William S. Burroughs - The Naked Lunch

William S. Burroughs, was a hardcore drug addict, extreme misanthrope, literary outlaw, lover of teenage boys, experimental shotgun painter…and a bit of a mental case. His novel Naked Lunch is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first publication. If you've read the book, did you finish it? Did you understand it? Did you love it, or hate it? It's a hard read as it is formatted as several short snippets or novellas, all loosely related, but non-linear, and extremely weird.

David Cronenberg released a film of the same title based upon the novel and other Burroughs writings in 1991.

I personally have found some of his work very inspirational, and most of it pretty creepy too. ‘The Market’ section from ‘Naked Lunch', one of my favorite books, has some of the most beautiful prose poetry ever written. . When he talked about the usefulness of Scientology or the curative powers of orgone boxes or about him being a representative of alien insect trusts he wasn’t kidding, and he’s one of these people whose achievements, to a degree, that you can admire from afar. After all, the above statement, coming from a man who shot his own wife in the head and who subsequently became even more enamored of guns than he had been before the tragic event, is a frightening prospect indeed.

I have several clips of him reading his work on my Youtube Channel, which in my opinion, lends itself a great deal to the prose. I find him to be a hilarious performer. With his desert-dry voice and wit, which really bring the words on the page before him to life. You can check out his DVD of the Naked Lunch, it presents clips from a reading done by El Hombre Invisible in Berlin in 1986, where he reads segments from works like ‘The Western Lands,’ (his attempt at writing his own Book of The Dead) ‘Naked Lunch’ and ‘Roosevelt After Inauguration’. These readings are presented with clips of films made of the text back-projected behind them, to varying degrees of effectiveness, along with a selection of Burroughs’ own paintings or appearances in films ‘Drugstore Cowboy ’. The clips of old experimental films like ‘Ghosts at No.9’ and ‘Towers Open Fire’ look very interesting, and I found myself personally in love with them, and wanting to see them in their entirety.

I find it enjoyable to hear Burroughs droning away in his nasal atonal emotion-free diction about his often weird and wonderful and wacky theories about life, the looney universe and everything, but there is nothing here that any hardcore fan of the man would have heard before, I would imagine. It's impossible to summarize the book, or even adequately describe it. It made Time Magazine's list of 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Supposedly written by Burroughs while he was battling a very strong heroin addiction, the plot jumps forward and back with the dizzying rhythm of machine gun fire, but is fascinating throughout. It begins when we are introduced to The Agent, a drug addict who is on the lam from the cops. During his travels away from the law and toward his next trip, the reader is introduced to myriad bizarre characters. From a hospital with monkeys for nurses to lengthy, graphic and disturbing descriptions of sex acts, to creatures half insect and half inanimate object, the book reads as a dystopian, stream-of-consciousness report of somebody's years of nightmares. Nevertheless, I find that it makes undeniably powerful statements, and provides much insight into the society we live in today.

It has range, like a singer. It goes from grotesque to very strange to philosophical and then has some very touching parts. It's a sprawling, punishing, all-encompassing journey to read, often focusing on, criticizing and satirizing government, religion and organizations of almost any kind. If you are not familiar with William S. Burroughs work, you may find it very surreal, inconsistent, and often nonsensical, coarse and ugly, sexually explicit and grotesque, full of strong language which some may find objectionable. It's very interesting that with its darkness and obscenity, it became one of the more frequently challenged and banned books in its time. That is what attracted me to it.

Cult Director, David Cronenberg (The Fly) made a film adaptation of Naked Lunch in 1991, no less bizarre, creative and repugnant than the novel. Whether you find Naked Lunch compelling or revolting, the book is powerful and timeless.

William S. Burroughs a disturbing genius, living in the theoretical world of his own creation and transcribing what he found there, as what he actually believed.

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