with Sylv6rc Lotringer, 'Exterminating" in ibid., 529. 3 William S. Burroughs,Yhe A dding.&Iachine: Selected Essap, (New York: ArcadePublishing, 1986), 155. 86 reflects and critiques the nuclear parity achievedby the Soviet Union and United States sincethe Kennedy Administration, as the military doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction 'MAD', stemmedfrom the approval of permanentnuclear threat as effective Cold War strategy.Throughout this chapterI shall demonstratehow Burroughs' fiction harnessesthe senseof national vulnerability causedby this nuclearescalation. He createsa fictional war gameuniverse that imitates and exaggeratesthe nuclearparanoia augmentingglobal control. As the abovestatement underlines, total power and supremacybecome unattainable goals for all players becauseopposition and conflict are required to justify the existenceof the control machine.Global antagonismsexist as aspectsof this framework, and may be reconfiguredto reinforce mutually beneficial 'surface' conflicts:

Political conflicts arc merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arisc you may be sure that certain Powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the ClotIL4

In this sense,control needs both resistanceand acquiescence otherwise it ceasesto be control;hence the 'the surfacepolitical conflict' enactsa perpetualpower struggle. If the machinesucceeds in its missionof total subordination,then its regulatoryrationale is negatedsimply because there is 'nothingleft to control'. By the early to mid- I 980s cultural and political criticism akin to Burroughs' assessmentof globalpower was beginning to emergein responseto the aggressive rhetoricand military-industrial system revived by the Reaganadministration. In particular,Paul Virilio's analysisof the 'war of deterrence'shares distinct similarities to Burroughs'thoughts on controlmachinery because he considersthe declineof 'hot' war, or total combat,in favourof a systemof perpetualopposition intended to propagatethe global'machinery' of tacticalwarfare:

4 Burroughs' 1961interview with Gregory Corso & Allen Ginsberg,'The Time Birth-Death Girrunick' in Wringer, Burroughs Live, 42. 87

The decline of war into the art of deterrence, the art of deterrence prohibiting political war, favors the upsurge, not of conflicts, but of 'acts of war without war'. It's the cndeniicism of the acts which is now corrupting the entire world. -5

The links betweenBurroughs' hostile war gameplanet, basedon the rule that 'there cannotbe final victory', and Virilio's 'pure' war of deterrenceare clear: both outline the universal endeavourto enhancetechnologies and produce total nuclearweapons systems to reinforce a stateof unendingescalation. Moreover, both novelist and cultural critic considerthe vital link betweenglobal power networks,technological advancement and the spreadof communicationssystems able to replicate and convey Western homogeneity.

Burroughs actively highlights and opposesthis systemas a form of global 'virulence'. becausehe seesit as the definitive vehicle for behaviouralcontrol. As far as he is concerned,these communication networks enhancethe war gameby promoting virtual antipathy, whilst conditioning the populaceto absorband acceptthe imagesand messagescirculating throughout the global network. Therefore,he proposesa comprehensIveprogramme of textual resistanceto combatthis network domination. As he told GrahamMasterton and Andrew Rosgabi in 1972: 'there is always psychological influence, there's nothing new about that. All governments,all religions haveused it through history [ ] now the means [ ] have ... of control are much more efficient ... we populationsexposed to exactly the sameimages and words, millions of peopleevery day'.6 The developmentof Cold War technologiesmay have increasedthe capability of global communication,but at the price of amplified surveillanceand social control restrainingpersonal and collective agencyto varying degrees.These media-fuelled networks supporta programmeof control by imposing a technological structureof information and image exchangedevoid of critical depth. For Burroughs, media technologiesand global networks enforcethe spreadof the 'virus power' by employing the word as the principal instrument of control; thus the continuing onslaughtof disseminates globalisation viral contagionto a captive world audience:

5 Paul Virilio, Pure War, ed. Sylv6reLotringer, (New York: Semiotext(e),1983), 27. 6 Burroughs' 1972interview with GrahamMasterton and Andrew Rosgabiin Conversationswith William S Burroqghsý Men 11ibbard, ed. (Jackson,Miss: University Pressof Nfississippi, 1999),40. 88

My theory [ ] has beenthat the is literally that it has been as general ... word a virus, and not recognized becauseit has humanhost [ I But such achieveda stateof relatively stablesymbiosis with the ... words are still the principal instrumentsof control. Suggestionsarc words. Persuasionsarc words. Ordersare words. No control machineso far devisedcan operatewithout words, and any control machinewhich attemptsto do so relF ng entirely on externalforce or physical control of the mind will soonencounter the limits of control.

This vision of viral communicationsis more thanjust a figurative illustration of social control, rather it is consideredto be a literal parasitewith the power to dictate human perception.Burroughs seesa symbiotic relationship existing betweenchannels of communicationand the overriding control systembecause both are reliant upon one anotherfor validation and strength.I-fis fictional and political resistancestems from this growing concernabout linguistic and visual manipulation,but he also recognisestotal communicationscontrol as symptomaticof the escalationof technologicaldevelopments during the Cold War. Technologicaland scientific innovationstake on a sinister aspect becauseof the measurestaken to concealinformation from public view. Furthermore, Burroughs highlights the correlation betweenresearch findings and the enhancementof the war game:

Vestedinterests, whether operating through private, capital or official agencies,suppresses any discovery, product or way of thought that threatensits areaof monopoly. 711cCold War is usedas a pretext by both America and Russiato concealand monopolizeresearch by confining knowledgeto official agencies. Paranoiais having all the facts. 8

Similarly, Virilio views deterrenceas a 'war operating in the sciences'.These technologicaland scientific discoveries become 'perversions of knowledge'because they align all areasof research'in a perspectiveof the end', in other words, all efforts are devotedto the enhancementof the nuclear age: 'War today is either nuclear war or nothing we have passedinto a dimension other than that of real war, a dimension comparableto what I've called a great delinquency. 9 This 'delinquency' is a trans- political systemof virtual conflict designedto petfect the technological precision of pure

7 Burroughs,77ze Adding Machine, 47. 8 Burroughs 1981intcr%icw with Edmund White, The Inner Burroughs' in Lotringer, BurroughsLive, 476. 9 Virilio, Pure War, 26. 89 war and perpetuatea military economy,while instigating behaviouralcontrol through social degeneration. Thesetheoretical comparisonsoutline someimportant questionsabout the relationshipbetween Burroughs' fiction, nuclear discourseand political theory during the latter portion of the Cold War. By analysingBurroughs' 'Nova' Trilogy, consisting of Me Soft Machine (1961), 7he Ticket 7Mt Exploded (1962), andNova Express (1964), and the first novel of his 'Red Night' Trilogy, Cities ofthe RedNight (1981), this analysisaims to show how the creation of a 'war game' universe,and the evolution of a bio-technologicalmythology constitute a fictional map of the military-technological age.During the early 1980s,cultural criticism, including that of Virilio and Jean Baudrillard, conveyeda similar vision of Cold War gametactics, technologicalthreat and virtual opposition to delineatestrategic nuclear deterrencewith the growing deteriorationof the real. As Baudrillard has statedin Fatal Strategies:

At the point of the overcomingof destructiveforces the war sceneis over. 71bereis no longcr any useful correlationbetween the potential for annihilation and its objective, so it becomessenseless to employ it [ I We thereforehope for this race as the price we ... should the continuationof nuclearescalation and arms pay for pure war-,that is, for the pure and empty form-the hypcrrcal and eternallydeterring form of war, 10 where for the first time we can congratulateourselves on the absenceof the event.

As far asBaudrillard is concerned,we may haveavoided total nucleardestruction by adheringto the gamerules of perpetualwar; howeverwe paythe pricein termsof endlessnuclear advancement and social de-realisation. The potentialfor total annihilation,and in correlation,the potentialfor societaldevelopment are deferred in favourof a systemof absencesdesigned to minimiseactual conflict. On the contrary, Burroughs'conception of potentialityand possibility works to createthe oppositionand societaldevelopment otherwise stultified by this system.This fictional interpretationof internationalgame conflict servesas an influentialreaction to the dominantglobal techno-structure,and a discursivebasis for political analysisduring the early 1980s. Closeconsideration of theselinks will explainwhy Burroughs'fiction hasprovided a persuasiveargument about the disintegrationof historicalreflection, and the foundation

10 JeanBaudrillard, Fatal Strategies,ed. Jim Fleming, Trans. Philip Beitchmanand W. G.J. Niesluchowski,first published 1983,(London: Pluto Press,1999), 14-15. 90 for new ways of thinking about global relations. However, what differentiates Burroughs' view from those of Virilio and Baudrillard is his ability to envisagea means of resistanceand escapefrom thesetechnological perversionsthrough fiction. Nightmare visions of nuclear and viral collapseare purposefullyjuxtaposed with utopian possibilities to show the readera meansof fictional escapefrom global degeneration: 'I'm creating an imaginary-it's always imaginary-world in which I would like to " live'. For Burroughsthe act of creating possibleworlds through fiction becomesmore than just a trip into the imaginary, it is a meansof openinga gatewayto alternative spatial and temporal dimensions.Therefore, it is thesepotentials and Burroughs' ability think beyond the constraintsof critical theory that will require further examinationin this study. But before we can considerthe developmentof Burroughs' influential mythology betweenthe 1960sand 1980s,a time marked by heightenedrhetorical aggressiontoward communist divergence,and civil concernabout escalatingCold War tensionsgenerally, it is important to relate his control philosophy and technological defianceto methodsof linguistic resistance.

Cut-Ups: Viral Pandemics and Textual Resistance

As I havesuggested, Burroughs' fictional projectsand personal beliefs combine to revealdistinct social and cultural concerns about the typesof technologiesproduced without prior publicknowledge, and their potentialapplication within afegulatedsystem of subordinationand control. These concerns manifest themselves within BurroughO novelsas dystopian realms, signified by the perpetualthreat of total destructionand the lossof personalfreedoms, including the ability to shapeand direct subjective experience.The humanbody is underconstant attack from massepidemics that transmit the 'virus powei"via channelsof communication.In the 'Nova' novelsof the 1960S particularly,submission is spreadvia the 'word virus' which hasthe powerto infect and enslavethe globalpopulation to suchan extentthat the simplespeech act becomesa meansfor conveyingand perpetuating control. The effectsalso manifest themselves physicallyas infectedhuman subjects degenerate to suchan extentthat they become

11 Burroughs' 1964interview with Conmd Knickerbocker, 'White Junk' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 8 1. 91 hollow control receptaclesstripped of the ability to attain physical and verbal autonomy, as Burroughs' noted in 1964:

The virus power manifestsitself in many ways. In the constructionof nuclearweapons, in practically all the existing political systemswhich arc aimed at curtailing inner freedom,that is, at control. It manifests itself in the extremedrabness of everydaylife in Westerncountries. It manifestsitself in the uglinessand vulgarity we seeon every hand and of courseit manifestsitself in actualvirus illnesses.12

The physical collapsecaused by viral contagionprovides an outward sign of the damagecaused by verbal domination, but for Burroughs the word virus hasthe power to affect biologic changesin the human subject.Therefore, nuclear/biologicallegory and scientific theory mergeto demonstratesocial and bodily decay.These dystopian imaginings and viral epidemics,central to the progressionof the Nova trilogy, are also a direct result of growing concernsabout the developmentand application of nuclear weaponsand other military researchwithin this presiding control machinery.The potential horror of the nuclear disasteris transfigured onto the viral deteriorationof the human body. This is madeeven more shockingby the lack of actual protection available to the subject.Burroughs" notion of bodily collapsereflects the paradoxof an American political systemprepared to jeopardise human safety, and compromisethe principles of democracyin the nameof strategicweapons development. The conflicting rationale behind Cold War technology is revealedthrough Burroughs' feveredvisions of bodily disintegration,both the human form and the body politic, at a time when the arms race seemedto take precedenceover honestyin domestic and foreign affairs. The utopian notion of national and personalliberty takes on a merely symbolic significance,and accordingto Burroughs' thinking, is usedto shield a commitmentto intensifying the war game.The borderlessspread of viral authoritarianismencourages nuclear strategyby feeding off the behavioural conditioning it instigates.Hence, the mythological structure of the Nova novels consistsof a binary, or Manichaean,opposition basedupon subjugationand the battle for psychologicalfreedom:

12 QUOtCdin EriC MottraM, William S Burroughs: 7he,41gebra ofNeei4 (London: Marion Boyars, 1977), 98. 92

Heavenand hclI exist in my mythology. Hcll consistsof falling into enemyhands, into the handsof the virus power, and heavenconsists of freeing oneselffrom this power, of achieving inner freedom,freedom from conditioning. 13

As the abovestatement shows, Burroughs' fictional mythology exploresthe consequencesof being subjectto self-perpetuatingsystems of viral control. However, he also suggeststhat the meansfor initiating a counterattackupon semiotic conditioning exists in a stylistic antidote for both written and spokenstrains of the word virus. The word virus concept providesthe thematic basis for the Nova mythology by anticipating the battle againstpsychological and physical compliancecentral to the expansionof Burroughs' fractured dystopiannarratives. His early novels and essays provide a manifestofor rebellion againstcontrol by demonstratingthe technical means of resistanceavailable to the writer. By subvertingthe conventionsof form and style, Burroughs believesthat the writer hasthe ability to stagean attack on the supremacyof the word virus and the de-realisationof subjectiveexperience:

Now if writers could get togetherinto a real tight union, we'd have the world right by the words. We could write our own universes,and they would all be as real as a coffee bar or a pair of Levis or a prom in the JazzAge [ I So they be find it happen.14 ... must not allowed to out that they can make

Not only doesBurroughs suggestthat writers createtheir own alternativeuniverses and reclaim reality, but that they subvertthe power of the word to codify and subjugate,by using 'cut-up' and 'fold-in' compositional techniquesto defuselanguage of its viral potentials.These stylistic forms of resistanceare used extensivelythroughout the Nova trilogy, but they cameto fi-uition prior to the publication of thesenovels. Cut-upswere used in two texts publishedin 1960,Exterminator! andMinutes to Go, the latter being an instructive guide to the method and its revolutionary promise which Burroughs collaboratedon with artist Brion Gyson, and poets Gregory Corso and Sinclair Beiles. Previously, Gysin had statedthat the experimentalmethods available to the writer were limited, and at least fifty yearsbehind the montagetechniques accessible to the artist; thus the cut-up provided a new literary form influenced by other artistic mediums. Authorial power of all kinds is diminished becausethe cut-up weakensstructural control 13 Burroughs'1964 intcrview with Eric Mottram, 'The Algcbra of Need'in Lotringcr,Burroughs Live, 58. 14Burroughs, YheAddingMachine, 180. 93 by imposing arbitrary design.For example,a page of text may be cut into horizontal or vertical sections,or folded over, and then rearrangedaccordingly; thereforethe original intentions of the author becomemerged with the randomword-play imposedby the procedure.This may be taken a stagefurther by introducing fragmentsfrom existing writing into the structureof the developingtext:

Method is simple: Take a pageor more or lessof your own writing or from any writer living or dead.Any written or spokenwords. Cut into sectionswith scissorsor switch blade as preferredand rearrangethe Looking Now [ I Applications literally sections. away. write out result ... of cut up methodare unlin-dted cut out from time limits. Old word lines keep you in old world slots. Cut your way out. 15

As Gysin notesthe method provides a way to free the writer from the temporal limitations of languageby 'cutting out' an escaperoute into new textual dimensions, According to Burroughs' accountsof this period, the cut-up evolved by chancewhen Gysin was preparing mounts for his artwork becausethe Stanleyknife he was using to cut out the jpQuntsalso sliced through the protective newspaperbeneath. On examination,Gysin could seealternative syntacticalstructures and meaningswithin thesefragments, which eventually led him to believe the method could be employedto demonstrateconcealed images embedded within the text:

I saw the possibility of permutations,particularly of images,which is the areain which it hasworked best time [ I that over a period of ... any extremely visual text will cut up and give you new combinations arc quite valid new images.In other words, you are drawing a whole seriesof imagesout of this pageof text [ I We began to find lot began ... out a whole of things about the real nature of words and writing when we to Cut them Up.1 6

Gysin statedthat he had thought of this experimentwith visual and spokenword structureas a 'rather superior amusement',and was surprisedwhen Burroughs' identified its import as 'a project for disastroussuccess'. 17 Later on, Burroughsand Gysin claimed that the techniquehad been influenced by the writing of essayistand poet Tristan Tzara, and Cubist and Dadaist experimentationwith collage: 'At the surrealist rally in the 1920s,Tristan Tzara the man ftom nowhereproposed to createa poem on the

15 Quotedin TonyTanner, 'Rub out the Word' in WilliamS Burroughsat theFront. - Critical Reception 1959-89,eds. Jennie SkcrI & RobinLydenberg, (Urbana: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), 108. 16Ibid., 36. 17Ibid., 37. 94

18 spot by pulling words out of a hat. A riot ensuedwrecked the theatre'. As Gysin's statementshows, Tzara's early manifestationof the cut-up highlighted the performative qualities of the method, and it unlocked the confrontationalnature of word-play. Burroughs would take this subversiveelement and build a fictional universeof conflict and struggle around it in the Nova trilogy. He would also recogniseother prospective usesfor the cut-up, including its potential as a textual portal into new spatial and temporal dimensions.This application is madeclear in Me 7hirdMind, a seriesof essaysagain written in collaboration with Brion Gysin. The pair worked on theseduring the mid-1960s;however they remainedunpublished until 1976.Here Burroughs describeshimself as a 'map maker' and 'explorer of psychic areas'because his writing builds new fictional zonesand psychic conditions designedto transgressthe boundaries enforcedby tangible conceptsof spaceand time. 19The cut-up aids this liberation by creating a hole through prescribeddiscourses into uncharteredterritories, 'zones' created and explored within Burroughs' novels. This takes us back to Gysin's comment about the power of the cut-up to eradicate'time limits' and 'old world slots' becausethe writer is literally able 'cut out' a counter-narrativeto opposeand challengethese limitations. At this stagethe characteristicsof the cut-up are employedin accordancewith Burroughs'quest to subvertthe languageof control,but the experimenttakes on a furthersignificance by initiating newtextual terrain which becomesthe basisfor literary emancipationand simultaneous social criticism. The Nova trilogy displaysa persistent commitmentto this mission,and connects the cut-upwith a programmeof confrontation andrevelation designed to exposethe communicativechannels responsible for transmittingCold War powerrelations. Burroughs saw the developmentof theNova mythologyas a 'warningagainst either-or conflict, againstthe Cold War, against ecologicaldistortion, a propheticwarning sounded early'. 20 By cuttingup the work of writers 'living anddead', official rhetoric,contemporary journalism and his own writing, he not only intendedto createan 'anti-message'to counterthe discourses behindCold War opposition,but alsoto revealthe multiplicity of messagesto be located

111William S. Burroughs, 'Fold Ins" in William S. Burroughs& Brion Gysin, Ae 7hirdAfind, (London: John Calder, 1979),5. 19Ibid., 95. 20Quoted in Barry Mlcs, William Burroughs., El Hombre Invisible, (London: Virgin, 1992), 147. 95 within all written discourse.The samerhetoric usedto codify society is reconfiguredby the cut-up so that the breakswithin our ideological systembecome apparent, and new reversediscourses may emergefrom within the original text. The following passage from Nova Express demonstratesthis counter-narrativedevice at work as sanctioned Cold War discourseand journalism are mergedwithin the narrative project:

Police juice and the law arc no cure for widespread public petting in chow lines the Soviet Union said yesterday-Anti-American promptly denounced Kennedy's moribund position of insistence: "Washington know-how to deal with this sort of demonstration in Venezuela of irresponsible propaganda--Outside Caracas I am deeply distressed at the Soviet Union's attempt to drag us back just 21 when we was stoned in the twenty billion dollar violation of administration's solemn word" .

Merging news bulletins concerningboth sidesof the Cold War impasse,fragments of presidentialrhetoric on this conflict and Burroughs artistic intedection, the cut-up provides a sort of 'deconditioning' that enablesthe readerto considertheir subject position outside of the machinery of control. Burroughs' 'war universe' is a 'verbal universe', therefore alternative methodsof communication,combined with a counter- attack on the word provide the best meansfor liberation: 'the more preciseyour manipulation or use of words is, the more you know what you are actually dealing with, 22 with what the word actually is. And by knowing it you can supersedeit, ). For Burroughs,then, this deconditioning meansremoving all enforcedresponses to the agentsof control:

Deconditioningmeans the dcriving:from [ I removalof all automaticreactions pastconditioning ... all automaticreactions to Queen,Country, Pope, President, Gcneralismo, AIW Christ,Fidd Castro,the Communist Party,the CIA Whenautomatic reactions are no longeroperative you arein a condition to makeup your mind23

Burroughsprovides the textualmeans for this rejectionof statepower and image worship,but he stressesthat it is up to the readerto liberatehis or herselffrom the overridingmachinery. Such partisan resistance is alsoreiterated in 7heJob and ElectronicRevolution (1970), which takethe form of interviewsinterspersed with

21William 'Nova S. Buffoughs, Express,(New York: Grove Press,1964), 90, hereaftercited as ATK 22Burroughs' 1964interview with Eric Mottram.in Conversafionswith William S Burroughs, ed. Allen lEbbard, (JacksonMiss: University Pressof Mississippi, 1999), 14. 23Quoted in Miles, El Hombre Inwsible, 181. 96 articles and fictional routines basedaround the exposureand annihilation of absolute needand imposedconformity. Before we can look in more detail at the developmentof the cut-up as a programmeof deconditioning in thesetexts, an analysisof the Nova mythology is required to align the potentialsof Burroughs' technical resistancewith the production of fictional worlds basedaround these methods of counterattack.

The Nova Conspiracv

The developmentof this revolutionary programmecan be traced back to the construction of a 'pre-recorded' universein the Nova trilogy whereby the future of the humanrace has alreadybeen decided, and all eventstaking place on this 'copy planet' move toward an inevitable nuclear disaster.The individual caught within this predeterminedsystem of eventsbelieves that his or her subject position is autonomous,however the controlling forces behind thesereality recordings,or scripts, manageand direct the distribution of implanted inter-SUbjectivities.As with Burroughs' earlier novel, NakedLunch (1959), the unity of character,narrative voice, time andspace is throwninto disarraybecause externalrepresentation is acceptedat facevalue. Therefore, characters remain ensconced within the systemsof significationprescribed by the oppressive'Reality Studio":

board had Boardbooks scattered to rubbishheaps of the earth- symbolbooks of the all-powerful that controlledthought feeling and movement of a planetfrom birth to deathwith iron clawsof painand pleasure-Me wholestructure of realitywent up in silentexplosions - papermoon and muslin trees and in theblack silver sky great rents as the coverof the world raineddown - Biologicfilm wentUp24

This sceneis describedin termsof an artificial film set,where subjective reality has beenreplaced with one-dimensionalprops like 'muslin trees,and a 'papermoon'. Furthermore,an all powerful 'board' directsthe thoughtsof planet'sinhabitants by scattering'board'/bored books across the earth,the linguistic or symbolicreceptacles of the controlsystem. Hence, the reality studiohas the representationalpower to take controlof the planet'sdevelopment from inceptionto demise.One of Burroughs'central concernsin the Nova booksis the methodsof resistanceused against the Reality

24William S. Buffoughs, TheSoft Machine, (London: Flamingo, 1968), 114.Hereafter cited as SAf 97

Studio's 'biologic film', the bodily tape recording that dictatesall events,human actions and experiences.In order for the individual to attain liberation from prescribedpatterns of existence,the production techniquesused by the Reality Studio must be subvertedby reconfiguring word and image combinations,or by destroyingthe film copies completely. The Reality Studio replicatesand distributes the word virus through mass media technologiesconveying the signifiers of control:

What does virus do whereverit can dissolvea hole and find traction?-It makesexact copiesof itself that start eating to makemore copiesthat start eating to make more copiesthat start eatingand so forth to the virus power the fear batevirus slowly replacesthe host with virus copies-Program emptybody-A vast tapewormof bring down word and image moving throughyour mind screen(AE. - 73)

The virus power is at work here, expandingand disseminatingthrough processesof biologic and verbal replication that overwhelm the human host and dictate experience. The 'fear hate virus" infects the body via a 'tapeworm' programmedto take over word and image associationsin the mind. Hence, a connectionis forged betweenthe technologicalcapability of the tape recording and the biologic successof the parasitic organism.The ethosbehind the cut-up strategyobviously provides the structuralbasis of thesenovels, and supportsBurroughs' attemptsto de-contaminatethe written text from the degenerativeword virus. However, plot structureand thematic fruition also stem from the defianceand subversioningrained within the expandingcut-up mission. A kind of carnivalesqueanarchy is presentin Burroughs' feveredvision of the biological cut- up. This constitutesa grotesquefusion of bodies and technological systemsworking to underminecontrol with nightmare narrative imaginings. Theseanarchic renderings are designedto mock and parody the control apparatuswith the performative powers of exaggerationand embellishment,the arsenalof a carnival counter-aesthetic.In this sense,Burroughs' assaulton the Reality Studio manifestsin terms of the aforementioned textual subversion;but also through this extremeand unnerving satire of social control. The three novels, 7he Soft Machine, Ae Ticket Mat Fxploded andNova Erpress, are part of an extendedfictional universe, and may be viewed as a continuous piece of writing rather than three separatebooks. Many of the themes,plot strands,and evenword for word fragmentsof text are repeatedand expandedfrom one book to the next; suggestingthat Burroughs' fiction reflects the processesof evolution and 98 adaptationapparent in living organisms.The central plot strandrunning through these fragmentedfictional zonestakes the form of an interplanetaryinvasion, led by the 'Venutians'. As with NakedLunch, Burroughs is trading on Cold War containment anxietiesover national borders and identity constructionsby transfiguring American paranoiaabout communist othernessinto this literal alien invasion. The Venutiansmake up just one aspectof the notorious 'Nova Mob', a group of rogue criminals intent on blowing up the planet by creating 'as many insoluble conflicts as possibleand always aggravat[ing] existing conflicts' (TR 43). This is achievedby 'dumping on the same planet life forms with incompatible conditions of existence' (TE. 43) as a meansto cause (nova', or nuclearwar, through a systemof feedback:

At any given time recordersfix the nature of absoluteneed and dictatethe use of total weapons- Like this: Take two opposedpressure groups - Recordthe most violent and threateningstatements of group one with regardto group two and play back to group two - Recordthe answerand take it back to group one - back forth between Manipulated and opposedpressure groups - This processis known as "feedback" on a global scalefeeds back nuclearwar (TE.- 43)

Taking the form of an audio assaultupon opposition groups,these feedback recordings have becomea formidable meansfor instigating social degeneration.While writing the Nova trilogy Burroughs becameinterested in the subversivecapabilities of tape recording, and so he beganto use feedbackprocesses to incite a kind of revolutionary assaultupon social controls. Basedon the paper cut-up method alreadypromoted by Burroughs and Gysin, thesespliced tape experimentsbegan to featurein the narratives as methodsof group sabotage.In the Nova novels, both the control apparatusand those in opposition use thesemethods of playback to destroythe equilibrium of the other. This interplanetaryvandalism is seenas an extensionof Cold War theatricsbetween the US and Russia,because the Nova Mob is preparedto push through the safeguardsof nuclear stalematein an act of total destruction.The hollow nature of this particular binary opposition is revealedby the Nova Mob's plans becauseit takes an external malignant force to initiate an actual nuclear threat. As previously discussed,Burroughs' conception of a 'game planet' infers that the Cold War is a strategically engineeredconflict, prolongedto strengthenthe overriding control machinerythat encapsulatesboth Soviet and American power, as proposedin an interview in 1964: 99

The Nova Mob is using that conflict in an attemptto blow up the planet,because when you get right down to it what are America and Russiareally arguing about?The SovietUnion and United Stateswill 25 eventuallyconsist of interchangeablesocial pans and neither nation is morally 'right'.

The trilogy fusesits fictional mythology with fragmentsof foreign policy and military strategyas a meansto reflect and satirisethe mutually beneficial regulatory practices required to maintain a hyperrealbinary conflict. Burroughs' hypothesisabout the viral nature of power and control is extended throughoutthe mythology, becausethe Nova criminals are parasitic organismsthat spreadtheir specialbrand of disruption and conflict by invading the humanhost. These viral organismsfind a suitablehuman subject,or 'co-ordinate point', to assimilate,thus allowing Nova activities to go unnoticed.In fact, one of the central objectivesof the Nova conspiracyis to infect the entire population with this biologically engineeredvirus to causemolecular changesthat transform the human host into a Nova replica, as stated in the 'Technical Deposition of the Virus Power' in Nova Erpress:

Our virus infects the humanhost and createsour image in him. "We first took our image and Put it into code.A technicalcode developed by the information theorists.This codewas written at the molecular level to savespace, when it was found that the image material was not deadmatter, but exhibitedthe same life cycle as the virus. This virus releasedupon the world would infect the entire populationand turn them into our replicas" (NE. 48)

The 'technical code' devisedby the information theoriststo aid in the endlessreplication of the virus is reminiscentof the DNA coding able to map our geneticmake-up, but it also conveysthe linguistic mechanismscoding the body into a systemof subjectivity. Moreover, this invasion of the human host by 'foreign' bodies, and the emphasisplaced upon mutation at a molecular level appearsto amplify and reflect the nuclearparanoia central to American consciousness.The atmosphericnuclear test seriescarried out between 1946 and 1963 at various sites including the NevadaDesert and the Pacific Oceanand the continuing fears about radiation spreadingover populatedareas manifest within Burroughs' alternativeuniverse as a viral contagion effecting unwantedchanges

25 Burroughs' interview with ConradKnickerbockcr, 'Wldtc Junk' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 80. 100 within the human condition.26 Burroughs identifies the core of the infectious Nova mob as: "Sammy The Butcher", "Green Tony", "Iron Clawe', "The Brown Artisf', "Jacky Blue Not6", Limestone John", Izzy The Puslf', "Hamburger Mary", "Paddy The Sting7, "The Subliminal Kid", "The Blue Dinosaur, and "Mr. & Mrs. D", also known as "Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin also known as "The Ugly Spirit" thought to be the leaderof the mob-The Nova Mob" (NE: 54); therefore imbuing theseviral organismswith identifiable charactertraits. The most elaborateexample of this occursin Yhe Ticket 7hat Explo&4 when Inspector Lee considersthe developmentof a virus named'Genial 23':

Ile illuminates image.. "Gcnial'sr image in Well there it is soundtrack the this case.. almosttactile .. .. biologists talk life in test tube they is few tape "Genial 23" at your about creating a .. all need a recorders: The is the it has hearshim he is not servicesir.. a virus of course.. soundtrack only existence no one there exceptas a potential like the spheresand crystalsthat show up under an clCctronmicroscope: Cold Sorc Rabies Yello Fever St Louis Encephalitis just they find .. .. spheresand crystalsuntil another host. (TE. 15) .. ..

Createdfrom spliced tape recordings,like those undertakenby Burroughs at the time of publication, Genial 23 is an engineeredvirus with human charactertraits, but 'he' is also describedas the ultimate biologic weaponused by unknown powers for unknown ends. This viral character'sname indicates Burroughs' growing preoccupationwith the unquantifiable forces operating beyond total scientific manipulation and control. During the 1960s, Burroughs became interested in the mathematical and mystical properties of the number twenty-three. He began to collect evidence detailing strange synchronicities

relating to this prime number. Burroughs told novelist and futurist Robert Anton Wilson

about his findings, and subsequently Wilson would write about the properties of the '23 27 Enigma', or'Discordianism' in great detail. Although the 23 Enigma can be attributed to selectionand confirmation bias, Burroughs becamefixated on the numeric coincidencesto be found in scienceand the occult. For example,human deoxyribonucleicacid (DNA) is organisedinto forty-six chromosomes,the human foetus gets twenty-three of thesefrom its mother and twenty-three from its father. Males 26 See,Radiochemistry Society: US Nuclear Tests Gallery, accessedvia httt)://www. radiochcruiýlry.org&istoalnukc tests/indcx.shtml. 27 For further information on the 23 Enigma-see,Robert Anton Wilson, ComnicTrigger: Final Secretof the Illuminati, (Reno:New Falcon Publications, 1977),269pp. 101 and femalesshare twenty-two pairs of identical chromosomes,but the twenty-third is different. The combinationof W and 'Y' chromosomesat this point in a DNA strand dictatesthe developmentof male or female characteristics.Furthermore, occultist Aleister Crowley describedthe number twenty-threeas the 'number of life' or 'a thread' shapinghuman destiny.28 For Burroughs,though, the numbertwenty-three not only conveysthe codification of the human subject,but the untappedand ambivalent potential for (post)humandevelopment. As such, instancesof this number recur throughout Burroughs' novels as coded motifs for both conspiratorialassociations and libertarian release. Describedas a 'potential' life form derived from microscopicbeginnings, Genial 23 constitutesa scientific possibility for new modesof being, a kind of potentiality that Burroughs reconsidersin the Red Night trilogy. Here, Burroughs showcaseshis belief that biologic engineeringmay pose an even greaterthreat than nuclear developmentif deployedfor the wrong reasons,a concernto be reiteratedin Cities of the Red Night, and in later interviews such as his 1981 conversationwith Sylv6re Lotringer:

The whole questionof a selectivepestilence is quite within the rangeof moderntechnology. Iley can that black [ I that's producea plague would only affect white people,or people,or niongoloids ... where you start when you want to use a selectivepestilence. You look at all the diseasesto which only certain racesarc subject2'

For Burroughs,biological engineeringdesigned to target particular ethnic groups would establisha greaterurgency because,in contrastwith the perpetually deferring form of nuclearwarfare, a tselectivepestilence' may constitutea covertform of genocide. Cold War containmentanxieties about 'communist' infection are played out throughscience fiction plots wherethe humanbody is literally takenover by alien 'body snatchers',that placenational and personal boundaries into question.Many science fiction and'b-movie' themesare replicated in the Nova trilogy andbeyond, therefore linking Burroughs'dystopian vision directlywith the circulationof popularreactions to

28 For further details see,Aleister Crowley, 777 and Other Qabalisfic Writings ofAleister CrowleY, ed. Israel Regardic,(Nemýburyport MA: Red Wheel/Wciscr, 1986),336pp. 29 Burroughs 1981jjitqrvýFýy with Sylvýrc 1.,otringcr, 'Extenninating' in Lotringer, BurroughsLive, 53 1. 102 weaponsdevelopment. The influence of nucleartesting upon popular culture is noted by Paul S. Boyer et al., in an analysisof American society at mid-century:

The year was 1954,and moviegoersall acrossAmerica were shivering in terror at 7hem4the giant ant film that was part of a wave of mutant moviespouring out of Hollywood in the fifties. The atomic bomb and nuclearradiation played a big role in theseproductions. In YheIncredible ShrinkingMan, the unlucky hero is to "atomic dust" begins In AeAttack F7j? Woman, accidentallyexposed and to shrink. ofthe y-Foot 30 the processis reversed;and nucleartesting spawnsa giant octopusin It Cameftom Beneaththe Sea.

Hence,these fears began to manifestthemselves as information cameto light about H- bomb tests and atmosphericradiation experimentsthroughout the period. The populace becamefixated by scenesof bodily disintegration and attack from mutant creatures exposedto biotechnologicalhazards. The parasitic architectsof Burroughs' interplanetaryinvasion enforce conformity by enslavinghumans to systemsof viral semiotic suggestion,but they inhibit human potential even further by addicting the subjectto the birth-death cycle' (YE: 8) of procreationand dissolution: 'Death is orgasmis rebirth is deathin orgasmis their insanitary Venusian Gimmick is the whole birth deathcycle of action' (TE: 8). As a result humanswill never be able to transcendthe limitations of their 'flesh addiction' and climb to the next level of the evolutionary ladder. This 'gimmick' hasthe effect of satirising fixed identity constraints,and the binary opposition of masculineand feminine by demonstratinghow the nova parasitesfeed off 'the existing fucked up situation' of prescribedsexual division. The word transmits this addiction by enforcing an acceptance of this evolutionary inertia. To make mattersworse, society is also susceptibleto attack from the persuasivecommunication channelsused by the Nova Mob to escalateconflict and divorce the subject from any meansof active resistance.As previously mentioned, Reality Studio the producesthe scripts that enslavethe population to a predetermined biologic film. But even more alarmingly, Burroughs envisagesthe body, or 'soft machine', as a recording instrument that continuously absorbsand plays back the implanted messages by the Nova Mob into the genetic composition of the host:

30 Paul S. Boyer, ct al., YheEndwing 111sion:A History of theAmerican People, SecondEdition, (Lexington, MA: Heath Press,1993), 963. 103

Virus defined as the three-dimensionalcoordinate point of a controller-Transparcrit sheetswith virus perforationslike punch cardspassed through the host on the soft machinefeeling for a point of intersection-The virus attack is primarily directedagainst affective animal lifi.--Virus of ragehate fear uglinessswirling aroundyou waiting for a point of intersection (NE. 73)

The human condition is degradedto such an extent that the body becomesa receptacle, preparedfor occupationby parasitic alien organismsand biologic recordings.The body is appropriatedby the virus of 'rage hate fear ugliness' mentionedon severaloccasions in Nova Express.This virus runs through the infected host following a set of pre- ordainedcoordinates that map out intersectionsfor total assimilation.Therefore, the human subject endurestwo forms of Nova assault:physical deterioration,and preconditionedpsychological control. At a time when the CIA was involved in various 'mind control' experiments,it is not surprisingthat Burroughs had envisageda system whereby humanbeings functioned as networked recording instrumentsdesigned to follow the fear and rage impulsesprogrammed by a centralizedcontrol mechanism. Consequently,we must considerthe impact of governmentagency experimentation on Burroughs' fictional routines.

Government Auncy Mind Control Experimentation

Beginning in 1953 and continuing throughout the 1960s,including the sametime period as the publication of 'The Nova Trilogy', the CIA was engagedin a widespread programmeof human experimentationusing mind altering drugs and various other psychologicaltechniques as a meansto direct human behaviour. The MKULTRA programmeused LSD andelectromagnetic waves, among other treatments in an attempt develop to the perfectvehicle for psychologicalconditioning and encoded brain reaction.As Martin A. Lee andBruce Shlain have stated in their studyMe CIA, LSD Sixties and the Rebellion(1985), the intelligenceagency thought that LSD would make them'virtual mastersof the universe, andthat programmeenthusiasts became consumedwith an interestin developing'dial-a-brain' drugs:

The CIA realizedthat an adversaryinteHigence service could employ LSD 'to produceanxiety or terror in medically unsophisticatedsubjects unable to distinguish drug-inducedpsychosis from actual insanity. The Only to be that way sure an operativewould not freak out under suchcircumstances would be to give him 104 a tasteof LSD (a mind control vaccine?) before he was senton a sensitivemission. Sucha personwould thereforebe in a better position to handlethe experience.CIA documentsactually refer to agentswho were familiar with LSD as 'enlightenedOperatives'. 31

Psychiatric patients, military servicemen and agency operatives alike were used as guinea pigs in numerous conditioning experiments designed to test psychological suggestibility in controlled situations. It was proposed that LSD may be employed for interrogation purposes on both sides of the Cold War, and so a section of CIA operatives would undergo a course of LSD treatment in order to counteract this eventuality. Burroughs was to develop a further interest in these types of mind control practices over the next decade, often stating his interest in scientific journals and popular conspiracy theories about 'out of body' experiences and covert testing. Sheila Ostrander's and Lynn Schroeder's Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain (197 1) details studies by communist scientists into astral body experiments and electromagnetic energy fields: 'Mediums say you can expand your consciousness via the human energy body. Evidence seemsto suggest that often telepathic information appears to be picked up by our bodies 32 but never reaches our conscious awareness'. This fascinated Burroughs, not only

because of the implications for control structures but because of the potentials these experiments created for human development, an area not fully explored in his fiction until the 'Red Night' trilogy.

Despite his misgivings about regulatory systems, Burroughs introduces the 'Nova Police" in Yhe SoftMachine as a force to counter the mind control activities of the Nova Mob. As Inspector J. Lee explains at the beginning of Nova Express, the central task of this agency is to 'order total resistance against The Nova Conspiracy and all

those engaged in it' (AE: 7) by arresting the Nova criminals, occupying the Reality

Studio 'and retak[ing] their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly' (NE 7). Burroughs limits the power of the Nova Police by describing them as a regulatory cure to the Nova corruption, in much the same way as the addict is cured of their drug dependence. Once is thejob complete, the agency will no longer have a reason to operate on this planet.

31 MartinA. Lee& BruceShlain, 7lie CL4,LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, (New York: GrovePress, 1985),17. 32 SheilaOstrander and Lynn Schroeder,Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain,(New York: Marlow& Company,1997), 190. 105

The agents,including InspectorLee and Agent K-9, plan their assaulton the reality script by inciting the use of street-levelresistance and guerrilla tactics in a fight toward the Reality Studio where they intend destroythe film completely by exposingthe negatives:

"Street gangs,Uranium bom of nova conditions,get out and fight for your streets.Call in the Chineseand any randomfactors. Cut all tape. Shift cut tangle magpievoice lines of the earth.Know about The Board's 'Green DealT They plan to board the first life boat in drag and leave 'their humandogs' under the white hot skiesof Venus. 'Operation Sky Switch" also known as 'OperationTotal Disposal! All right you bastards,we'll by God show you 'OperationTotal Exposure.' (AE- 15)

Theseguerrilla tactics inciting resistancefrom 'Uranium born', or nuclearage street gangs,take the form of cut-ups to counterthe mind control imposedby the recordings absorbedby the human soft machine.Playing on the celluloid control of the Reality Studio, and inverting the total destructionof nuclear warfare, the rebelliousNova Police make plans for 'Operation Total Disposal' otherwise known as 'Operation Total Exposure' as a meansto destroythe prescribedreality films imposedupon them. The Nova agentsrecognise that this 'machine strategy' can be 'redirected' by deconstructing the relationship betweenword and image. The applicationsof the tape recording are reversedso that words may be 'cut in' at random,therefore undermining the embedded word patternswith substitutedarrangements beyond Nova indoctrination. As we can see,Burroughs' fictional plot lines intersectwith the aforementioned semioticexperiments he attemptedduring this prolific period.The contemporaneous developmentof cut-upinto a majormulti-media artistic project involved further collaborations,this time with productionassistant Ian Sommervilleand filmmaker AnthonyBalch. These experiments in soundrecording and film revealedto Burroughs flexibility the of the techniquebecause film andtape could be editedand spliced togetherin alternativeformations. Burroughs' pursuit of the cut-uphad become so relentlessthat he experimentedwith taperecordings on the streetsof Londonin orderto evaluatethe revolutionarypower he attributedto the technique.He evenclaimed to have 106 closeddown a London cafd by playing back disparatesound recordings that allegedly 33 unnervedthe customersto suchan extent that the establishmentlost all of its businesS. 'Operation Rewrite', introduced in The Ticket 7Mt Erploded and continued in Nova Express,best describesthe objectivesof the Nova resistanceby outlining the need to extract the word virus, or 'Other Half' from its parasitic relationship with the human victim, before cellular degenerationcan take hold. Seeingas the ability to maintain inner silencehas been undermined by the act of 'sub-vocal' speech,the subject must 'splice' audio recordingsof their bodily soundswith external noisesin attemptto detach themselvesfrom the viral Other Half-

Rememberthat you can separateyourself from the 'Other HaW from the word- The word is spliced in with the soundof your intestinesand breathingwith the beatingof Your heart.The fiIrs t step is to record the soundsof your body and start splicing them in yourself. Splice in your body soundswith the body soundsof your best friend and seehow familiar he gets. Splice your body soundsin with air hammers. Blast jolt vibrate the 'Other Half right out into the street.(TE: 49-50)

By rewriting thesebiological messagesthe human host is able to attain such a level of deconditioningthat escapefrom predeterminedbehavioural patterns and prescribed responsesis madepossible. But even more revolutionary are the new forms of existence createdby this act of physicaland verbal resistance. By 'splicing in' with the recordings of otherindividuals, new identitiesmay be formedwith greatersubversive potential: 'this is the invisiblegeneration it is the efficientgeneration hands work andgo seesome interestingresults when several hundred tape recorders turn up at a politicalrally' (TE: 162).

The cut-upethos not only providesthe structuralbasis of the Novatrilogy but alsothe underlyingagenda for unlockinghuman potentials. Although the cut-upand taperecording techniques would be promotedby Burroughsover the next few yearsin essaysand interviews such as YheJob andElectronic Revolution, his novelswould graduallyreturn to conventionallinguistic structuresand narrative techniques. As far as fictional writing was concerned,,Burroughs felt that he had 'takenthe cut-upas far asit [ ]I had would go ... suchan overrunon taperecorders, cameras and scrapbooksthat I

33 SeeMiles, El HombreInvisible, ch. 9. 107

34 couldn't look at them, and startedwriting straight narrativesand essays'. This is why a distinction must be madebetween the methodsof resistanceemployed in these earlier fictions, and the programmefor human developmentoutlined in the Red Night trilogy. Nonetheless,this transition from stylistic resistanceto narrative escapejustifies further considerationas the cut-up constituteda method of social deconditioning in the pamphletsand routines of the 1970s.

Burroughs' 'Guerrilla Semiotics' and the Return to Narrative

JennieSkerl has describedthe chronological developmentof Burroughs' fiction from NakedLunch to the Red Night trilogy in terms of a 'two-phase' writing project. Naked Lunch and the Nova trilogy are viewed as part of the first writing phaseresponsible for the expansionof such 'technical innovations' as the 'addiction metaphor,the creation of a mythology (the Nova conspiracy),the use of a montagestructure, and the cut-up technique'." The secondphase Skerl identifies includes: The Wild Boys (1971), Exterminator (1973), Port ofSaints (1975), and the evolution of the 'Red Night' mythology during the 1980s.The creation of this new metaphoricalworld is seento take over from Burroughs' earlier Nova mythology by re-establishingthe fight against control structures,and the questfor freedom from 'social and biological' preconditions. But this secondphase differs from the earlier novels, becausea new metaphoricalworld opensthe way for human potential and social changethrough 'fantasy' and human development.Rather than describethis fiction as a two-phaseproject, it is useful to considerthe continuousevolutionary nature of Burroughs' writing. As we have seen,the earlier novels develop a dystopian fictional realm whereby the individual is caught within a seriesof predeterminedevents and responses.Severe limits are placedon human agency,and even textual resistance'offers nothing' by way of utopian hopesfor the future, as Inspector J. Lee of the Nova police reiteratesin Nova Express:

34Quoted in Oliver Harris, IW-Up Closure":TUe Return to Narrative" in Skerl and Lydcnbcrg, William S Burroughs at the Front: Critical Reception,256, 33 JennieSkerl, 'FreedomTbrough Fantasyin the RecentNovels of William S. Burroughs' in ibid., 189. 108

And what doesmy prograrnof total austerityand total resistanceofferyou? I offer you nothing. I am not a politician. Theseare conditionsof total emergency.And thesearc my instructionsfor total emergencyif carried out now could avcrt the total disasternow on tracks (NE: 6- Burroughs' emphases)

The evolutionary analogy is appropriatebecause the novels move from this technical resistanceof power, to a realisationthat fictional worlds provide the meansfor transcendenceand escape.As previously indicated, the later novels, particularly the 'Red Night Trilogy', return to a conventionalnarrative structure,thus leaving behind the more radical forms of technical resistancein favour of fictional realmsof human potential and social change.Not only has Burroughs' writing evolved at this stage,but the identities and spatio-temporaldimensions introduced in the Nova novels now offer new types of being in accordancewith a utopian possible world. The last texts to advocatethe cut-up as the primary meansof action against authority are Ae Job and Electronic Revolution (1970), where Burroughs expandshis programmeof resistanceby outlining the extent of massmedia coercion, and by giving instructions about the 'deconditioning' and 'retraining' designedto combatthese channelsof imposedallegiance. Written after the Watergatescandal, Electronic Revolution takes on the activist spirit by accrediting the tape recording with the ability to 'spreadrumors', 'discredit opponents',and 'produce and escalateriots'. 36By cutting up official rhetoric with recordingsof 'stammering coughs sneezeshiccoughs snarls pain fear whimperings apoplectic sputteringsslobbering drooling idiot noisessex and animal soundeffects', Burroughs claims it is possibleto discredit political opposition:

I considerthe potential of thousandsof peoplewith recorders,portable and stationary, messages passed alonglike signaldrums, a parodyof the President'sspeech up anddown balconies, in andout open windows,through walls, over courtyards, taken up by barkingdogs, muttering bums, music, traffic down windy streets,across parks and soccer fields. Illusion is a revolutionaryweapon. 37

By applyingthe samemulti-media technologies used to spreadthe word virus, Burroughsis suggestingthat the public hasthe ability to subvertthe messagesof control by neutralisingthern with the art of randomartifice. As far ashe is concerned,illusion becomes a revolutionaryweapon because the massescan be influencedby parodiesof

36 William S. Buffoughs, Bectronic Revolution, (G6ttingcn: Expanded Media Editions, 1970), 12-13. 37Ibid., 12. 109 presidentialrhetoric and establishmentdoctrine that effectively exposepolitical agendas. Cut-up recordingsbecome a 'long range weaponto scrambleand nullify associational lines put down by massmedia', but they can also be used as 'unscrambling devices' with the power to decodethe implanted signalsand messagesallegedly infiltrating all communicationssystems. According to Burroughs' semiotic theory, theseencrypted messageshave the potential to dictate the outcomeof eventsby penetratingnews publicationswith future conflicts and outcomes:

imaginethat a newsmagazine like TIME got out a whole issuea week before publication and filled it with newsbased following line [ I boys boost in the on predictions a certain ... giving our a every story and Commiesas many defeatsand casualtiesas possible,a whole new issueof TBE formed from slanted prediction of future news.Now imagine this scrambledout through the massmedia. 38

Exposing the covert communicationsupholding Cold War binary opposition provides the subjectwith the ability to recognise,and chart the communicationflows otherwise concealedby the myriad of information circulating within postmodernsociety. Electronic Revolution is also used as a vehicle for explaining the complexities of the word virus. He goes as far as to suggestthat the word may be a 'living time bomb left on this planet to be activatedby remote control', 'an extermination program' basedon the 39 fact that 'all viruses ultimately destroy the cells in which they are living'. According to this mixture of philosophy and scientific speculation,the act of speechhas developed from this word virus via a processof biologic mutation, effecting biologic changesin the host at an adaptivegenetic level. Therefore, the word virus takes on the disastrous potential of the biological or nuclearweapon, and so guerrilla tactics, both semiotic and literal, are required to counter its influence: 'There's a lot of violence in my work becauseviolence is obviously necessaryin certain circumstances.I'm often talking in a revolutionary, guerrilla context where violence is the only recourse'.40 TheJob alsoattempts to stimulatea revolt againststate control by proposing schemesof deconditioningand retraining to reversethe effectsof conservativecontrol and nationalist conformity. Burroughs believesthat a 'worldwide monopoly of

313Ibid., 17. 39 Ibid., 17. 40 Burroughs' 1987interview with Tim McMenamin and Larry McCaffrey, Ile Non-Body Route' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 672. 110 knowledgeand discoveriesfor counter-revolutionarypurposes is the basic issue' and 41 that 'all knowledge,all discoveries' belong to the populaceas a 'basic right'. Therefore,the time had come to formulate tactics to destroy dictatorial structuresby supportingthe counter-culturalschemes advocated by such contemporarymovements as Black Power and the Hippie community. The processof deconditioning suggestedhere includesthe formation of 'academies'and 'authority units' whose purposeis to mirror and infiltrate the activities and policies of central authority in an attemptto undermine the basisof control: 'These authority units honeycombedthe Westernworld, destroying the whole conceptof authority, as an unlimited flood of detectablecounterfeit money would destroythe monetary system'.42 The revolutionary counterforceis also educatedin the political exploitation of words,and the waysin which to escapethe boundariesof the word virus. As with ElectronicRevolution, the manipulationof word andimage combinations is emphasised, anda missionto divorcesignifier from signifiedis usedto reverseviral conditions.7he Job takesthis revolutionarystandpoint a stagefurther by notinga needto escapethe ideologicalconditioning of 'inner' and'outer' spaceas separate entities. New frontiers mustbe reachedby escapingfrom bodily incarceration:'Free mendon't exist on this planetat this time, becausethey don't existin humanbodies. By the merefact of being in a humanbody you're controlledby all sortsof biologic andenvironmental 43By necessities'. the endof the 1950sthe spacerace between the United Statesand the SovietUnion was beginning to pick up momentum,and Burroughs was obviously influencedby the spaceprogrammes taking place on both sideson the ColdWar divide. In 1957the Sovietssuccessfully launched the first satellite,Sputnik I, into orbit, andthis wasimmediately followed by SputnikII, which carriedthe first living organisminto space-a dog calledLaika. Followingthese advances, the Americanresponse took the form of a 'NationalAeronautics and Space Act' which waspassed by the Eisenhower administrationin April 1958, andthe formationof the 'NationalAeronautics and Space

41WiHiam S. Burroughsand Daificl Odicr, 7heJob: Interviews with William S Burroughs, (New York: Grove Press,1970), 74. 42 Quoted in Moth-am, 77zeAlgebra ofNeed, 140. 43Ibid., 141. III

Administration (NASA). 44The United Statessuccessfully launched its own satellite in January1958, and as a consequencethe funding made available for NASA endeavours increaseddramatically over the following years.The racewas taken to the next stageof developmentin 1961,when the Soviets sentthe first man into orbit, Yuri Gagarin in VostokL The US would then match this achievementthe following month, at which stagePresident Kennedy declaredhis intention to direct the US mannedspace programmetowards a lunar landing. In addition to this exploration of 'outer' spacecame a growing interest in the limits of 'inner' or sensoryspace, particularly in relation to the psychic capabilitiesof the human subject.Burroughs, then, would begin to harnessthese frontiers of inner and outer spacein his quest for alternative forms of existence. Reminiscentof Ostranderand Schroeder'sinvestigation into extra-sensory researchby the Soviets,Burroughs promotesthe simultaneousmastery of inner and outer spaceas interrelatedfrontiers. As Russianrocket scientistK. E. Tsiolkovksy stated in the 1930s:

Especiallyin the coming cra of spaceflights, telepathicabilities are necessary.And they will aid the whole developmentof mankind. While the spacerocket must bring men toward knowledgeof the grand secretsin the universe,the study of psychic phenomenacan lead us toward knowledgeof the mysteriesof the humanmind. It is preciselythe solution of this secretwhich promisesman the greatestachievements. 45

This pseudo-scientificobjective of physical and spatial discovery offers a taster of Burroughs' fictional themesin the 'Red Night Trilogy'. The transcendentalproperties of the cut-up are redirectedtoward counter narratives,and the creation of 'possible worlds' whereby biological evolution effects positive changesin the human condition. This becomesthe fictional ground for the type of psychic and spatial achievementhoped for by Tsiolkovksy, an uncappednarrative frontier beyond biologic and environmental constraints.This point also marks the aforementionedreturn to straight narrative, becauseBurroughs rethinks methodsof linguistic insurgency.He begins to engineer fictional escape-routesdesigned to free the individual ftom corrupt political systemsand psychologicalbondage. Therefore, I will now outline the developmentof other forms of

" For details on the spaceprogrammes, see: Dale Carter, Me FInal Frontier. 7he Rise and Fall ofthe American RocketState, (1,ondon: Verso, 1988),280pp. 4' Quotedin Ostranderand Schroeder,Psychic Discoveries,74. 112 social revolt and scientific potential in Burroughs' writing, and contrastthese with the governmentagency radiological testing and scientific scandalexposed during the 1970s.

Burroughs' Scientific Revolt and Government Agencl Exposure

I have alreadydemonstrated that the conversations,articles and fictional routines included within YheJob are intendedto counterthe perceivedstate system of intimidation and absolutecontrol. Burroughs suggeststhat liberation may be achieved by harnessingthe alienation of youth causedby the current control machinery.By divorcing the subjectfrom a condition of absoluteneed, and creatingalternative forms of educationand training, Burroughs anticipatesa way to break down national boundariesand the knowledge monopoly into an open market of sharedcultures and ideas.The central vehicle for achieving this potential social systemis 'Academy 23', an educationalproject which createsa meansof escapefrom obligatory thought and identity construction.It is the role of the aforementioned'authority units' to parody the conceptof authoritarianism,thereby undermining the control structurewithout becomingembroiled within a systemof paradoxicalbinary opposition. The 'job' of the academyis to attain 'complete freedom from past conditioning' in order to realisetotal independenceand alternative living spacesfree from ideological organisation.46 Based upon the social de-conditioning proposedby L. Ron Hubbard's scientology movement, Burroughs suggestsways of providing the individual with the power to recognise oppressionas it is disseminatedvia technological channelsand massmedia information flows. Submissionexists within the contemporarysocial structurebecause the media spreadand implant information designedto confuseand exploit the global population. According to Burroughs, systemscollapse is inevitable because'punishment now overbalancesreward in the so-calledpermissive society, and young people no longer want the paltry rewards offered to them. Rebellion is world-wide'. 47 The first steptoward the curtailmentof controlis an understandingof 'control addiction'within Americanpolitics. The whole domesticscene and education system

46 Mottmm, 7he Algebra ofNeed, 14 1. 47Ibid., 143. 113 works to uphold this dependence,and therefore alternativesto imposedsocial ftinctionalism are required to unlock human potential. The schooling offered by Academy23 takes the form of networked institutes which train the young in a number of counter-political methods,including the exploitation of the word, knowledge of virology, lessonsin yoga, martial arts, ESP, sense-withdrawaland the formulation of revolutionary techniquessuch as weaponstraining and riot escalation.The eventual aim of theselearning foundationsis the formation of all-male counter-communities,linked on a global scaleby a belief in the principles set out by the academyand a rejection of enforcedgender roles. In fact, the destructionof existing social roles and institutions is viewed as the only alternativeto an impending nuclear war. Although Burroughs' vision of an all-male revolt takes on the qualities of a sinister regime by excluding female influence, it also presentsa form of social organisationthat he views as a desirable alternative.In spite of potential feminist criticism directed againsta male community propagatedby cloning and other forms of scientific experimentation,and the questionablesimilarities with Hubbard's Scientology cult, Academy 23 is Burroughs' vision of a harmoniouspossible utopia beyond ideological struggles.77ie Job projects this personalvision of the future by mixing fictional scenarioswith statementsof revolt. This is Burroughs'attempt to put anend to conflict by suggestingthe possibilityfor humandevelopment and evolution, areas he would applyin TheWild Boys(1972) and his laterRed Night trilogy. Thesefictional worlds give life to the revolutionarypowers containedin Me Job by projectingpartisan resistance onto a homosexualguerrilla army, capableof self-sufficiencyand adaptation. From now on, Burroughs'protagonists exceedcollective insubordination and opposition because they encapsulatethe triumph of the maleyouth movementover imposedsystems. The studentsof Academy23 are metamorphosedinto the 'wild boys', a later manifestationcalled the 'JohnsonFamily', andthe piratecommunity central to narrativedevelopment in Citiesof theRed Night. It is this latterfictional societythat I will look at in detail later in this chapter,principally becausethe separatistpirate colony in Citiesdemonstrates the 'retroactive'utopianism of Burroughs'fictional potentials.The questfor socialimprovement and enlightenment advocatedin Me Job is apparentwithin thesebrotherhoods because the fictional 114 possibleworld fashionsalternative modesof being, and defies the spatio-tempora imits imposedby the controlapparatus. This mission to createa fiction of unrestrictedhuman agencyand progressby means of insurgency and positive scientific progress, is completely at odds with the kinds of experimentation, secrecy and exploitation taking place on American soil during the 1970s. Whereas Burroughs imagined a liberating scientific age enabling new social structures, education systems and physiological enhancement, federal agencies were employing science to maintain the gridlock of the Cold War power structure. Between 1947 and 1975, the Department of Energy (1)oE) and its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) sanctioned a series of covert radiation and drugs tests to be carried out on sections of the American population. The questionable nature of this secret human experimentation was withheld from public knowledge until a trickle of leaks, reports and investigations managed to reach the public domain during the 1970s and 48 early 1980S. It came to light that from its inception with the Manhattan Project, the US nuclear programme and supporting government policy had placed scientific and military advancement above the safety of the American people. Local communities were not only living in close proximity to atmospheric tests with nuclear weapons such as those undertaken in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958, and the 204 underground nuclear blasts authorised in Nevada from 1963, but were also used as human guinea pigs in radiation during this thirty 49The following display experiments year period . examples the lengths Federal agencies were prepared to go to in the name of Cold War supremacy, and the contradictory nature of security and containment legislation at this time. A cross- section of American citizens, including newborn infants, pregnant women, psychiatric

patients, prisoners and cancer patients were exposed to nuclear radiation in a number of ways. Examples of these methods range from atmospheric exposure and contaminated foodstuffs, to full body irradiation and plutonium injections. The following passage,

taken from an essay by Tod Ensign and Glenn Alcalay, details the horrific nature of these clandestine tests:

48 SeeTod Ensign & Glenn Alcalay, 'Duck and Cover(up): US Radiation Testing on Humans', Covert Action Quarterly, (January1996), b=: //www. fi/makako/Mind/radiatio.litm 49 accessedvia netti. Ibid. 115

From 1960-71, in experimentswhich may have causedthe most deathsand spannedthe most years,Dr. EugeneSaengcr, a radiologist at the University of Cincinnati, exposed88 cancerpatients to whole body radiation.N4any of the guineapigs were poor African-Amcricans at Cincinnati GeneralHospital with inoperabletumors. All but the 88 has died [ I Following to 100 one of patients since ... exposure rads of whole body radiation (about 7,500 chestX-rays), Amelia Jacksonbled and vomited for daysand became permanentlydisabled. -'O

Although knowledge of thesetests was beginning to reachthe public domain by the early 1970s,and internal inquiries such as the 1974 AEC investigationwere being createdto inspectthe legality and legitimacy of the programmeaims, patient monitoring and the concealmentof data would continue throughout the decade.Secrecy in governmentaffairs was upheld to such an extent that, for many years,patients remained unawareof the treatmentsthey had been subjectedto, and the subsequentthreats to health and safety. Throughout the 1960s,a number of 'guinea pigs$were provided by the stateprison systemfor experimentationwith radiation exposure,biomedical proceduresand pharmaceuticalproducts. Inmates in Oregon and Washington Statewere exposedto six-hundredroentgens of radiation, one-hundredtimes the allowable annual dosefor nuclearworkers, and were not informedof the risk of developingcancer. By 1972the Foodand Drug Administration(FDA) estimatedthat morethan ninety percent of all investigationaldrugs were first testedon prisoners.51 These astounding statistics causeda humanrights scandalbased on the belief that prisonerexperimentation was part of a systemof intimidationinherent within the prisonstructure, and as suchinmate participationcould hardly be describedas voluntary. An articleby JessicaMitford publishedin theAtlantic Monthly in 1973would exposethese atrocities by highlighting the dehumanisingnature of biomedicalresearch on disadvantagedsections of the 52 population. The resultof this adversepublicity wasthe creationof the National Commission for the Protectionof HumanSubjects of Biomedicaland Behavioural Research, a groupof commissionersemployed to investigateexperimentation on prisoners.However, the commission'sfindings displayed a 'hesitancyto call for a halt 53 complete to the useof prisonersin nontherapeuticexperimentation". The advisory

50Ibid. 51Ibid. 52Jessica Nfitford, 'Experiments Behind Bars: Doctors, Drug Companiesand Prisoners, Atlantic Monthly, ýanuary,1973,64-73. 33 Quotedin Ensign & Alcalay, 'Duck and Cover(up)'. 116 report statedthat the use of experimentalsubjects was ethical, if the researchwas 'compelling' and subjectslived in an environment of 'openness' and 'equity'. In 1974 yet anotherscandal hit the headlines,this time implicating the Central Intelligence Agency and Departmentof Defensein a number of illegal domestic trials, including clandestineCold War chemical experiments.The New York Timespublished a report on theseactivities; therefore instigating anotherpublic outcry and further congressionalhearings. 54 The aforementionedMKULTRA programmewas at the centre of this investigation,and suggestionsthat the CIA was researchingthe usesof chemically induced mind-control techniqueson prisonersof war were quickly dismissed by officials. Moreover, the majority of documentspertaining to thesepsychoactive drug trials were destroyedin 1973, 'by order of then Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms'. 55As a result, a completepicture of the LSD, mescalineand alleged radiation programmesendorsed by the CIA is madevirtually impossible. However, the congressionalcommittee put together to questionCIA researchcame to the conclusion that prior consentwas not obtainedfrom the subjectsused in the programme,and that the natureof MKULTRA 'called into questionthe decision by agenciesnot to fix guidelinesfor experiments'.56 The federal governmentattempted to avoid legal liability for the consequencesof thesetrials, but a number of military subjects,supported by the Army, filed lawsuits for compensation.This legal battle began in 1975, the year Burroughsbegan researching and writing Cities of the Red Night, and was to continue well into Reagan'sterms of office. Obviously,the rights andwell-being of Americancitizens had been forsaken in favourof nucleardeterrents that posea greaterthreat than any externalattack. The 'classified'information collated on test subjectsand follow-up medicalexaminations waswithheld not only in the interestsof nationalsecurity, but becausethe releaseof this sensitivedata would proveto be a public relationsnightmare, at a time whenthe nation wascoming to termswith the Vietnamwar andthe scandalsurrounding the 'Watergate' tapes.The classificationof information,subjectification of the domesticpopulace, and

541bid. 55Ibid. 56 See the Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 620 pp. 117 the developmentof intricate communicationchannels to protect 'national interests', reflects Burroughs' control machineryto an alarming degree,and gives some explanationfor the depth of his political revolt during the 1970s.The alternative social systemsand application of pseudo-scientificmethods for bodily releasecited in 7he Job encompassa total rejection of this history of Cold War corruption. What would begin as a manifestofor revolution would becomethe basis for fictional escapein the Red Night trilogy. Cities of the Red Night directly reflects the scandaland anxiety surrounding nuclear,biological and chemicaltesting during the Cold War, by fictionalising the shockingimplications for human subjectsand our biospheric surroundings.The virus power is convertedinto anothersystem of infection with devastatingeffects on the humancondition, but this time the fusion of nuclear and biological componentsprovides a new spin on establishedideas. What distinguishesCities from the earlier fiction is Burroughs' ability to convert oppressivesystems and viral devastationinto the foundationsfor his counteractivepossible worlds. Before I analysethese qualities, the relationshipbetween nuclear anxiety, viral control and narrative developmentmust be addressedto explain the introduction and developmentof a new mythological structure.

Brion G3:sin's Gobi Desert MIth and Cities oLthe Red ni ht

later The novels seemto owe their evolution to the mythological aspectsof the Nova trilogy, and the resistancegroups outlined in TheJob rather than to the extrememethods of linguisticresistance contained in the earlierfictions. Sothis is wherewe mustlook in orderto locatethe originsof the nuclearmythology central to plot progressionin Cities of theRedNight. In Cities,Burroughs embarks on a missionof historicaldisorientation andscience fiction fantasyby splittingthe narrativeinto three'books', or episodesthat link togetherin unanticipatedcombinations. The threemain narrative strands signify distinctstyles and genres, including a storyset in the eighteenth-centurydetailing the fictional history of a separatistpirate community, the story of Clem Snide,a private detectiveinvestigating a missingperson's case, and a mythologicaltale aboutthe six citiesof the RedNight, an ancientcivilisation located in what is now the Gobi desert. Although this marksa returnto straightnarrative, the influenceof the cut-upethos is 118 evident in the way that the novel mergestime and place from one narrative thread to the imposed by next. The text is imbued with the power to break through the boundaries the historical order becausecharacters can travel into alternative spatial and temporal it is frontiers, and project into new forms of being. From this brief structural description, possibleto deducethat Burroughs has chosento explore new textual terrain, reaching beyondthe linguistic power strugglesof his earlier Nova trilogy, to fashion new imaginary spaces.Before the full implications of this counter-historicalfiction can be investigated,an analysisof nuclear and biologic concernsis required to explain the formulation of a new mythological landscapefor the Red Night trilogy. TheNova trilogy hadintroduced the conceptthat all historyis pre-recordedand that all events,including the nuclear disaster,are part of a cycle set to repeat at key stagesin humandevelopment:

'The earliestartifacts dateback about ten thousandyears give a little take a little and 'recorded' - (or pre- recorded)history about seventhousand years. Ile humanrace is said to havebeen on set for 500,000 years.That leaves490,000 years unaccounted for. Modem man has advancedfrom stoneax to nuclear weaponsin ten thousandyears. (YE. 39)

Accordingto this interpretationthe nucleardisaster has happened before and will happenagain in agreementwith the principlesof the Reality Studio;therefore plotting ColdWar nuclearweapons development along the lines setout by the reality scripts. What makesthis so crucialto the developmentof a nuclearmythology in Citiesis the inclusionof Brion Gysin'sfable about an ancientcivilisation wiped out by a nuclear explosion:

'Mr Brion Gysin suggeststhat a nucleardisaster in what is now the Gobi desertwiped out all tracesof a civilization that madesuch a disasterpossible. Perhaps their nuclearweapons did not operateon the same principle as the oneswe have now. Perhapsthey had no contact with the word organism' (TE. 39)

Furtherinformation about Gysin's myth canbe foundin Exterminator!where the white 'resultsfrom disaster[ ] 30,000 The race: a nuclear ... some yearsago. only survivors wereslaves marginal to the areawho hadno knowledgeof science'.Genetic changes wereconveyed throughout the species,in muchthe sameway asthe disseminationof the 119 word virus, instigating the creation of a new albino race. Unfortunately, this contagion is passedon through the generationsmeaning that the virus will remain a threat to human existence:

This virus this ancientparasite is what Freud calls the unconsciousspawned in the cavesof Europe on flesh alreadydiseased from radiation. Anyone descendedfrom this line is basically different from those who havenot had the cave experienceand contractedthis deadly sicknessthat lives in your blood and [ I They didn't belong 11cy belonged 57 nerves ... to themselvesanymore. to the virus,

Subsequently,life on this planet is on coursefor a swift termination becausemankind's parasitic 'other half reduceshuman instincts to the basic fear and rage also mentioned in Nova Express.The virus, aligned here with Freud's identification of the unconscious, is madeeven more potent when exposedto the diseasedflesh of the subject suffering radiation sickness.Subsequently, any individual descendedfrom this line will be geneticallydifferent, and a carrier of this virulent infection. The natural conclusion for this behaviouris a man-madeapocalypse that systematicallywipes out all chancesof escape.The only way for Burroughs to envisageescape from this prematuredeath is to discardpredetermined human history in favour of confrontational counter-narratives. Thesefictions reconstitutethe past into alternativeforms, but also contain potential visions of future resistance.By including Gysin's myth in Me Ticket 7hat aploded, Burroughs soughtto emphasisethe extent of thesepre-recorded systems as they forced civilisation toward the inevitable nuclear end. In this fictional process,military stratagemsand scientific discoveriesbecome fused with mythological nightmares.Cold War history is fictionalised in this way becausethe Nova plot provides the meansto exposethe foolishnessof assureddestruction; whilst the call to arms of those 'Uranium born', individuals subordinateto the Reality Studio, enactsa partisan standagainst our stage-managednuclear annihilation. Although Burroughs has mythologized Cold War history and global relations in the dystopian spaceof his Nova trilogy, there is little suggestionof life beyond the nuclear interruption. Therefore, it is up to the later trilogy to createprospective forms of freedom from technological despotism.

57WiUiain S. Buffoughs, Exterminator1, (New York: Penguin, 1973), 24. 120

In Book One of Cities, the mythology is reworked into the destruction of the six cities of the Red Night; Tamaghis,Bal dan, Waghdas,Yass-Waddah, Naufana, and Ghadis.The nuclear explosion is in somewayfused with a natural disasteras a radioactivemeteor hits Tamaghis,causing fallout to seepinto the surrounding atmosphere.The effects differ from Burroughs' earlier accountsof nuclear disaster becausethe radiation instigatesthe devastating'B-23 virus'; thus denoting a significant amalgamationof nuclear, mystical and biological matters in the Red Night trilogy. The characterDr. Piersonprovides a preliminary report on the effects of the virus, and the history of its pandemicpotentials:

"VirusB-23 has been called, among other things, the virus of biologicalmutation, since this agent biologic in [ '-Me inhabitants black, occasioned alterations thoseaffecteC ...I original of thesecities were butsoon a widespectrum of albinovariations appeared, and this condition was passed on to their descendantsby techniques of artificial insemination which were, to saythe least, highly developed"

Virus B-23 spreadthroughout the biologically altered inhabitantsbecause it caused 4sexual frenzies' that have 'facilitated its communication' (C: 32) throughout the species.Hence, the white and even albino race cameinto being as a symptom of viral mutation, a side-effectthen propagatedby scientific intervention through processesof artificial insemination.Here, Burroughs has re-worked Gysin's Gobi desertmyth and the Nova virus into a new condition whereby the toxic human body is reducedto a seriesof basepsycho-sexual instincts:

Everysort of copulationwas going on in frontof him,every disgusting thing they could think of, Someof themhad pillow-cases and towels wrapped around each other's necks in somekind of awfulcontest. As thesecrazed patients seemed in dangerof strangulation(and here the doctor almost slipped in shit),he orderedattendants to restrain than, but no attendants were available. (C 31)

Evocatively,B-23 takeson the qualitiesof total biosphericruin; thus encapsulatingvery realfears about the destructionof the planet.There are also obvious similarities between radiationsickness and viral infection,as the figurativesocial and actual human body are devastatedby tiobazardouseffects. The parallelbetween viral illnessand nuclear radiationis madeexplicit in Citiesbecause this 'radioactivevirus' strainfuses

58 Wiffiam S. Burroughs,Cities ofthe Red Night, (London: Picador, 1981), 32. Hereafter cited as C. 121

Burroughs' nuclear concernswith new fearsabout the manipulation of medical science. CharactersDr. Piersonand Dr. Petersonembark on a heateddiscussion about the origins of B-23, with Piersonarguing that the ancientnuclear disasterproduced a new viral strain; whereasPeterson believes that the viral 'other half' has lain dormant in the humanhost, only to turn 'malignant' when exposedto the radiation from Tamaghis. Burroughs"earlier belief in the theory of viral evolution is reflected herebecause the Red Night virus has achieveda 'stable symbiosis' with the human host, slowly affecting alterationsin the genetic constitution of the race. As Burroughs indicated in an interview in 1980: 'the only way we know that a virus is presentis if it producessymptoms. If the virus achievesany sort of symbiosiswith the host, you would have no way of recognizingit as a virus. 59 We are provided with further information about the mutation of the virus in Book Two, wherea pamphletrelates details about life in the ancientcities. We learnthat the ancientpeople propagated their speciesthrough sexual rituals that ensuredthe equilibriumof civilisation.Before the radioactivemeteor, the peoplewere split into a castesystem of 'Transmigrants'and 'Receptacles', whose existence depended on a processof reincarnationthrough astral projection:

To showthe systemin operation:Here is an old Transn-dgranton his deathbed.He hasselected his future Receptacleparents, who are summoned to the deathchamber. The parcritsthen copulate, achieving orgasmjust asthe old Transmigrantdies so that his spirit entersthe womb to be reborn.(C. 141-2)

This relationshipof astral'insemination' became unstable after the nucleardisaster becausethe RedNight virus triggeredvarious biological and genetic mutations in the people.The women, led by an albinomutant called the 'White Tigress',seized the city of Yass-Waddahand instigated a war betweenthe genders.The developmentof 'artificial insemination'by the peopleof Waghdas,the Transmigrantseventual addiction to death,and the spreadof the RedNight virus mutationsled to the eventualfailure of peacefulcivilisation. This division denotesthe latentpresence of the viral 'other half' beforethe radiationoccurred because the peopleorganised their socialsystem along a similarparasitic rule of binarydependence. Through the generations,the originalRed

59Burroughs' 1980interview with Robin Adams, 'Viral Ileory" in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 465. 122

Night virus has mutatedto suchan extent that the human body succumbsto a total toxic breakdown,with fever, skin rashes,seizures and psychological disintegration ultimately leadingto sexually chargeddeath spasms. Not only is nature enactingan unpleasant revengeon humanity by highlighting the destructionof a sophisticatedsocial system,but the dysfunctionaltoxic humanbody has becomea grotesqueanalogy for the effects of the contemporary'bio-risk'. Therefore, it is important to contextualisethe nuclear and viral mythological structureof Cities with Burroughs' concernsabout biotechnologiesas impedimentsto natural human development.

Biotechnolo6cal Consoirac

Burroughsexploits Cold War anxietiesabout contaminationby renderingthe body open to externalattacks analogous with American containmentanxiety. The infected subject becomesa vivid depiction of internalisedcontrol mechanisms,nuclear and biotechnologicalfear, and a microcosm of global deterioration. The failure of biocontainmentprocedures and the degenerationof the human subject,restate Burroughs' belief that all scientific and technological endeavourshave been devotedto the enhancementof the eternalwar game. In a 1961 interview with Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg,he statedthat the elimination of scientistsworking for the control machinerywas required before any positive stepstoward human progresscould be made:

If anybodyought to go to the exterminationchambers, definitely scientists.Yes, I'm dcflnitely anti- scientistbecause I feel that sciencerepresents a conspiracyto impose as the real and only universe,the universeof scientiststhemsclvcs--4hcy'rc reality-addicts, they've got to have things real so they can get their handson it. 60

This statement marks Burroughs' persistent concern about the disturbing changes he

perceived in American society and the global balance of power at this time. Rather than

instigating a programme for human development, nuclear and biological research is shown to pose a threat to basic existence, a backdrop of fear exploited to highlight the

60Burroughs" 1961interview with Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg,'Tlic Time-Birth Death Gimn-dck' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 44. 123 perils of the control apparatus.Just as the Nova trilogy set the scenefor scathing criticism of nuclearweapons development, and the writing projects of the 1970sresisted covert nucleartesting, Cities extendsthese existing concernsto encompassfears about biological weaponsdevelopment and the potential for genetic engineeringduring the 1980s.During severalinterviews, but most notably his discussionwith Sylv6re Lotringer in 1981, Burroughs had mentionedthe relative easeof producing biological weapons, and their application as a 'selective pestilence' capableof wiping out isolated sectionsof the world population. He thought that the developmentof a biological arsenalwould posea much more realistic threat than nuclearwar becauseengineered viral epidemics would be virtually impossibleto trace back to source: 'That"s the thing about biological weapons;you can't be surewho's done it. The more you think about the whole thing, the it 61The in Cities this belief in the weirder gets'. power structuresat work reflect clandestineapplication of biological arms; therefore emphasisingthe atmosphereof disquiet about scientific and military developmentsdirectly before the time of publication. Distrust of governmentagency research into virology and radiation can be tracedback as far as the creation of "Genial 23" in The Ticket That Exploded and the considerationof secretexperiments in Electronic Revolution:

What then accountsfor this specialmalignance of the white word virus? Most likely a virus mutation occasionedby radioactivity. All animal and insect experimentsso far carried out indicate that mutations resultingfrom radiation are unfavorable,that is, not conduciveto survival. Theseexperiments relate to the effectsof radiation on autonomouscreatures. What about the effects of radiation on viruses?Are there not perhapssome so classifiedand secretexperiments hiding behind national security. And sucha virus might well violate the equilibrium with the host cell. 62

Burroughshas built uponthese earlier concerns about the coverttesting hiding behind 4nationalsecurity' to providethe centralconspiracy theme in the later novels.Moreover, statementssuch as these consolidate the links betweenthe radiologicalfallout resulting from nuclearresearch and viral mutation.Although Burroughs creates fictional scenesof radiologicalexperimentation on viral agents,this considerationof biologicalweapons is mostcertainly derived from the seriesof humanradiation, biological and chemical tests implicatingnumerous government agencies since the 1940s.Although the effectsof

61 Burroughs' 1981 intaview with Sylv6re Lotringer, 'Extaminating' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 532. 62Burroughs, Electronic Revolution, 6. 124 radiologicaltesting on 'autonomousanimals' have been deemed disadvantageous to development,Burroughs seems to be suggestingthat exposingviruses to radiationmay initiatea new 'super' strainswith the powerto controlthe hostcell. Moreover,he impliesthat this type of researchmay already have taken place, and that we may have beensubject to suchcovert activity for sometime. The impenetrablenature of governmentagency and military researchoutlined in ElectronicRevolution provides a workingmodel, then, for the unfathomableand disconcerting power network in Cities. After recoveringfrom a bout of the B-23 virus, Dr. Piersonhas takes a job at the 'Pickle Factory', a top secretorganisation in leaguewith the Central Intelligence Agency and other interestedparties, dedicated to the developmentof biological projects. Although we are never given a clear picture of the structureof this organisation,and the scientific projects it sanctions,Burroughs permits us to deducethat the Pickle Factory and its associatesare involved in a dangerousmix of biological weaponsdevelopment, satellitecommunications systems and spaceexploration. Piersonjumps from one intersectednarrative strandto the next, overseeingthe organisation'scovert operations, and in one such episodein Book Two encountersClem Snide the private detective. In the resulting conversation,Pierson insinuates their horrific plans:

"Now, just supposean atom bomb should fall on New York City. Who would be blamed for thatr "The Commics." "Right. And supposea mystcriousplague broke out attackingthe white race,while the yellow, black, and brown seemedto be mysteriouslyimmune? Who would be blamed for thatr "Yellow, black brown. Yellow especially". "Right So we would then be justified in using any biologic and/or chemical weaponsin retaliation would we notr "You do it justified But the decimatethe destroythem would or not. plaguenfight well white race ... as a geneticentity. " "We would have the fcvcr spermstocks. We could rebuild the white raceto our spccification!e' (C: IS 1)

Justas the Nova mob'scentral mission was to provokeindissoluble conflicts, the Pickle Factoryplan to instigatenuclear and biological warfare for the purposeof genetic 'cleansing'.By targetingpolitical oppositiongroups and instigating racial attacks, Piersonsuggests that a total decimationof the raceswould be possible.Much to Snide's horror,Pierson believes that total destructionis mandatoryin orderto be ableto rebuild the white raceto PickleFactory standards. Prior to this meeting,Snide's story in Book 125

One hascentred on the hunt for cluesabout a missing personnamed Jerry Green. Eventually, his investigationuncovers Jerry's bizarre murder, and a complex conspiracy leading back to the Pickle Factory's sinister projects. Jerry's parentshave hired Snide to locate their missing son, misleadingthe readerto believe that a conventionaldetective casewill unfold. Snideuses sex magic rituals and astral projection to discern Jerry's location, and the leadshe generatestake him to Athens where he finds Jerry's headless body. Snidecontinues to work on the case,determined to track down the whereaboutsof Jerry"shead through tape-recordingcut-ups. At this stage,he begins to realise that Jerry's murderwas the work of 'Servants.Dupes. Hired killers, paid off with a special form of death' (C: 85). Ultimately, he is provided with information that a 'higher organization' had usedJerry and a secondmissing boy namedJohn Everson for 'identity transfer' experiments.Hereafter, the detectivestory fuseswith the aforementionedcities of the Red Night narrativebecause we learn that Jerry was suffering from the B-23, or Red Night virus, and that he may have beenthe original carrier. We also learn that a powerful aristocrat,the CountessDe GuIpa, is involved in this case.Her criminal empire in Yass-Waddahis built on the 'manipulation of commodity prices' (C: 53), and the exploitation of Third World populations,but her main interestsare developedin secretlaboratories: 'She has employed biochemists and virologists. Indication: geneticexperiments and biologic weapons' (C: 53). Therefore, more than one interestedparty has designson global domination. In book two Pierson describeshow the Pickle Factory do not perceivethe Countessto be a major player in theseproceedings, and that they had consideredusing her to discredit the 'rank and file CIA' (C: 182).Her experimentsare of limited use for Pierson and his connections,due to their 'specialized' nature: 'She has, for example,succeeded in reanimating headless men. Theseshe gives to her friends as love slaves.They are fed through the rectum. I don't seeany practical applications' (C: 181). Despite Pierson's remarks, thesehorrific experimentsshare some similarities with the aforementionedidentity transfer research and subsequentJerry Green murder case.The interrelatedparties involved in these scientific atrocities, the Pickle Factory, Blum and Krup (Snide's employers and the financial backing behind the gepoic tests and satellite communicationstechnologies) and the Countessall try to discredit one another,but all are implicated within a complex 126 power structureof intimidation and financial gain. Private interestsand official agencies display identical behaviour,and in the processact out a complex network of conspiracy and criminality designedto destroyglobal peaceand originate a horrifying 'new world order'. Snideis given an apt descriptionof this network in Book One:

"You want to rind the man who hired him. You find anotherservant. You are not satisfied.You rind to Mr. Mrs. Big-who be anotherscrvant, and another,right up and turns out to yet another servant ... a scrvantof forces and powersyou cannotreach. Where do you stop?Where do you draw the line?" (C. 85)

Burroughs' new fictional power structureis so difficult to penetratebecause the layers of collusion and conspiracylinking thesefactions create an indecipherableinformation system.This impenetrablesystem works to defeat Snide's attemptsto reveal the truth. 'Vested interests'.both private and official possessthe meansand the inclination to causea systematicuniversal collapse. The national security culture shroudinghuman experimentationduring the Cold War appearsas impenetrableas the conspiratorialnetworks in Cities. Burroughs' fictional representationof an enclosedsystem of control and collusion emphasisesthe attemptsof governmentagencies to impedean honestdialogue with the generalpublic. Former Departmentof Energy (DoE) SecretaryHazel O'Leary's admissionsin 1993 confirm the findings of an earlier report entitled, 'American Nuclear Guinea Pigs', by Rep. Edward I Markey that describedthirty-one radiological experimentsinvolving six- 63 hundredand ninety-five people. Prior to this, the Reaganadministration had refused to investigatethis expos6,despite numerous other accountsincluding a 1980 report by Congressstating that the AEC had chosento undertakeatmospheric nuclear weapons " testsregardless of the risks to local communities. Furthermore, evidencecollated by the New York Times in 1982, showedthat policy-makers had actively worked to cover up theseexperiments in order to maintain public support for the nuclear escalation.65 Ensign and Alcalay have statedthat, following the Clinton presidential directive in 1994, the CIA conductedan internal investigation for information about agencyinvolvement in After radiation tests. an alleged review of thirty-four million documents,the search

63Quotcd in Newsweek,(Decembcr 27,1993), 15. 6' SeeEnsign and Alcalay, Duck and Cover(up). 65 TheNew York Times, (Scptember 14,1982), acocssed via www.nvtimes. com. 127 team concludedthat it had found no material implicating the CIA, or any other agency, in humanexperimentation, even though it was known that any incriminating documents had beendestroyed two decadesearlier. 66 Hence, the enclosednetworks sanctioning covert experimentationwere, for the most part, able to remain immune to public outcries for accountability. Burroughs' network of official and private concernsdirecting genetic experimentsand the biological weaponsindustry, at first seemsa fictional exaggeration of contemporaryfears, but containedwithin this depiction is a glimpse of the types of power relationsdirecting scientific researchthroughout the Cold War. The relationship betweenthe 'Pickle Factory', the mysteriousBlum and Krup, and the CountessDe Gulpa providesa fictional replication of the treacherouspower networks supportedby governmentagencies, military researchinterests and private industry. In the caseof the covert Cold War radiation tests, prominent researchcompanies, medical professionals and academicinstitutions were implicated in the proceedings,not to mention the involvementof the CIA, The Departmentof Defense,the Departmentof Health and Human Services,the Departmentof Veteran Affairs and NASA. The novel fuses concernsabout biotechnologicaland nuclear researchto highlight the physical and social degenerationcaused by interconnected'toxic' systems.The degradationof bodily tissue causedby the B-23 virus encapsulatesthis collision betweennuclear testing and bio- medical proceduresas it accrueshuman casualtiesin the name of scientific advancement.Furthermore, the B-23 virus may also be viewed as representativeof a crisis in contemporarycommunication technologies, a crisis aggravatedby the barrage of media-generatedinformation impeding the subject's ability to recogniseand oppose the apparatusof control. For Burroughs,the disseminationof a network information culture takes on the qualities of the viral epidemic as it spreadsand compromisesthe integrity of the social 'body'. Therefore, it is essentialto considerviral transmission as a motif of technologicalcollapse within the military-industrial system.

"See FinalReportoftheAdvisory Committeeon Human Radiation Erperiments, (New York: Oxford University Press,1996), 620pp. 128

Burrou6s' Viral Technologies: The 'Germs' of Political Criticism

For Burroughs,the hastenedgrowth in Cold War technological and scientific discovery strengthenedthe supremacyof the control apparatusby imposing a dehumanisingstate of 'machine addiction; whereby the individual succumbsto the coding systemsand information flows of a network culture. The individual forfeits the right to function as an autonomousindividual becausethe body, or 'soft machine', is integratedinto the very electronicsystems created to servicehuman requirements.Therefore, the B-23 virus in Cities servesas the perfect metaphorfor conveying the parasitic relationship between the body and toxic communications.Kendra Langeteig's analysisof 'terminal' systems in the 'Red Night Trilogy' aligns the lethal effects of viral transmissionwith the 'crash culture' inherentin the disseminationof advancedcommunications technologies. Just as the infected subjectis likely to suffer massivecellular damage,the computerterminal is subjectto viral attacks,which align the systems'crash' with the description of terminal dieseasein the Red Night cities. Langeteig's analysis combinesposthumanist anxieties abouttechnological domination with Burroughs' fevered visions to highlight the 'horror autotoxicus"of our postmoderncondition. 67 The Red Night's toxic bodies not only reflect the consequencesof a biospheric catastrophe,they also emphasisehow viral communicationsendanger physical and psychologicalautonomy. The body is enslaved to the machineterminal and mental faculties are assimilatedinto the overbearingcontrol apparatus;thus exposingthe subjectto debilitating and addictive viral messages. Burroughsconveys multiple interconnectedconnotations through the B-23 virus, from uneaseabout communicationsnetworks, prophetic warnings about genetic experimentationand biological weaponsdevelopment, to visions of future disorder and total systemscollapse. Hence, the viral degradationof both bodily and social structures demonstratesthe consequencesof technological entropy: 'Well, the big danger is that our social structures-are so cumbersomethat we can't accommodatenew discoveries, biologic discoveries[ ] Thesebiologic discoveries just particularly ... would cause

67 KendraLangctcip, 'HorrorA utotoxicusin the Red Night Trilogy: Ironic Fruits of Burroughs's Tenninal Vision', Configurafions,5.1 (1997), 135-169. 129

68 completechaos in our social systems'. As far as Burroughs is concerned,then, our has impeded preoccupationwith technological innovation and complex social structures our ability to initiate natural forms of biologic development.Consequently, the dikbvlery of such human potentialswould causea total breakdownof the body politic. Thesepessimistic views about humandependence upon technologicalsystems are sharedby JeanBaudrillard and Paul Virilio. It is this relationshipbetween Burroughs' dystopianviral condition, and contemporaneouscritical analysisthat I shall now consider. For Virilio, the fragile humanbody is being torn and disintegratedby is technologiesthat causea 'de-corporation'of our physicalfunctions: 'The body importantbecause it is a planet.Technology splits the unity of the body.Now the most 69 powerfultechnologies are becoming tiny all technologiescan invade the body'. Virilio's 'Tiny technologies'take on the qualitiesof Burroughs'viral systemsbecause they invadeand govern the subject,turning the body into a transmitterfor control messages.In suchan extremevision of technologicalinvasion, the subjectloses all autonomyto a networkof electronicsignals, and the body andpersonal identity are absorbedinto the overridingstructure. 'De-corporation' is just onesymptom of what Virilio identifiesas an 'informationbomb'. Informationand communications technologiesbecome the newweaponry and 'interactivity' the equivalentof radioacMity becausethey trigger bodily ruptureand social collapse. This extendsthe conditionsof Virilio's earlieranalysis of the 'art of deterrence',by furtherhighlighting the efficiency andabsolutism of globalcommunications. Virilio politicisesthe speedof military and mediatechnologies in a bid to alignthese developments with the instabilityof networkedexistence, and our total surrenderto acceleratedinformati Ion flows:

Technologyinfinitely promotesspeed, and this promotion is absolutedepletion to the extentthat it's technologicalprogress that dccides,and not a rationale. It's not a philosophyof movement.We passfrom fivedom of movementto virmy of movement "

68Burroughs' 1980 interview with Robin Adams, 'Vn-A'Meory' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 466. 69Paul Virilio's interview with Louise Wilson, Tyberwar, God and Television: Interview with Paul Virilio', eds.Arthur and Marilouisc Krokcr, Oleory, (I 2h January,1994), accessed via hUD://www. cthcoiy,net/arficles. ast)x? id=62. 70Vlrilio, pure War, 70. 130

Suchconditions of speedand depletion lead to an 'absolutedeterritorialisation' and the 'automationof war' asspatial and temporal boundaries are challenged by the immediacy of technologicalprogress. In the process,speed promotes the virtual violenceof Cold War enmity,and reduces our powerto recognisethe influenceof theseinformation flows on our perceptionof globalrelations. To useBurroughs' term, each technological developmentcauses a changein the 'reality script', and in turn, in the composition of our consciousness.Virilio recognisesthis phenomenonin the following statement:

Epilepsy is little deathand picnolcpsy,tiny death.What is living, pi-csent;conscious, here is only SO becausethere's an infinity of little deaths,little accidents,little breaks,little cuts in the soundtrack,as William Burroughswould say, in the soundtrackand visual track of what's lived. And I think that's very interestingfor the analysesof the social, thecity, politics. Our vision is that of a montageof tcmýoralitics I which arc the product not only of the powersthat be, but of the technologiesthat organisetime.

Thebreaks and cuts in the soundtrackand visual track of lived experience,take on the qualityof the film montagebecause the contemporarysubject can only interpretevents throughthe audio-visualtechnologies ordering space and time. For Burroughs,methods of resistanceagainst this technocracytake the form of the cut-upand routines of narrativepotentiality, means of defianceunavailable to the political analystor cultural critic. However,the ingrainedinfluence of Burroughs'philosophy is evidentwithin Virilio's considerationof politics andtemporality, principally because the control mechanismsand viral systemsdictating Burroughs' fictional realmsand social projects providea convincingexplanation for the fragmentationof humanconsciousness, the loss inclusive of historicalnarratives and the collapseof total war into perpetual'pure war'. Burroughs'aforementioned theory of Cold War relationsas aspectsof a 'war game' planetreliant upon mutual adherence to the rulesof oppositionis alsoreflected here, primarily becauseVirilio concursthat the strategyof deterrenceinhibiting political warfarepropagates global economies based on the armsindustry and communications jeopardise that the fabric of history: 'History is on the level of the greatnarrative. I only believein the [ ] collage ... the greatnarrative of total war hascrumbled in favourof a fragmented 720ur war which doesn'tspeak its name'. 'terminal' statusis upheldvia

71 Ibid., 34. 72 Ibid., 36. 131 media technologiesand scientific developmentsthat both Burroughsand Virilio believe will draw us toward the ultimate break in the recordedreality: 'nuclear death'. This is the end of history, of 'societies, people,nations and cultures', and such a bleak vision can only emphasisethe parasitic partnershipof the East/Westimpasse: 'When you say East and West, it's already a dual function betweentwo different forms of empire, and 73 especiallybetween two empiresof which one is the other's student'. JeanBaudrillard has also identified this viral systemat work in his critique of the global techno-structure.Technologies become the central sourceof a 'virulent contamination' designedto ensnarethe postmodernsubject into an obscene'hyperreal' devoidof critical depthand resistance:

From the moment when the universal disappeared,an omnipotentglobal techno-structurehas been left to dominate [ I today's has alone ... global culture replaceduniversal concepts with screens,networks, immanence, depth [ I Better am violence, numbers,and a space-timecontinuum without any ... a global we should call it a global virulence. 'Mis form of violence is indeedviral. It movesby contagion,proceeds 74 by chain reaction,and little by little it destroysour immune systemsand our capacityto resist.

Theresult of this global 'virulence' is a technocraticinformation network that consumes the sensesand de-realises acts of violenceand war. The subjectis incapableof resisting this globalculture and so becomesenslaved by it. Whatboth Baudrillardand Burroughs areimplying with their viral networksis the latentpotential for randomdisorder to take hold of compoundsystems and instigate a total biological,nuclear and electronic collapse.For Baudrillard,this is a hopelessvision becausewe arecompletely subordinateto a chaosof our own making.In concurrencewith Virilio's nuclear criticism,Baudrillard feels that the war sceneis over becauseof the 'overpotentiality'of strategicweapons and the effacementof the realby 'obese'information systems. The Cold War hasset the scenefor this becausenuclear deterrence causes a permanent deferralof the actualevent. Catastrophe and breakdown are composites of the 'fatal strategy'of mediasaturation, a systemthat bindsthe subjectto the viral messagesit conveys.Therefore, the potentialfor technologicalbreakdown implicates the integrityof

73 Ibid., 162 74Jean Baudrillard, 'The Violence of the Global', tram. FrangoisDebrix, eds.Arthur and Nfarilouise Krokcr, Oheory, (May 2003), accessedvia httv://www. ctheoiy.nct/articlcs. ast)x? id=385. 132 the human subject.The end result of Baudrillard's global decline is the loss of historicity to the depthlessspace-time continuum of network existence:

In a sphereforeign to history, history itself can no longer reflect or prove itself. This is why we call on every previousepoch, every way of life, every mentality to historicin itself, to recountitself with proof documentsin hand [ I it is because feel that hasbeen invalidatedin and ... we all this our own sphere, which is that of the end of history."

The end of the historical meta-narrativehas implications for societalorganisation and subjectivity. The new forms of temporality instigated by this loss of coherenthistory force the subject into a stateof disorientation;whereby a breakdownin the signifying chain forces the individual to acceptthe multiplicity of inputs fed to them via the networkedtechno-structure. Therefore, the subjectcan only reasonwith a seriesof presenttemporalities due to the deteriorationof historicity. For Virilio and Baudrillard, this is a debilitating symptom of the trans-historical,trans-political, military- technological system.As a consequenceof our lack of critical and historical reasoning effective methodsof resistanceand opposition are unobtainable. On the contrary,Burroughs harnesses this multiplicity of inputsin Citiesas a meansto destroythe boundariesbetween temporalities, and initiate an escapeinto unchartedfictional realms.His fusionof styles,genres and historical periods attempts to liberatethe subjectby embracingthe disorientationand flux indicativeof the trans- historical,or postmodem,condition. Both Virilio andBaudrillard offer a bleakview of globalrelations based on virtual conflict andtoxic communications.Although Burroughsagrees with theseanalyses, and has influenced their productionto a certain extent,he is ableto createa fictional realmthat developsthese dystopian conditions into a meansfor political resistanceand transcendental escape. To conclude,then, we must considerthe fictional potentialsBurroughs uses to underminethe viral controlapparatus andreconfigure our relationshipwith narrativehistory.

75Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies,16. 133

Fictional Escapism

So far, the corruption, power strugglesand revolutionary potencyof Burroughs' fiction hasbeen investigated,with limited emphasison the transcendentalquest motivating theseareas of resistance.The 'Red Night' narrative initiates a terrifying vision of toxic global systems,game planet opposition, political conspiracyand bodily collapse.This vision is designedto reflect the physical and social degenerationof the Cold War control apparatus.However, Burroughs createsa liberating impulse within the devastation causedby this viral corruption, a physical and behaviouralimpulse beyondthe limits of social and biological containment.In Cities, the unusualsymptoms displayed by the patientsunder Dr. Pierson's care include ritualistic 'sexual frenzies' where the body succumbsto uncontrollable orgasmand the desireto enactscenes of erotically-charged strangulation.Rather than describethe symptomsof the B-23 virus simply in terms of cellular attack and bodily shut-down,the patientsare seento experiencea bizarre form of sexualand cerebralrelease which, ironically, emancipatesthe body from imposed behaviouralcontrol and containment.The 'virus power' is underminedfrom within by theseextreme demonstrations of sexual 'vampirism'. The symptomsof the B-23 virus permit the individual to expresscarnal pleasure,homoeroticism and uncappedhysteria at the moment of death.Therefore, the control systemdirecting this pandemicis subverted by the viral agent it has engineeredfor purposesof social regulation and ideological domination; an unfortunate oversight accordingto Pierson:

However, I questionthe wisdom of introducing Virus B-23 into contemporaryAmerica and Europe.Even though it n-flghtquiet the uh silent majority, who arc admittcdly becoming uh awkward, we must consider the biologic consequencesof exposinggenetic material alreadydamaged beyond repair to such an agent leaving a wake of unimaginablyunfavorable mutations all ravenouslyperpetrating their kind. (C: 33)

While the Nova virus achieveda relatively successfulcampaign of control over human actionsvia a systemof parasitismand replication, the various mutations altering the B- 23 virus have madeit an unstablemeans for conveying totalitarian power. As Pierson suggests,the Pickle Factory and its associatescannot anticipate or control the unfortunatemutations such exposurewould causeon the defective human specimen, particularly those inhabitantsof America and Europe. Furthermore,the biologic and 134 identity transfer experimentsfunded by Blum and Krup and the 'Pickle Factory' are also subjectto the samecounteractive treatment. Burroughs indicates the sinister possibilities presentedwithin the Pickle Factory's covert operations,when Clem Snide stumbleson the conspiracyplot behind the Greenmurder case.The result of the establishment's illegal activities is an attempt to achievea successfulidentity transfer,with obvious implications for surveillance,mind control and social conformity. While attemptingto assembleinformation on the whereaboutsof Jerry's body, Snideundertakes a strange ('sexmagic' ritual in which he invokes Jerry's spirit into the body of his assistant,an act of identity transferbased on supernaturalrather than scientific precepts:

At firstI thinkthe candles have flared up and then I seeJerry standing there naked, his body radiating light Thereis a skeletongrin on his face, which fades to theenigmatic smile on the statues of archaic Greekyouths and then he changes into Dimitri, with a quizzicalamused expression. (C. 78)

Eventually, Snide is forced to undertakea secondritual to free Jerry's soul from its bodily incarceration:'When I got back to the loft Jim was there, and I explainedthat we weregoing to performthis ritual to get Jerry'sspirit out. He nodded"Yeah he's half in andhalf out andit hurts" (C: 115).Burroughs' interest in astralprojection and fluid identitiesis reflectedin theserites andthe PickleFactory's unethical research. Whereas the controlmachinery attempt to harnessthese powers in a scenariostrikingly similarto that of the CIA mind controlexperiments and Soviet psychic research, Snide incorporatesthese supernatural abilities as a meansto createa higherlevel of consciousness.Burroughs challenges this dystopianvision of biologic engineeringand mind controlby usingit asthe basisfor an imaginativespace where the subjectis ableto escapethe confinesof the body, socialrestrictions and spatio-temporal parameters by takinga 'non-bodyroute' to new modesof being.When asked to give a summaryof Cities Burroughsreplied: 'the limitation imposedthrough biologic structureand the potentialfor transcendingthis throughbiologic change'.76He believed the human be in speciesto a permanentstate of transitionbecause of our apparent'fixation' with 'larval' the stagesof development:'I'm advancingthe theorythat we're not biologically

76 Burrougbs" 1981intervicw with Michael WMte, 'Astml Evolution' in Lotringer, Burroughs Live, 490. 135 designedto remain in our presentstate any more than the caterpillar.'77 By divorcing the body from prescribedlimitations, ihe individual is now free to explore new dimensions beyondbinary organisationand the 'security' of physiological and ideological containment.In contrastwith Cold War mind control initiatives, characteridentity is releasedinto interchangeableforms, and temporality subjectto flux under thesenew conditionsof fictional opportunity. The protagonistsin Cities are also able to reject the scientific knowledge monopoly supportingthe control network by internalising the utopian potential within de-centredidentity and non-linear history. This is demonstratedin the eighteenth- century pirate story introduced at the beginning of the novel, with a foreword taken from Don C. Seitz's Under the Black Flag (1925), aboutthe advantagesof the self-regulating separatistcolony founded by CaptainMission, off the MadagascarCoast. Burroughs' fascinationwith the historical colony known as 'Libertatia' predominantlyrelates to the rejection of centralisedpower in favour of the self-regulationdescribed in the 'Articles', a tender for harmoniousliving:

Ile Articlesstate, among other things: all decisionswith regardto the colonyto be submittedto voteby thecolonists; abolition of slaveryfor anyreason including debt; the abolition of the deathpenalty, and freedom.to follow anyreligious beliefs or practiceswithout sanction or molestation.(C: 10)

Thepirate colony based all socialinteraction around this egalitarianproposal, and declaredthemselves a republicindependent of otherforms of governance;hence Burroughsrecognised some revolutionary similarities between Mission's idealist social projectand his fictional all-malecounter-communities. In fact, Burroughsattributes the 'liberal principlesembodied in the Frenchand American revolutions and later in the liberalrevolutions of 1848'(C- 9) to the practicesof piratecommunities of the seventeenth-century.Burroughs' accounts of this communeare apocryphal in naturenot only becauseof his narrativeintervention, but becauseDaniel Defoe had written about CaptainMission in a quasi-historicalbook titled A GeneralHistory of the1ýffates. 79 Therefore,rather than adhere to sustainedhistorical accuracy on the subject,Burroughs

77Ibid., 490. 78 Daniel Defoe,A GeneralHistory ofthe P)rates, first published 1724, (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1999),383-418. 136 usesa mixture of recordedfact, popular pirate legendand fictional embellishmentas a meansto explorethe potential 'retroactive utopia' codified within this textual synthesis:

I cite this exampleof retroactiveutopia since it could havehappened in terms of the techniquesand human resourcesavailable at the time. Had CaptainMssion lived long enoughto set an examplefor othersto follow, mankindmight have steppedfree from the deadlyimpasse of insoluble problemsin which we now find ourselves.(C: 11)

As Burroughs intimates,Captain Mission's independentsociety lastedfor forty years, in spite of externalthreats from the French and the British, and muted hostility from the nativespopulating the island. Although Mission was eventually defeated,as far as Burroughsis concerned,the 'Articles' provide a successfulmodel for possible future revolutionary communities and resistancegroups. Thus, scenesfrom the past are reconfiguredinto a future 'possible world' of counter-culturaltriumph. This becomesa fictional realisationof the partisanresistance and social reconfiguration cited in Me Job andElectronic Revolution. The piratesworldng to expandthe colony and spreadtheir way of life to new territories by way of revolution and integration, resemblethe training academiesregarded by Burroughs to be the only way of escapefrom stateregulation and nuclearimpasse:

Who are we? We are migrantswho move from settlementto settlementin the vast areanow held by the Articulated.Ibcse voyagesoften last for years,and migrants may drop out along the way or adventurous settlersjoin the migrants.We carry with us seedsand plants,plans, books, pictures,and artifacts from the communeswe havevisited. (C.- 196)

Thesepirate 'migrants' have developedan all-inclusive leaming programmeon their voyages,akin to Burroughs' proposedtraining academies,with knowledge transfer and territorial expansionoccurring simultaneously.Burroughs' purposehere is to use the pirate story as a form of counter-narrativeto releasepast eventsfrom the manifestations of control entrenchedwithin written historical accounts.The possibilities he demonstratesin the past, can then becomea model for future social projects. Mission's experimentis viewed as a 'turning point' in history, 'an entirely different possibility for the Americaswhich didn't happen', an opportunity Burroughs capitaliseson becausehe seesa certain 'appeal' in 'going back and rewriting history from certain critical 137 junctures'.79A]though he demonstratesthis counter-historicalpotential with the isolated successesof an eighteenth-centuryresistance group, the ramificationsof this historical rewriteproject impact upon the controlapparatus dominating the plots androutines of the novelas a whole.By proposingnarrative potentiality in this way, Burroughsoffers a fictionalalternative for everyhistorical account and resonance interwoven in the fabric of the text. Ratherthan accept the statusquo of the Cold War controlnetwork insinuated in the novel'sillusory powerrelations, the readeris providedwith the meansto adopt the alternativehistories shaping Burroughs' 'retroactive' fictional possibility. This methodof reconstructinghistory through the alternativeontologies generatedby fiction is reflected in the unorthodox plot twists woven into all three narrative strands.We learn that Clem Snide has been employedto locate the written history of the six Cities of the Red Night. Ifis employers,the mysterious'Iguana Twins' provide him with a disjointed copy of the original Red Night text, and tell him that 'The only thing not prerecordedin a prerecordeduniverse are the prerecordingsthemselves. The copiescan repeatthemselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, scrambleit-it will reassemblein the sameform' (C. 151). Ratherthan undertakethe paradoxicaland somewhatfutile task of locating the prerecordedoriginal immersedin the confusionsof a 'prerecordeduniverse' Snide decidesto launch an 'operation rewrite' by forging his own version of the Red Night text; an action that mirrors Burroughs' counter-historicalassignment. Instead of taking inspiration from the cut-up by 9scrambling the associationallines' found in the original, Snide fabricatesa narrative history to replacethe existing fragments;thus he takes authorial control of the Red Night manuscriptand fulfils the Iguana Twins' grand design: 'I decidedto visit the art-supply store alone.What I wanted would be under the counter. Anyone handling that kind of paperand ink would be into art forgery, probably passportsand documentsas well' (C: 155). Oncehe has obtainedthe correct materials,Snide beginsto stagehis rewrite along the lines of cinematographicpastiche, mixing live-action photography,the shock of the 'snuff movie and pornographywith an amalgamof narrative styles and genres including a pirate story line and an 'Egyptian number'. Consequently,Snide's textual

79 Burroughs"1987 interview with Jim McMenamin & Larry McCaffrey, 'The Non-Body Route' in Wringer, BurroughsLive, 675. 138 experimentchallenges the boundariesbetween history and narrative creativity; thus openingan infinite spacefor performative possibility. Snide's scripting of the Red Night pamphletreiterates Burroughs' subversivetreatment of global power relations by demonstratingthe escapismengendered by narrative subjectivity. Both characterand authortake on the qualities of the fictional 'map maker', reconfiguring history to release a multiplicity of future potentials. Becausethese counter-historical narratives are able to confusethe boundaries betweenontological realms, it becomespossible for charactersto defy the rulesof historicallinearity and fixed identity.From his initial meetingwith the IguanaTwins, Snide'scontemporary pulp routinebecomes spliced with the RedNight narrativeand the piracydirected by CaptainNordenholz and Captain Strobe, Burroughs' versions of the CaptainMission figure. Plot developmentsbecome extremely disjointed from hereon, becausethe timelinespreviously maintained by the separatenarrative strands are intersectedto a bewilderingdegree. At this stagewe learnthat Blum andKrup have beenfinancing the IguanaTwins, and are therefore Snide's real retainers. Moreover, Blum andKrup's aforementionedclassified experimentation is extendedto encompass the launchof a 'communicationssatellite' and spacecraft. The mostprevalent temporal shift takesplace when the adventurouseighteenth-century pirates become the crewof this 'kooky spaceship',and Captain Nordenholz is revealedto be Krup in anotherguise. Althoughit becomesincreasingly difficult to penetratethe layersof conspiracyand intriguecirculating throughout the narrative,and there is no real senseof resolution engenderedin anyof theseinterrelated stories, this temporaland spatial intersection offersinstead a kind of perpetualre-working of characterand plot. The alternative ontologicalspaces bred by Burroughs'fictional imaginarybecome a liberatingbackdrop for the growthof performativeidentities and fluctuating historical events beyond the confinesof textualclosure. Thenovel's multifarious fictional potentials the Brian - exploit attributesof what McHalecalls the 'ontologicalinstability or indeterminacy"of a world devoidof fixed experience.This indeterminacycreates the conditionsfor a postmodemontology because 'this mayinclude a plurality of universes'including the 'possible'or even 139

fiction. 80As 'impossible' universesinstigated by the 'heterocosm', or 'universe apart' of McHale highlights: 'the oldest of the classicalontological themesin poetics is that of the othernessof the fictional world [and] its separationfrom the real world of experience'; however,through a processof literary mimesis, points of referencefrom the actual between world begin to enterthis separatefictional domain to createan 'overlap the heterocosmand the real'.81 It is this 'mythification' of the real that enablescounter- historical possibility in Cities of the Red Night, possibility that offers a meansof escape from prescribedcontrol and historical absolutism.The performative possibleworld, or 'zone', proposedin Cities also relatesto McHale's description of Michel Foucault's 'heterotopia', where 'the interpolation of a spurious spacebetween known spacesserves 82 hereas the openingwedge for a total assimilation of the known to the spurious'. This total assimilationof the real and the counterfeit, works, then, to defamiliarise accepted historiesin favour of an ontological landscapeof deconstruction,ambivalent opportunity and temporal flux. As far as McHale is concerned,Burroughs' fictional possibleworlds arespaces for:

overlappingsutjcctivitics, including shared fantasies and nightmares, which comes into beingwhenever his castof bohemiansand cosmopolitans convenes somewhere in (theDMZ demilitarizedzone) atmosphereof cafes.Burroughs' zone [... I is a vast,ramshackle structure in whichall the world's architecturalstyles arc fusedand all its racesand cultures mingle, the apotheosis of theThird World shantytown. Sometimes it is locatedin Latin Americaor North Affica, sometimesin a lost civilizationof thedistant Past 93

McHaleis critical of this mergerbetween the worlds of fantasyand nightmare and the interpolationbetween time andspace. He seesthese fictional realmsas limited in terms of their overallsuccess because they arefragmented and incomplete structures prone to the inconsistencyand flux of postmodernpandemonium:

Burroughs' fiction fails to function adequatelyas satirebecause of the radical instability of his fictional worlds. 'Me sme could be said of Burroughs' allegory: if the intention was to producean unequivocal allegory of the strugglebetween the control principle and principles of liberty and pleasure,then

goBrian McHale, PostmodernistFlcfion, (London: Routledge,1991), 26. 81Ibid., 28. 2 Ibid., 46. 3 Jbidý'44. 140

Burroughshas failed for the instability of his world blocks our efforts to establishan integratedallegorical interpretation.94

McHale's assessmentof theseworlds as half-formed, continuously developing compositionsis just; howeverBurroughs did not view the resulting lack of establishment and resolution as disadvantageousto his narrative mission. By creatingthese intersecting zonesof heterogeneityand contrastingstyles as a meansfor exploring counter-historical potentials,Burroughs rejects and excludescontemporary conflict and control in favour of unchartedand uncultivatednarrative alternatives.Therefore, the 'overlapping subjectivities' containedwithin his narrativesof possibility incorporatea fusion of culturesand historical periods in order to insinuate new and unrestricted social configurations.This heterogeneityalso signifies Burroughs' exploitation of the multiplicity of inputs and lack of fixity indicative of the military-industrial age. As I have demonstrated,Paul Virilio and JeanBaudrillard have focusedtheir analysesof the ColdWar socio-politicalclimate on the subjectivedisorientation and historical deteriorationresulting from military-technologicalenhancement. Burroughs uses these conditionsof indeterminacyas the basisfor a revolutionarynarrative counterforce of possibility.His textualresistance of viral controlsystems, use of 'guerrilla semiotics' and'game planet' philosophy has proven influential in the developmentof Virilio and Baudrillard'spolitical analysisduring the 1980s.However, the 'Red Night' narratives usethese germs of political enquiryand textual resistance in the creationof the limitless fictional spacesdescribed by McHaleas 'heterotopia[n]'in nature.These spaces are designed to initiatean escapefrom viral controland nuclear impasse altogether. Consequently, Burroughs'writing projectsand personal philosophy engenders a level of performativeresistance and escapism otherwise not availableto thoseengaging in Cold War criticism.By acceptingthe futility of gameplanet opposition, Burroughs considers into an escape 'retroactive'fictional possibilityas the only recourseleft available.The historical instabilityand loss of fixed subjectivityengendered by Cold War techno- scientificinnovations provides the foundationand technical means for Burroughs' uninhibitedand borderless narrative spaces; thus Cold War impasseis transformedinto the springboardfor transcendentalmodes of beingand social [flevolution.

94Ibid., 143. 141

Now that I have establishedBurroughs' narrative resistanceagainst Cold War gameplanet hostility and viral control as a perpetually evolving mission, it is important to addresshow the remaining novels of the trilogy developexisting methodsof deflance. In Cities, Burroughsproposes his fictional zonesof possibility as portals for revolutionary counterforceand escape.Furthermore, he begins to incorporatethe nuclear and biological interestsof the military-industrial complex as the basis for a subjective releasefrom social controls and identity constraints.In this sense,the techno-scientific methodsof the control machinerybecome involuntary aspectsof Burroughs' performativebodily release.The novel provides little in the way of narrative closure and resolution,with the main narrative strandsconverging and merging into one anotherto initiate an infinite chain of narrativepotentiality. Consequently,the central themes, counter-communitiesand methodsof resistanceintroduced in Cities are reconfigured and expandedin YhePlace ofDead Roads(1983) and Yhe WesternLands (1987) to instigate a biotechnologicalquest for posthumandevelopment and planetary escape.The following chapter,then, will examinehow theseremaining novels draw on Cold War techno-scientificresearch and innovation to achievethis utopian transcendentalism.