Running with scissors: If you feel lonely, you need to vent, no matter who gets hurt

Author: (USA) Burroughs
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: Running with Scissors—It is a hint, a symbol. It is also a metaphor, a typical American metaphor, with an underlying message: Are you in pain? Are you lonely? Then vent without hesitation! With scissors in hand, they run wild, regardless of who they hurt. All lonely souls crave to vent but fear to do so. The brave among them should grasp the scissors and run, run, run; they should run headfirst, with wind at their sides, screaming and roaring, eyes bloodshot, like wild beasts! The characters in this book are such scissors-holders. They endure different forms of loneliness and confusion, varying degrees of loss and bewilderment. Among them are a psychiatrist who is mad and eccentric, with a strange family and patients; a "homosexual" poet full of fantasies, a famous professor who drinks excessively and is perpetually melancholic; a gay man living with others, a middle-aged woman who likes dog food and is rigidly conservative; a young girl who lives with an aging tennis player for money and what she calls love; a feminist who worships her father as a god, an absolute one; and the author of this book—a ordinary boy with a homosexual inclination, yearning for freedom but forced to endure various trials. All these characters share a common trait: longing for understanding due to emotional loneliness, dreaming of freedom due to life's oppression, and yearning for light due to a dim future. No matter what price one pays, it is essential to break free from the state of emotional and spiritual loneliness as early as possible. This is the core theme of the book.