Naked Lunch

so i recently recommended this book to a dear friend who despises it.

Question: Is it genius or pure crap?

Personally, I vote for crap. It took me over two weeks to read it, just because I couldn't stand more than three pages at a time.

Maybe I'm way off-base here, but I didn't like it at all.

Any book written under the influence of apparently every major hallucinogen known to humankind needs to be taken with an industrial-sized grain of salt. I love listening to Burroughs read from it, though; the man was a completely unique character in every way. And the movie was pretty cool too.

Never read it, but Steely Dan found their name in this book. Anyone care to share?

hi

[Edited on Sep 21, 2003 by nobodaddy]

edit: tons of errors


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triple post - i'm a dick

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Actually it was every opium derivative, with some cocaine and miscellany thrown in.
Its an interesting document from inside addiction. Trainspotting was pretty mild by comparison.

I can think of at least two things wrong with the title.

Naked Lunch is an awesome book and an ok movie (even though they're not strictly related). Anyone who doubts it's genius should check out the section where Doctor Benway uses bullfighting terms to describe surgery as an art.
Also, to be more specific, this book wasn't written under the influence of hallucinogens, it's just what William Burroughs did during his more lucid moments in a long period of heroin use. When Jack Kerouac traveled to Tangiers to try and put Burroughs back together again, they started to assemble his random one or two page writings into what became Naked Lunch.

eecummings said:
Actually it was every opium derivative, with some cocaine and miscellany thrown in.

Yep, you're right. I get my illicit substances mixed up all the time.

themadking said:
I can think of at least two things wrong with the title.

One of my favorite Simpsons quotes! Good one, dude.

This is what I wanted to point out as well. The book wasn't written under the use of drugs.. that's a popular myth.. just like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was supposedly.

To be honest I'm a Burroughsphile.. but its only a good book.. not a great book. Not his best book either.. though I think he's one of the most important writers of last century and I've read everything (yes everything) he's ever written.

Naked Lunch is supposed to imply a dinner party where the "time freezes and the truth stands naked at the end of every fork".

Important to note (as previously mentioned) Naked Lunch is not a narrative, but rather a series of Burroughs's routines and to read it in a linear way to miss the point. Burroughs himself notes that he's a writer in the picaresque tradition, in which there is no continuous story, but rather a series of events whose common strands are the characters in them - they don't link up.

The way people should dig into Burroughs (you'll note though his books get better with subsequent readings) is to read his last books (the final trilogy) first ... Cities of the Red Night, the Place of Dead Roads, and the Western Lands.. to get a sense of his content. (these books are in traditional prose)
I would then recommend checking out books similar in structure to Naked Lunch.. but superior works.. like Exterminator! and the Wild Boys. Then move onto his most experimental works, which should be read more like prose poetry (indeed thinking of his work in this way makes some of the more novelistic books easier to read too) which is his first trilogy - the Soft Machine, the Ticket that Exploded, and Nova Express. Then read the rest of his books.. Naked Lunch is ok.. not as well realized. Queer & Junky are quite boring and written in that "beat" style of Kerouac's where a bunch of boring people wander around doing nothing over and over again. Burroughs later (and I think rightly so) disavowed the quality of both books.

Hope that helps.. if anyone needs some tips or any knowledge about "El Hombre Invisible" just drop me a line.

Edited to add: my friend in high school from whom I purchased the book originally (the first Burroughs I read) actually literally from reading the book.. which ranks as an all-time best reaction to reading anything I've ever heard.

[Edited on Sep 22, 2003 by Lemonkid]

I read it.

I am the aforementioned dear friend who despises it.

It's PURE GENIUS

No, no, you're getting Naked Lunch mixed up with that 50+ page monologue by John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. Nobody has read all the way through that. I've read that book like three times and I have yet to not skim through most of that chunk of the book.

DING DING DING

I own it, too. Bought it in college...read the first 50 pages of it and then tossed it across the room.

NL is good wholesome fun like Krazy Kat or the Beau Hunks playing music from the Little Rascals: just not to every taste.

It's most fun when you dip into it at random and read it out loud. Try it at your next party. I do it frequently, and in a spot on Bill Burroughs voice I must say. My friends cry, Hack, do it again, that NL reading in that William Burroughs voice you do so well!"

That's what they say.

Note #1: I have also had dinner guests eat individually in the bathroom a la Bunuel, so I may be the last person to take advice from. Your call.

Note #2: English Eccentrics by Edith Sitwell is also a fun read when you do it at random and out loud. I can't quite get her voice right though, so I do it in the manner of Christopher Walken.

Note #3: I didn't like the movie much but Peter Weller looked great and I liked when the lady undid her skin and became Roy Scheider. Anyone who hasn't seen it yet should be warned that the film does contain gratuitous scenes of Julian Sands, who is classified a toxic substance in 33 countires and territories. BEWARE.

Note #4: I've tried to talk my best gal into doing the William Tell thing with a rocks glass, but so far no dice.

its all kinds of fucked up

hack said:
I didn't like the movie much but Peter Weller looked great and I liked when the lady undid her skin and became Roy Scheider. Anyone who hasn't seen it yet should be warned that the film does contain gratuitous scenes of Julian Sands, who is classified a toxic substance in 33 countires and territories. BEWARE.

NO SHIT

it sat on my shelf for 2 years, then i read it. yes, every word. i also read galt's speech. yes, every word. try the book, and add to this thread.

Edith Sitwell! Now there's an obscure cultural reference. We used to listen to her on mushrooms.

Naked Lunch beats the hell out of Pynchon. I have no fucking idea what he's talking about. I read essays on his writing and understand the themes, but fuck if i can find them in his writing. Mason Dixon is written in some kind of code that is not meant for man to understand. It's too fucking weird to even be abstruse.

Ayn Rand's books always start off OK, then just spin off into nowhere. I like listening to her talk, even if I don't agree with a lot of what she had to say. Smart lady.

I can't fucking stand Henry Miller.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!
People actually think that shit is SEXY?