Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.50 You Save: $6.50 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.47 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Naked Lunch
Book Review: A retrospective:
Summary: 3 Stars
Naked Lunch is, for better or worse, the key to most people's experience of Burroughs' writing. And they either love it or hate it. Most people I talk to say they couldn't get through it, and this is easy to understand. What is it about this book that people keep talking about it?So NL was/is a revolutionary book, and reading it for the first time can be a fireworks experience. At the same time it must be admited that the writing is uneven - since everything was so new, he and his fellow editors could hardly tell what to keep and what to discard. NL is like visiting a genetics lab before they've had a chance to throw out all the failures.
Naked Lunch is a record of a Burroughs' writing break-through. He started trying to write another Junky (see NL's first chapter) and ends up trying to destroy language (the cut-ups he slips into the end of the book - contrary to common belief, NL is not a "cut-up" book in the sense of the technique Burroughs later employed).
My own advice to first-time readers is to skip or skim the first chapter, which drags and creates a wrong impression of the rest of the book. Thereafter you should read as the mood takes you, receiving the writing as a series of darkly-humorous skits, lectures and moods.
It's perfectly valid to just dip into the book anywhere, and read for as long as the mood holds you. The structure Burroughs' originally planned for this book was disposed of in the final edit, and the published version is almost completely random. The book may also be a little disconcerting because of its period - a lot of the satires and characters relate specifically to the repressive USA of the late 1950's, and many of these archetypes are now extinct.
Finally, it's important to remember what came after the revolution - Naked Lunch was only the beginning. The 1960's saw his strangest period - the "cut-ups" - when he pursued his destructive/creative technique as a philosophy, and pushed it beyond all rational limits. The 1970's and 80's saw another revolution - the return to narrative, in a distinctly Burroughs way, and a refinement and enrichment of his style. Some would consider his finest writing to be in these later works.
Book Review: A trip to the dark side
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had my copy of Naked Lunch for years and years, read through it many times, but have never attempted to write any kind of review on it, up untill now, because it is just such an amazing book that no words could ever do it any justice! Right from the beginning the writing is brilliant and creative and the pacing is absolutely furious.There is no simple way to convey the 'story' because indeed nothing like a linear plot line exists. Many people, my own brother included, hate this and simply will not read the whole way through it for this reason alone. The only way to attempt to summerise the book as a whole in a tidy fasion is to say that essintialy it chronicles a mans journey from the United States, the heat was closing in, to Mexico and later Tangiers and finally to the imaginary Interzone.
Along the way we meet many colorful charaters, the most memorable of which is the charming and diabolical Dr Benway, and visit many exotic dreamscapes like the Meet Cafe where patrons eat the black meat of the giant aquatic centerpede while mugwamps dispense addictive fluid from their heads. At first glace the reader may assume that this dark world with its evil political factions and infernal beaurocracies is a paranoid nightmare of the author, but when you look closer it is the dark side of same world that we live in everyday rendered down to its most extreme and 'naked' form.
While many would like to put William S Burroughs down as nothing more than a junkie who killed his own wife and whose writing is very overated, there is simply such power in his words that cannot be denied. The captivating writing style and the amazingly hilairious black humor that abounds throught out the book (and is probually some of the darkest humor ever, in any medium) come straight off every page. Likewise many people, insecure people I would assume, look down on this book for it's sections that are some what pornographic, not that they that far from your average 'rommance' novel, but because they consist of homosexual activities. Obviuosly Burroughs's unblinking brutal disection of our darkest desires and addictions, whether it be drugs, sex, money or power over the mind of others was too much for the general public to handle when it was first published and it is a shame to see that even in this day and age there are still some who express those same small minded attitudes when they are confronted by the intensity of this writing.
The best way I can think to express my opinion of Naked Lunch is to say that I feel it lives up to it's strange title completely, indeed contained within is the most 'naked' view, the most powerfull, raw, twisted and decidedly dark take on reality ever told. And when you read this book it's is as though you have sat down to 'lunch', the book is such a feast for the mind, evey page full of energy, heavy idea's and thick with creative genius.
Not a book for everyone, but those open minded will find reading this book to be a genuinly enriching experience, indeed there is no other book quite like it, but squares should stay away.
Book Review: ACS 200
Summary: 4 Stars
What in the world is up with this book? This was an interesting story. There is no plot, which gets a little confusing. This book was really confusing to read because it seemed to jump around and not have a continue flow. William Burroughs was very creative in coming up with this story though. How many authors have the imagination and courage to write a story like this? This book went through a lot of court cases because people were trying to get it banned. But in the end it won the court cases and is permitted on the bookshelves. Even though I found this interesting it took me a while to realize that the only way to understand it was to just read and not really understand it. That made it a bit confusing, but it was actually pretty fast reading. It's been a while since the last time I could say that I was able to read 90 pages in just one day. I recommend anyone who is up for a good read where they do not want to have to really think when reading, to read this book. I am not used to reading books and not thinking about them and just reading, so it was a little difficult to make myself do at first, but after not very long it was a lot easier and made the book much more enjoying not having to think about what I am actually reading. Overall I really thought that this was a pretty good book.Book Review: ART IS FREEDOM
Summary: 5 Stars
this book was a total heroin shot in the whole literature world, it turned it all upside down. kafka, dadaism, surrealism its all there . i really started to write after rereading it.Book Review: Amazing! The Jewish aspect was overwhelming!
Summary: 5 Stars
What would the world do without this kind of book? It brought back so many memoreies of my Jewish childhood, that it must be one if the most enthralling experiences I've had in years!