The Soft Machine is a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961, two years after his groundbreaking Naked Lunch. It was originally composed using the cut-up and fold-in techniques from manuscripts belonging to The Word Hoard. It is part of The Nova Trilogy. The title The Soft Machine is a name for the human body, and the main theme of the book concerns how control mechanisms invade the body. The book is written in a style close to that of Naked Lunch, though now using the cut-up method. After the main material follow three appendices, the first explaining the title and two... accounts of Burroughs' own drug abuse and treatment using apomorphine. Here Burroughs clearly states that he considers drug abuse a metabolic disease and writes about how he finally escaped it. The main plot appears in linear prose in chapter VII, The Mayan Caper. This chapter portrays a secret agent who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using "U.T." .
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