3.0
Naked Lunch
By William S. Burroughs and James Grauerholz and Barry MilesPublisher Description
Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities111 Reviews
3.0
Jonathan
Created over 4 years agoShare
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“A 200 page continual stream of madness and depravity that keeps on hitting. It takes skill to write like this at such length whilst remaining shocking, humorous, or just plain weird.”
David Blaeser
Created 7 months agoShare
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“Naked Lunch is a heroin fever dream made up of a series of vingnettes. It has very little plot, some characters carry from scene to scene, and the narrative wavers between cogent and nonsense poetic imagery.
Most of the content is drugs and sex. It feels as if Burroughs is testing his reader. How much disgusting sex stuff can I cram into this book and pass it off as art? When I say disgusting, I don't mean that as a judgement, just that he's trying to be. It's homophobic, misogynistic, racist, misanthropic. Full of brutality, rape, and murder. The truth is, after twenty pages, it's not shocking anymore, it just seems immature.
I will say that I'm also not a fan of the Beats in general. I think they had more style than anything valuable to say, and when a movement is all about style, it doesn't age well. I guess you could say this book is saying things about humanity like, everyone is a hypocrite, or everyone is consumed by their addictions; or, what is art? How disgusting can I be before people will not accept it as art? How far can I push obscenity laws? But I don't think these ideas are really that interesting anymore.”
DaveyBabey
Created 3 months agoShare
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“If you have a rich family you can spend your entire life doing heroin, being a criminal, and writing nonsense and you will be a hero.”
Rolf Straubhaar
Created 12 months agoShare
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“While there is some stuff to admire here in the style of the prose, I’ve never been a big fan of Beat literature, going back to when I first read Kerouac in high school. Seems like it’s mostly just trying to shock, and honestly it’s trying too hard.”
sethwr
Created 8 months agoShare
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“naked lunch is not a story, it’s an experience- *gunshot*
that’s such a pretentious thing to say but it rings true for me. this book really doesn’t tell a story but rather tries to evoke feeling through its narratives that are the literary equivalent of a rorschach painting. it’s a nightmare to read and i liked it a lot.”
About William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs was born in St. Louis in 1914 and lived in Chicago, New York, Texas, Paris, Tangier, London, and Lawrence, Kansas, where he died in August 1997. He was the author of numerous books, including Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Nova Express, The Ticket that Exploded, and The Wild Boys, and was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. James Grauerholz was William Burroughs’s longtime manager and editor, and is now his literary executor.
Other books by William S. Burroughs
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