William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch: My thoughts

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Giftorcurse
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21 Jun 2010, 7:56 am

Let's not mince words: I could not get past the first dang chapter. No. Wait. Let me start earlier.

(The following is written in Burroughs' seemingly alien language)
One day, I was in a Books-A-Million in Savannah, looking for more junk too stimulate my book craven an saw William S. Burroughs' crazy lit soft based on his experiences with junk, brain-movies and mugwumps devouring an elephant whole on a hot summer day in the middle of San Francisco's Castro district during a pride parade full of queens and kings performing choreographed to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". I drop gold dookies and unicorns that warblewarblewarble police sirens then you choke on a gorilla's (sic)... vomit... Twilight sucks... static... I love you, Ms. Ringwald... dmoibmdsjnmomnjsdmvfmwroimdv,oppx,opwmkoirmfo,s,em.

What I'm trying to say is that Naked Lunch is an incomprehensible mess. Burroughs seemed more concerned with delivering rambling prose than attempting introduce a shred of coherency. I have nothing against stream-of-consciousness narratives, but there is a method to the madness. Take me as an example. When I write a story containing a narrative, I throw the thoughts that my characters are forming inside their brains and glue them together to form a tapestry. Burroughs does none of this. Instead of humor, he uses dirty high school locker room banter. Instead of character, Burroughs delivers an overdose of, well, Burroughs. I think the moral of this story is: don't let literary madness consume that much of you.


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zena4
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21 Jun 2010, 8:34 am

Burroughs was up to date and maybe even in advance in his time.
Now... it's another day, another story, another way of life.
I'm sure he would write otherwise nowadays.



zena4
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21 Jun 2010, 8:51 am

...

:roll:


Or maybe not :?



zena4
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21 Jun 2010, 8:56 am

Giftorcurse wrote:
(...) there is a method to the madness. Take me as an example.

:lol:


I'm not sure I want to follow your method.
I'm not a very methodical person myself. :wink:



Sparrowrose
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21 Jun 2010, 9:41 am

At least I find Burroughs much easier to understand than Kerouac.


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Moog
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21 Jun 2010, 11:32 am

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

I didn't think much of it either. Most po-mo literary gimmicks just make me want to go read something else. Junkie is a great read, however. Do read that.

Never bothered with Kerouac. I suspect I'm too old now.


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Sparrowrose
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21 Jun 2010, 11:42 am

Moog wrote:
"I can think of at least two things wrong with that title."

I didn't think much of it either. Most po-mo literary gimmicks just make me want to go read something else. Junkie is a great read, however. Do read that.

Never bothered with Kerouac. I suspect I'm too old now.


I despise postmodernism, but it seems that some of the writers I love are counted among postmodernists (though I haven't a clue why.) For example: Jerzy Kosinski, Kurt Vonnegut (though I only like his earliest novels and could happily live without his middle and later works), William Kotzwinkle, and Richard Brautigan (my very favorite writer.)


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GriffinGuitar12
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21 Jun 2010, 7:09 pm

Giftorcurse wrote:
Let's not mince words: I could not get past the first dang chapter. No. Wait. Let me start earlier.

(The following is written in Burroughs' seemingly alien language)
One day, I was in a Books-A-Million in Savannah, looking for more junk too stimulate my book craven an saw William S. Burroughs' crazy lit soft based on his experiences with junk, brain-movies and mugwumps devouring an elephant whole on a hot summer day in the middle of San Francisco's Castro district during a pride parade full of queens and kings performing choreographed to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". I drop gold dookies and unicorns that warblewarblewarble police sirens then you choke on a gorilla's (sic)... vomit... Twilight sucks... static... I love you, Ms. Ringwald... dmoibmdsjnmomnjsdmvfmwroimdv,oppx,opwmkoirmfo,s,em.

What I'm trying to say is that Naked Lunch is an incomprehensible mess. Burroughs seemed more concerned with delivering rambling prose than attempting introduce a shred of coherency. I have nothing against stream-of-consciousness narratives, but there is a method to the madness. Take me as an example. When I write a story containing a narrative, I throw the thoughts that my characters are forming inside their brains and glue them together to form a tapestry. Burroughs does none of this. Instead of humor, he uses dirty high school locker room banter. Instead of character, Burroughs delivers an overdose of, well, Burroughs. I think the moral of this story is: don't let literary madness consume that much of you.


Whoa!! 8O Sounds like the 25-years-ahead-of-its-time literary precursor to Beck's "Loser"! ! :lol: Can't believe that a band as benign and accessible as Steely Dan got their name from this book that's anything BUT!! You could try reading what you just wrote in a Bill Cosby voice, and it'd probably come off sounding like one of his "rants" on "buck-buck" or "Jell-O puddin'"! ! :lmao:



skysaw
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22 Jun 2010, 7:33 am

Giftorcurse wrote:
Let's not mince words: I could not get past the first dang chapter.


Me neither. I hated it.



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22 Jun 2010, 7:19 pm

I'm not pretending to understand Naked Lunch, though I'm not really sure you're supposed to. I just sat back with the book, and let the weird images run through my brain.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



Xelebes
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23 Jun 2010, 3:17 am

The point of the novel is to question what a novel is. Originally, a novel meant "bits of news strung together" - hence why there are chapters in most novels. Now what if you took that idea and shredded those bits of news into finer bits?


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23 Jun 2010, 11:00 am

Giftorcurse wrote:
Let's not mince words: I could not get past the first dang chapter. No. Wait. Let me start earlier.

(The following is written in Burroughs' seemingly alien language)
One day, I was in a Books-A-Million in Savannah, looking for more junk too stimulate my book craven an saw William S. Burroughs' crazy lit soft based on his experiences with junk, brain-movies and mugwumps devouring an elephant whole on a hot summer day in the middle of San Francisco's Castro district during a pride parade full of queens and kings performing choreographed to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". I drop gold dookies and unicorns that warblewarblewarble police sirens then you choke on a gorilla's (sic)... vomit... Twilight sucks... static... I love you, Ms. Ringwald... dmoibmdsjnmomnjsdmvfmwroimdv,oppx,opwmkoirmfo,s,em.

What I'm trying to say is that Naked Lunch is an incomprehensible mess. Burroughs seemed more concerned with delivering rambling prose than attempting introduce a shred of coherency. I have nothing against stream-of-consciousness narratives, but there is a method to the madness. Take me as an example. When I write a story containing a narrative, I throw the thoughts that my characters are forming inside their brains and glue them together to form a tapestry. Burroughs does none of this. Instead of humor, he uses dirty high school locker room banter. Instead of character, Burroughs delivers an overdose of, well, Burroughs. I think the moral of this story is: don't let literary madness consume that much of you.


I like it myself, although in terms of Burroughs' legacy I prefer "Junkie" and "Cities of the Red Night".

If you think "The Naked Lunch" is an incomprehensible mess, try reading James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". I've got a degree in English Literature, and even I couldn't get past the first three pages of that particular tome.


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milascave
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16 Mar 2011, 6:25 pm

Lets not mince words. I read the book six times.
Recently I picked up somebody else's copy and had to tear myself away from it.
I've read a lot of his other books, too.
Saw him live twice.
Watched both documentaries (the second one twice.)
As my father used to say, "with taste and scent no argument."



Janissy
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16 Mar 2011, 6:32 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
I'm not pretending to understand Naked Lunch, though I'm not really sure you're supposed to. I just sat back with the book, and let the weird images run through my brain.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Exactly! Looking for plot and character development in Naked Lunch is like looking for plot and character development in dreams. That's not what it's for. It's an immersion in another state of mind, just like dreams are.



jamieboy
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16 Mar 2011, 6:38 pm

milascave wrote:
Lets not mince words. I read the book six times.
Recently I picked up somebody else's copy and had to tear myself away from it.
I've read a lot of his other books, too.
Saw him live twice.
Watched both documentaries (the second one twice.)
As my father used to say, "with taste and scent no argument."



ooh. What are the names of these Documentaries? I may be able to find one or both on Youtube. :)



heckeler06
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16 Mar 2011, 7:41 pm

First time I attempted to read Naked Lunch, I only made it through a few pages.

A few months back I decided to sit down and plow through it, and honestly I really enjoyed it. The style is really difficult and hard to follow--I interpret it as stream of consciousness from a heroin addict--fragmented and delusional at times. If you read through the entire book, it starts to tie together a bit--recurring motifs and such.

It also helped me to get through it by laughing at it--his dumb perverse humor, or sometimes the sheer incomprehensibility of sections.

He does do a great job of capturing speech/syntax/dialogue.

I actually thought Kerouac [only have read 'On the Road'] was more mature--journalistic almost --I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Just my two (or three) cents

--David