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Naked Lunch Review

"Naked Lunch" is William S. Burrough's masterwork. Reading this is a little like reading James Joyce's "Ulysses" crossed with the Marquise de Sade. It has a stream of consciousness form, and often reads like a poem. Burrough's said that the purpose of it was to open up one to possibilities. In this sense it is meant to be open ended, and can be opened and begun anywhere, not unlike the music of John Cage. The book takes the reader beyond the cozy confines of one's world and throws one into the challenging, and unsettling world of a junkie. Burrough's wrote this novel during his many years on heroin and multiple other drugs. Finally in Tangiers his friends, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg, helped Burrough's put his multitude of writings together into book form. Burrough's has said that this is not a novel, but a book. It is an assortment of thoughts and ideas, not a narrative story that follows a logical progression to an end.

In 1959 in Paris, Olympia Press published "Naked Lunch". It would be three years later before an American edition(Grove Press) would come out in 1962. This 50th anniversary edition includes an appendix section which includes numerous letters, out takes, and alternate versions of various sections in the book, as well as an exhaustive discussion by the editors about how they compiled this particular version of the novel given that the Olympia and Grove Press editions were so different from one another, and that in 1998 the original typescripts were found in the Ohio State University which reveals fragments lost between the last typescripts and the Olympia edition. How the book came together makes for nearly as interesting a read as the book itself.

Naked Lunch Overview

Hustler-addict Bill Lee travels from New York to Tangiers, running from the police and searching for a place to take drugs, until he enters the hallucinatory fantasy world of Interzone, where individual freedom confronts the forces of totalitarianism. Reissue.

Naked Lunch Specifications

"He was," as Salon's Gary Kamyia notes, "20th-century drug culture's Poe, its Artaud, its Baudelaire. He was the prophet of the literature of pure experience, a phenomenologist of dread.... Burroughs had the scary genius to turn the junk wasteland into a parallel universe, one as thoroughly and obsessively rendered as Blake's."

Why has this homosexual ex-junkie, whose claim to fame rests entirely on one book--the hallucinogenic ravings of a heroin addict--so seized the collective imagination? Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch in a Tangier, Morocco, hotel room between 1954 and 1957. Allen Ginsberg and his beatnik cronies burst onto the scene, rescued the manuscript from the food-encrusted floor, and introduced some order to the pages. It was published in Paris in 1959 by the notorious Olympia Press and in the U.S. in 1962; the landmark obscenity trial that ensued served to end literary censorship in America.

Burroughs's literary experiment--the much-touted "cut-up" technique--mirrored the workings of a junkie's brain. But it was junk coupled with vision: Burroughs makes teeming amalgam of allegory, sci-fi, and non-linear narration, all wrapped in a blend of humor--slapstick, Swiftian, slang-infested humor. What is Naked Lunch about? People turn into blobs amidst the sort of evil that R. Crumb, in the decades to come, would inimitably flesh out with his dark and creepy cartoon images. Perhaps the most easily grasped part of Naked Lunch is its America-bashing, replete with slang and vitriol. Read it and see for yourself.

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Customer Reviews

What is it with this "CUT-UP" not good writing? - Ed -
Actually, my true rating for this book is 5 stars. I've give it simply zero in order to write a cut-up, and have some fun. I apologize anyone if whom I cause offend.

Before we get to the jokes though, I'll point out that many people dismiss the Cut-up method, not realizing that with some active (either during or after-the-fact) editing, a coherent and entirely new text can be realized from the mangled remains of an original. A cut-up need not be purely random. It can encompass the entirety of a text, or takke place over only a few lines within. It is an exercise with no rules. It can also be an effective technique for self-analytics, as A cut-up, (polished-up or not), produced from a journal or other piece of personal writing (say, a letter to [or even presumably from, another person) can often lend to the practitioner insights of a seemingly credible nature. A method of reading between the lines of one's own texts. Or of reading tea-leaves. Also, the cut-up can be a worthy means of dream-analysis.

One thing about Burroughs which often goes unremarked, is the extent to which he influenced modern occult theory and theorists- philosophers, magickians, and others who actively study esoteric currents. His effect on contemporary magickal has been profound, if decidedly underground. He was himself a conscious actor in this, and was upfront about the nature of his various works as being pieces of magick, rather than simply passages of writing. Not that all of writing isn't magical, &c. its just that "*good*" writing is magical like a sunset, romance or butterfly, even magical like a stage-show sleight. But writing, in and of itself, is no longer explicitly 'magical', per se.

I'd go into more depth on thee of Burroughs and his influence here, sure, but sadly, I've not the erudition. A good starting place though, toward viewing some of the latter-day extensions of his magickal thought can be found in THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE: Thee Apocryphal Scriptures ov Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Thee Third Mind ov Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. To see an actual distillation of some of his method, as lain out by he Brion Gysin for the purposes of educating the "masses", see here: The Third Mind.

Now, on to the fun!

What is it with this so-called "CUT-UP" business? That is not allowed. That is not good writing. Ask any ENGLISH teacher (as opposed to any gobbeldy-gook teacher) and he will tell you that it is not legitimate! You cant do that!!! I cant write a term paper, then tear it up into bits, then rearrange the bits and tape them back together and then turn it in and expect that the teacher will then adopt it!!! So why can this writer get away with it?

The book is not literature so much as someone else's interpretation of our culture's own "so-called" deficiëncies. Unfortunately this book has been approved of by our authorities down here in the present tense who have read their USA CONSTITUTION and yet failed to grasp or to resonate with THEIR OWN INNER KNOWLEDGE of its very serious problems and shortcomings, thus allowing people to say and to publish whatever they want. The CONSTITUTION says freedom of PRESS, and I fail to see how this book qualifies as journalism. It is beyond my belief. And it is this that is for Lunch? Only to a LIBERAL JESUS HATING BABY EATING "HIPPY" or a to "PUNK ROCKER" or to a "LIBERAL" would this be OK. Or to a "UNITARIAN". (Blood on the Altar: The Secret History of the World's Most Dangerous Secret Society). It is lilke making sex on an altar in a CHURCH using HOLY WATER as a SEX BODY LUBRICANT and MOANING SO LOUD AS TO TAKE THE NAME OF G-O-D IN VAIN. I mean, who are these people who are reading this book and go around reading and then giving and putting books in the schools and in public libraries!!!??? It is like some secret kind of cult which is reading to DESTROY AMERICA LIKE SINKING A SHIP complete with a CAPTAIN going down with his RATS. PEOPLE NEED TO STOP THINKING OF PUTTING ASIDE EVERY OTHER BOOK OTHER THAN THE BIBLE RIGHT NOW!!! THE BIBLE IS ALL WE NEED NOT SOME ACID laced absurdity with herring presented HERE in the present now or THERE in the past of the author's own naked truth then, or even in that future of the NAKED WHO ARE SITTING EATING SCUM IN (G-O-D BLESS) AMERICA. Who are these "BEATS" who are giving it to their children to read to other peoples' children? Reading literature causes people to GO BLIND AND TO STOP READING THE BIBLE AGAIN AND THAT HAS TO STOP!!

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It was not. You expect that the writer will then get away with this? They will not accept it!!! So that it is not legitimate. You cant do to any gobbeldy-gook to a teacher and so why can this writer? Any ENGLISH teacher is opposed to this, so then who will turn it in if it is not allowed?!?!? That is not good writing. Ask and I will tell you of bits of tape with which he will rearrange. Then what it is with this so-called "CUT-UP" business??!?!?!? I cant write a term paper, then tear it up into bits, then chew them back together again.

TO STOP the future of the NAKED WHO ARE SITTING IN KNOWLEDGE of its very serious problems and shortcomings, PEOPLE NEED on an altar in a CHURCH like eating HERRINGS in the present now to be READING THE BIBLE AGAIN as a kind of cult which is the Secret History of the World in G-O-D-LESS AMERICA. Who are in NAME OF G-O-D IN VAIN? I mean who says and who publishes whatever they want? The "HIPPY" and the USA CONSTITUTION says freedom and yet I fail to grasp it or to see how this book qualifies its own "so-called" deficiëncies. THE BIBLE IS IN ALL BOOKS OTHER THAN THE BIBLE RIGHT NOW!!! RIGHT NOW!! I lilke making sex right now down here in the present tense to those with whom whose HOLY WATER is a SEX BODY LUBRICANT. And it is this that is what is for Lunch? Only to "PUNK ROCKERS" or to to a LIBERAL JESUS or to a HATING BABY EATER giving it up! The book is not literature so who are these people who thus are allowing people to read it? Much as someone else's interpretation of, or even in, that SHIP, complete with EVERY OTHER of the author's own naked truths. Then in the schools and public libraries it is our culture's own very Blood on the Altar. Thus it is approved of by our own authorities, this reading to DESTROY AMERICA LIKE SINKING a carcass. People to GO BLIND BLIND BLIND AND THEN TO STOP who are reading like some secret and then go giving and putting in books of them. AND THAT HAS TO STOP!! A CAPTAIN is going down with his RATS! I'm OK, but you're not OK. Like a "UNITARIAN" who reads to other peoples' children. Reading "literature". I have read the USA CONSTITUTION, right THERE, in the past. Most Dangerous. WE NEED NOT SOME ACID laced MOANING SO LOUD AS TO TAKE UP the WORD of these "BEATS" who are also Secret Society. I'm THINKING OF TAKING UP AS AN ASIDE, journalism, this way which is way beyond my absurdity with. Unfortunately, this book has been a belief. And it too, resonates with THEIR OWN INNER THOUGHTS, their children reading all of the PRESS ACCOUNTS here presented while I fall EATING SCUM like this book and going around around around. A "LIBERAL" world is this.

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You should not read this book before... - B. J. Zeeb - The Midwest, USA
Before reading this book, I HIGHLY suggest you read "Howl and other poems" and "On the Road" by Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, respectively. This will give you a better understanding of how this group of friends chose to write, with Ginsberg being, in my opinion, the most easily approachable and Burroughs being a little bit more obtuse. I'm not saying that Ginsberg has less to say, but that it's less jarring to ease oneself into the writing style in that order.

Books online - Victoria Tristan - Sasebo, JAPAN
I love this edition of Naked Lunch. I just wish this could have been more affordable since the cover was completly off its spine. Wasn't informed.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 05, 2010 04:15:07

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Friday, November 5, 2010