Though often associated with the Beats, Gysin, English by birth and Canadian by upbringing, was an idiosyncratic and restless spiritual wanderer, a jack-of-all trades who made innovative contributions to poetry, prose and the visual arts with his inventions such as the cut-up (employed most famously by William Burroughs) and the "Dreammachine," the first art work that one viewed with the eyes closed. (Though it never caught on, Kurt Cobain, among other celebrities, owned one.) But Gysin was never one to exploit his works for prestige or financial gain, and he took such pains with projects like his second, and last, novel, a chronicling of the Beat Hotel (the Paris flophouse they frequented) called The Last Museum, generously excerpted here, that it only appeared posthumously in 1986. This volume contains poems, songs (many have been set to music by saxophonist Steve Lacy), Gysin's screenplay based on Naked Lunch, incidental pieces like his introduction to a cookbook by the Moroccan painter Hamri, aesthetic statements, 18 illustrations, and short stories about his life in Morocco that are rendered piquant by the tones of intrigue and the comfortable proximity Gysin had to Morocco's Muslim culture, back before it became a rite of passage for Beatnik wannabes. This is a valuable book that makes accessible an artist too long considered a cult-eccentric, arguing for an engagement with life in which one grasps constantly for the spiritual in art in a time when frontiers—in time, space, and formal experiment—lured with their promise of adventure. (Jan.)
Forecast: This release fills a crucial gap in the historical record, and should do well on campus as it gets adopted for 20th-century art and lit courses. But it will also attract a broad range of literary readers who have heard of Gysin via Burroughs or Ginsberg but have never seen the work. A good bet for prominent stacking.
