THE TICKET THAT EXPLODED by William S. Burroughs. 217 pages. Grove Press. $5.
The works of William Burroughs (Naked Lunch, Nova Express) have been taken seriously, even solemnly, by some literary types, including Mary McCarthy and Norman Mailer. Actually, Burroughs' work adds up to the world's pluperfect put-on. The publisher's blurb on the dust jacket attempts to legitimize his latest effusion thus: "Through winds of time, in strange beds, past silent obsidian temples, William Burroughs once again shuttles us back and forth between lunar worlds and the wired electric maze of the city....