Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

I had no idea what I'd gotten into with this book. It's incoherent, non-linear, stream-of-consciousness writing. With a lot of graphic sex. I picked it up because it seems to be one of the seminal (er, ahem) pillars of influence for later surrealist authors.Spoiler: It is Burroughs' incoherent, drug-addled, quasi-memoir. Like 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', but without a plot.It was an interesting book. We had it in a high school library, and it was always checked out. Now I finally understand why it was always checked out - by guys. I don't know who vetted that book, but it was in the sci-fi section.

This book is quite the ride into the weird.

It’s very easy to criticize someone if you’ve never been in the same position. While I will agree with some things stated above I think Naked Lunch was a view inside the mind of a man born before his time. If this book would have been written in the last 10 years or so I don’t think it would’ve had as much negativity and frankly wouldn’t have gotten such a poor mix of reviews. This book is in its own category compared to others. I think William Burroughs was a brilliant writer and was going for the shock value that he had so eloquently written. Naked Lunch was a work of art put into words. And the good thing about art is that its objective. It doesn’t have to make sense it just is what it is. He seemed to be a very sick man mentally as well as being spun out of his mind when writing Naked Lunch. However, I think being an avid drug user helped him to write a lot of what we don’t see inside the drug world that does happen. He takes you into the underground world of fetish and S&M lifestyle mixed with a beautiful cocktail of drugs swimming on the pages around you. He is like the Andy Warhol of writing, the Willy Wonka of stories. His imagination is truly unique. Whether it’s all true or not doesn’t matter. He has written something that no other authors can ever come close to.I don’t think when William wrote Naked Lunch he would have ever imagined the amount of value he added to the writing community. I also believe he opened the doors on homosexuality that he himself had hidden from everyone out of fear of being locked away in a nut house. What people don’t understand scares them and not understanding the pain and grief he must’ve felt hurts me. So many times, out of fear we don’t often say how we feel and I’m sure it was quite hard for him to put this book into words. Even more so how hard it was for him to hide who he really was.

This is the most import novel in English Literature of the 20th C (I might go as far to say “Great American Novel” but several loopholes would exclude it). Anyway, I was looking forward to a re-reading of the restored text on a vacation and found a big smudge on page 12.The return window has closed and needless to say, I feel a bit disappointed. Wouldn’t you?

Arguably William S. Burroughs most recognized book, "Naked Lunch" is easily a piece of literature that one can get quite literally lost in, as it can be incredibly difficult to follow and understand what is going on at times. The book is told in short stories scattered throughout and all in incredibly random context. So what's the appeal then, you might ask? The appeal is that this book is so crazy at times that you begin to profile Burroughs in a way that you eventually understand that he was the only kind of guy that could've written this. It takes a certain kind of mind to be able to come up with the material that is present here. I don't believe an everyday individual could come up with the situations in this book on their own. This book isn't famous for being some magnificent piece of literature with a complex story and intriguing characters, it's famous for its showing of how far a messed up mind can go if it was all written down. By the end of this book, you aren't suppose to be fully satisfied and go "Wow, that was so amazing" you're suppose to go "What in the world did I just read?" and if you find yourself going with the latter statement, Burroughs would say "Mission Accomplished"

I wasn’t aware it was structured as a series of loosely connected vignette So it really didn’t make sense to me. But the afterward was really good at explaining everything. I’m surely going to read this book again and I’ll probably give it a better review when I understand it more. It was very entertaining, and it sparked a lot of conversation

This is a good version of a classic book from a few decades ago. This is definitely not for everyone - just as the movie was not for almost anyone. The movie left a lot out of the story and missed the real meat of the horrific tale told. The suggestion has been made that some of the horrific tales told in the book were not actual "events', but rather crazy imagined dreams that stuck in the lead character's head. After reading the book the second time, I have to agree that the nightmarish stories described in some of the chapters - were, in fact, supposed to be nightmares. You'll get a kick out of almost everything in the book is described in ways that you find in an Avant-Garde clothing catalogue. While it is gross at times, it is still a good view of commercialism and self-importance found in much of our current society.

On the one hand, I’m beyond intrigued and open to what this book has to offer. On the other hand, I am unable to understand much of it.

Buena edición, buena imagen, buen material; y a muy buen precio, lo recomiendo, llevo un buen rato buscando este libro, así que estoy muy satisfecho

Impecable quality the one of these paperback edition.You'll really appreciate the footnotes on these edition.Personally I highly recommend buying this one.

What a heavy book.