William S. Burroughs, Michel Serres, and the Word Parasite

The bit of noise, the small random element, transforms one system or one order into another. To reduce this otherness to contradiction is to reduce everything to violence and war. Michel SerresMuch critical work has been devoted to William S. Burroughs's characterization of language as a parasitic entity, a word virus, which infiltrates, feeds upon, and otherwise victimizes its human hosts. The word virus and its many derivations e.g. the Other Half, Genial, the Death Dwarves provide a recurring motif throughout four of Burroughs's early novels: Naked Lunch (1959) The Soft Machine (1961, 1966) The Ticket that Exploded (1962, 1967) and Nova Express (1964) Critical consensus maintains that the word virus functions as a mechanism for the oppression of human subjects, and is usually employed by malevolent, often alien, bureaucratic organizations such as the operators of the Trak Reservation, the Garden of Delights, and the Ovens of Minraud, all of which might be subdivisions of the Nova Mob. Robin Lydenberg, for example, explains, "Beneath the specific abuses of politics, science, or personal relations, Burroughs traces this cutting edge of domination and control to its insidious origin in language" (30) And Jennie Skerl notes, "The Word virus controls our concept of reality and imposes a dualism that makes it impossible to change reality" (60) Although these critics often recognize that Burroughs employs experimental techniques to subvert the control mechanisms of the word virus by, as Allen Hibbard writes, "putting words together in new combinations and disseminating them as a sort of inoculation or counter virus" (15) they do not address the potential for using parasitic language to effect positive change in the human host. In order to see beyond the destructive qualities of the word virus, different conceptions of parasitism as well as subjectivity must be applied. Posthuman theory offers concepts necessary to understanding the transformative potential of the word virus. The work of Michel Serres is particularly useful for reassessing the parasitic functions of the word virus.Posthuman theory, as I have written elsewhere, investigates the question of "what remains or arises after the dissolution of the liberal humanist subject" (14) The posthuman subject abandons liberal humanism's autonomy and agency for multiplicity, fluidity, and interconnection, which are qualities notably found in Burroughs's characters. From its beginnings, posthumanism has been aligned with second order systems theory and, thus, "sees the human as embedded within an environment, an instantiation of a series of information exchanges, transfers of data and feedback mechanisms" (Nayar 35) The human subject, in other words, is regarded as an interdependent, and indeed co evolving, system among other systems, including communication systems such as language.Recently, Cary Wolfe has offered a reassessment of Serres's philosophical work The Parasite (1980) as a seminal work of posthuman theory. Wolfe's introduction, "Bring the Noise: The Parasite and the Multiple Genealogies of Posthumanism," focuses attention on the parasite 's role as noise that interrupts the flow of information through a system and, subsequently, allows for the autopoiesis, or self reorganization of the system. As Wolfe explains, "[N]oise, the event, constantly forces temporarily homeostatic systems of interaction to reconstitute and reorganize themselves" (xv) The parasite's disruptions, then, do not simply subvert or oppose the structure of the system, but also constitute a necessary event in a process of reconfiguration and renewal of the system. Viewed as posthuman theory, The Parasite offers a lens through which Burroughs's parasitical language virus may also be seen as a positive, even revolutionary, agent in Burroughs's project, which aims not only to subvert the control structures of language, but also to effect changes in human subjects through language.