The Process

by Brion Gysin

Book Overview

Ulys O. Hanson, an African-American professor of the History of Slavery, who is in North Africa on a mysterious foundation grant, sets off across the Sahara on a series of wild adventures. He first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879512776
• ISBN13: 9780879512774
• Release Date: July 1987
• Publisher: Overlook Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

"The only man I ever respected..."

+ That's what William S. Burroughs called Brion Gysin, and that's high-praise indeed from L'Hombre Invisible. Known primarily--if known at all--as a graphic artist, Gysin, in *The Process,* proves himself to be one heck of a talented writer, as well. + *The Process* is a rambling, breezy, keef-laced, picaresque tale ostensibly centered on a black professor self-exiled in the Middle East where he seeks...well, exactly what he seeks isn't exactly clear. Truth, power, wealth, immortality, the ancient mysteries, the meaning of life--a continuing source of the best dope...or perhaps all of the above. + Hanson isn't exactly sure what he seeks, but he senses it is to be found in the great Sahara desert, where the spirit of Ghoul devours everything. A cast of characters, each more eccentric than the last, are searching the desert, too, and as their paths cross and re-cross, the *The Process* takes on the tangled complexity of a hairball. + That seems to suit Gysin's purposes just fine and if a reader isn't looking for easy answers or a story with nicely dovetailing subplots and no loose ends, it'll suit him, too. Gysin is a seemingly limitless generator of ideas, and so is his novel. There is something of the "shaggy dog story" about the *The Process,* or, perhaps, under the circumstances, it would be more appropriate to call it a 1001 Arabian Nights sensibility. The story goes on for the sake of its telling, because to keep talking is to keep entertaining; to keep communicating is to keep teaching; it is to keep trying to say what is perhaps ultimately unspeakable. The story, like life, continues because what is the alternative? + Gysin had an enormous influence on William S. Burroughs and many of Burroughs preoccupations can be seen in this novel. No doubt the two men cross-fertilized each other's imagination, but it is Gysin who Burroughs credits with the cut-up technique, the experiments with tape recorders, the idea that writing should be more like painting. Gysin was an artist's artist--better known an influence on other artists than he was for his own art. That's a shame and may, in part, be due to the fact that he spread his considerable talent over a wide-range of pursuits. + As a result, this novel, is not nearly as appreciated as it deserves to be. While written in the 60s, *The Process* hardly seems dated at all; in fact, some forty years after it's initial publication it's focus on the Arab world and the visionary aspects of Middle Eastern life seems more prescient and more relevant than ever. + Wry, philosophical, macabre, raunchy, surreal, madcap, and a lot of other things besides, *The Process* is a wild and unhinged piece of storytelling that can make you laugh, make you think, and make you turn pages. It's a wonderful, thought-provoking ride with many points of interest--to nowhere in particular.

"You may not pass this way again in a lifetime..."

Brion Gysin's book of drugs, magic and the Desert is part fantasy, part memoir, and part guidebook. The reader may find it mystifying and confusing at first read, and it's certainly not a straightfoward story in the conventional sense. There are many twists in this fictional tale of Ulys O. Hanson of Ithaca College, not the least of which is the thinly-veiled life story of Gysin himself as he discovers and embraces the music and culture of the Sahara. "The Process" is a book about journeys, and of becoming, with the Desert serving as Gysin's grand metaphor. The novel itself moves from west to east -- it begins with a quote from Shakespeare and ends with an epilogue from Kashf Ul-Haqa'iq, a 13th-century Persian mystic. The story also gains centifugal force as it spins around the rituals and music of Morocco's master musicians of Jajouka. Late in the novel Gysin/Hanson speaks it plainly: "You see what I'm getting at, don't you? We are, all of us here, in an extreme situation -- between birth and death, you agree?" Seldom does a novel put the life force itself at center-stage. The book is full of secrets (in one aspect its Gysin's own diary of actual people and events) but it is also a manual filled with answers. The novel is indeed trippy, but in the grandest sense; and like life itself "The Process" is full of marvellous confusion, contradiction and not a little pain. The promise of Othello's "round unvarnished tale," at the novel's beginning, gives way to Ul-Haqa'iq's "unveiling of realities." At journey's end, of course, there is always the question all of us will face: "Why were you in such a hurry to get here, when the Desert gets us all in the end?" Highly recommended.

The Process of Making Things Happen.

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak, such was the process... -Shakespeare.This quote (partial) above is by way of Gysin's introduction to THE PROCESS---like all Gysin's works, greatly underrated, unacknowledged, and ignored, perhaps because of their metaphysical Occult ("hidden and rejected knowledge") origins periously perched as they are on the edge of an exquisitely unique literary absurdity difficult to comprehend without submitting to detailed, in-depth investigation. In other words, he deceptively appears an only half-sincere, sarcastic author writing pulp aimed at comic entertainment alone, when in fact his works (entire) upon further investigation reveal profound esoteric depths much like a Franz Kafka or Philip K. Dick. For a long while I have hoped for what will really be a first time proper evaluation of his masterful works; I can think of no author more deserving of a much-needed critical biography, and probably many will soon be produced. Of the brilliant novel THE PROCESS: The protagonist is Gysin himself, who appears in different colored skin due to the fact Brion suffered from what he called: "bad packaging!" It takes a lifetime to cross the desert and a childhood to do so at its narrowest point, explains one of the many mystical charcaters inhabiting the novel, whose names, like the lady "MAYA" ( literally sanskrit for "illusion") oftentimes reveal their signifigance. Gysin knew the sahara well, spending a good deal of his life in it, centered around expatriate Tangiers, where he owned and operated a resturant well reputed called "The 1001 Nights". The house musicians were none other than THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA, whom Brion discovered in the "land of the little people" tucked far into the hills, and whom WSB called a "2000year old rock-n-roll band!" The 1001 Nights closed down directly due, Gysin feels (with firm evidence/proof) of Black Magic of a typically North African cursive. Celebrated in THE PROCESS in a masterful narrative sequence is the yearly Ritual celebration involving the Great God Pan in the form of a man placed inside the actual skin of a recently sacraficed goat, who chases the Moroccan women about in a rite dating back to antiquity recalling the bacchanalia and Dionysian Rites and all Pagan fertility rites, still practised yearly with great festivity in Morocco. The novel is, as WSB said of his own work, and's wholly applicable also to Gysin's ( whose influence and sway over WSB is immense, as WSB enthusiastically acknowledges)one where: "EVERY LINE IS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FACT AND EVERY LINE IS BULLS**T!" "WRITING IS SUCCESSFUL WHEN IT MAKES THINGS HAPPEN!"---According to both Brion Gysin and William Seward Burroughs, this is the The supreme definition of "successful writing" as well as of "Magick". THE PROCESS, Brion Gysin's novel published first in 1969 was long involved in t

Mektoub

Mektoub - It is written, and written well. a journey - thee desert thee initiation of thee soul are one * * * thru thee long dry desert ov this that some would call life and others a death, and yet others still would say is just a rotten place to pass right on through. I came with nothing, and that is how I will leave. (except for maybe my clay pipe) thee beauty in these words is enough to inspire a soul...enough to not dip hir fingers into thee river lethe..at least, for a while. Let's not be tooooo hopeful. This is a rarity on many levels...even delving into personal information about cult-addict and famous dietician from Theta - L. Ron Hubbard...not to mention *secrets* of thee Dietician Church magickal system. A veritable treasure trove of History & thee Present mixing into a psychedelic cocktail. buy it!93 93/93

The Process

An interesting book that uses wide horizons. Gysin filled it with allusion, hints and tricks. It's words seem to be carefully placed. It was designed, apparently, to read the reader. It might be more than a novel or it might not. The Process is stylish, clever and possibly very important. I felt that the haze created was frustrating and entertaining, I wanted more details.