Comments on: The Lost Boys

By: Jim Pennington

Jim Pennington — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 21:13:31 +0000

That is good of you to enter this Reality Studio world…. I hope you can tell us more of Ian. His death was a tragic loss.

By: Anne Davison (nee Sommerville )

Anne Davison (nee Sommerville ) — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 16:17:11 +0000

Ian Sommerville was my cousin he was 2months older than me our fathers were brothers . As children we were brought up together .

By: Barry Miles

Barry Miles — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 10:44:50 +0000

Susan Janssen was by no means the first woman that Ian had sex with, despite Bill Levy’s claim to the contrary. Ian had several woman friends with whom he had sexual relations in Tangier in 1964, and had a sexual relationship with Panna Grady in 1967 in London – she claimed he was very good in bed – and Felicity Mason once told me that although she had not had sex with him, she knew of several other woman who had.
Brion told me that he had described the article to Ian over the telephone and had read parts of it to him. How he saw it the day before publication I don’t know but there was no reason for Brion to make this up. Burroughs was convinced that Bill Levy was responsible for Ian’s death, and the very mention of Levy’s name provoked a quite extreme reaction in him.

By: Johnny Strike

Johnny Strike — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 22:48:45 +0000

Nice post JP.

“…And The Grey Gentlemen always leave their card.”

By: Jim Pennington

Jim Pennington — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:39:30 +0000

John Geiger, in his life of Brion Gysin “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted” , says Gysin thought perhaps suicide had occured because Sommerville was upset when Gysin told him of the Fanatic article in a telephone call the day before. This is also documented in ‘Literary Outlaw’.(How Gysin knew of the article prior to its official publication date is not mentioned but it is doubtful the magazine was so swathed in embargoed secrecy that the story could not have already done a few rounds.) The fatal crash in Morgan’s account involved another car so distraction was more likely to be the cause than a suicidal intent. Wikipedia cites Geiger’s p90 in Chapel of Extreme Experience, that it was “a single-car accident due to inexperience.” Since this comment pre-dates his “Life of Gysin” it may well be that the letters he footnotes in the later book gave him more perspective on the tragedy.

And a tragedy it certainly was. Not helped in its contemplation by Ugly-Spirited remarks. (Geiger himself uses the term mean-spirited when talking about the Fanatic article.)

BTW: Everything is Nothing, Truth is Permitted.

By: davee_mac

davee_mac — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:59:18 +0000

^
Bill Levy, one error surely doesn’t render the rest of the piece unworthy?

Is anyone else having problems with not getting the illustrations in posts here? (just my OS possibly?)

I look forward to the whole book, have only skimread this exceprt

By: William 'Bill' Levy

William 'Bill' Levy — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:11:08 +0000

Correction: BTW. Ian Sommerville suicided himself 5 February 1976, on William Burroughs’ 62nd (not 60th) birthday, having never seen The Fanatic which was was published in Amsterdam on 5 February 1976. Anyone so out of touch with crucial dates and unable to do elementary arithmetic most likely is simply wrong about everything else. Sloppy work. What a laff. No magic here.

-William ‘Bill’ Levy

By: Johnny Strike

Johnny Strike — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:45:08 +0000

Terrific piece! And I’ve never seen that photo of Burroughs before. I’m really looking forward to reading the book.