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TONY TANNER
their experience of the impact of agencies they cannot confidently
define. Burroughs' "silence" may then have another aspect- not only
an act of defense and self-preservation, but also a recognition of
mystery. In Wittgenstein's words: "What one cannot speak about one
must pass over in silence." But surely the greatest writers have always
striven to find the exact, the necessary words: not the words that
imprison, but the words that liberate.
