The Soft Machine (literary analysis)

'''Porush, David. The Soft Machine.''' New York: Methuen, 1985.

On the "cybernetic fiction" of K. Vonnegut (esp. Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan), William Burroughs (primarily The Soft Machine and The Ticket that Exploded), T. Pynchon, J. Barth (primarily Giles Goat-Boy), Samuel Becket (The Lost Ones), J. McElroy (primarily Plus), and Donald Barthelme ("The Explanation"); also covers the "positivistic" work of Raymond Roussel (Locus Solus [1914] and its "paving beetle" art machine) and—very usefully—the philosophical, scientific, and general cultural background for postmodern literature. Rev. W. D. Stevens, FR #83 (Sept. 1985): 30.