Naked Lunch: The Restored Text Audio CD – Unabridged, February 1, 2009

As a college undergraduate I tried reading William Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. The novel simply was too chaotic; I could not read it. Over forty years later for various reasons I again tried reading Naked Lunch. In the intervening years I had been fortunate to vacation in Morocco (one of the novel's settings); I hoped my Moroccan exposure would facilitate understanding the novel. And the 50th anniversary version has a well-written introduction that discusses the novel's authorship events, that discusses the people who rescued the novel from the literary garbage heap and discusses their lives after the novel's publication.Despite the ever-present debauchery (i.e., profanity and sexuality), Naked Lunch is well written and clearly not the ravings of a whacked out junkie. The novel does exhibit a junkie's short attention span: stream of consciousness, living in the present but no linear plot. And I cannot claim that my Moroccan exposure helped me understand the writing. But the chaotic writing also is attributable to depictions of unfamiliar cultures (including NYC junkie culture); that understanding makes the literary chaos manageable. And (perhaps ironically) forty years later I find some similarity between William Burroughs' chaotic writing and the end-of-novel dream sequences in author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.

William Burroughs' magnum opus "Naked Lunch" is not for everybody. I first read it many years ago, when I was in my late teens, thinking it would be funny because of the title and because I enjoyed the movie adaptation with Peter Weller (despite the fact that the movie and the book are virtually nothing alike) which I had seen on HBO some time back. Now I'm in my later 20s and I've read the book a second time, as well as many of Burroughs' other books, which have helped put everything in perspective.The book itself is not written using a traditional 'narrative.' Instead of having a beginning, middle and end, it's written with a non-linear style-- meaning you can pick it up at any time, turn to any page and read any sentence on any page that you want, in almost any order. Theoretically, if you were so inclined, you could read the book in reverse-- the last sentence first until you finish with the first sentence. In this respect the book is a true work of art. But like I said, it's not for everybody-- and you'll either get it or you won't get it-- and that's okay.In a sense, the book is like visiting a modern art museum and seeing an abstract painting or sculpture-- it might mean something different to you than the person standing next to you-- or it might not mean anything at all. That aside, Burroughs has been said to have said that the book's title, "Naked Lunch" means exactly what it says: A frozen moment when you see exactly what's on the end of your fork-- or, in layman's terms, when you see something as it truly is. The book also makes several heavily politically charged statements, most notably being against the death penalty.Many people will ask what the "plot" of "Naked Lunch" is. That's a little hard to explain, seeing the book is written in such a style that it can be read in any order the reader desires. But, I'll give describing the plot a shot: A heroin addict in a dystopian alternate 1950s New York City is on the run from forces he can't quite describe-- whether or not they're "real," he seems to feel there is a very real threat. His paranoia takes him on a journey across the sea to a town in Morocco and eventually to the extremely dystopian city of Interzone and the barren wastelands of Annexia. Along the way, he meets a variety of colorful characters, including the mad doctor Dr. Benway who performs horrendous and abominable experiments on people which transforms their flesh in pure 'bodily horror' style. The main character, Lee, also encounters the "Mugwumps," strange creatures who are omnisexual in nature. If read from start to finish with the right kind of eyes and imagination, "Naked Lunch" is a tale of sex, drugs, murder and mystery set in a nightmarish sci-fi dystopian world that only American writer William Burroughs would ever describe.If you're confused by the book the first time you read it, don't worry-- you're not alone. I was confused the first time, too. In fact, it's probably best NOT to read "Naked Lunch" first if you're going to get into the works of Burroughs. Start with "Junky" or "Queer," or even "The Wild Boys" (if you're feeling brave) because those have comprehensible narratives with a definite beginning, middle and end (maybe not 'The Wild Boys' entirely, but still more than 'Naked Lunch'). All in all, if you're a fan of 1950s beatnik literature, Golden Age science fiction or just looking for something completely out of the ordinary, pick up a copy of "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs.

have a weakness for difficult books. Whenever I read a list of the most difficult books in the English language I have a burning desire to conquer all of them. Sometimes that is a good impulse (like when I decided to read Gravity’s Rainbow) but sometimes it gets me in trouble (like when I inevitably give in and read Finnegans Wake). After seeing Naked Lunch touted multiple times as one of the most difficult works in the English language, I decided to finally give in and read it. After I finished the book I was baffled, disgusted and ultimately disappointed by this dense postmodern novel, and not because it was hard to understand.Really, a non-linear book does not bother me. In fact, I much prefer non-linear story lines. To me, it reminds me more of how we end up learning about events. Very rarely does somebody sit down and give us a clear “a to b” recounting of events, whether they be historical or personal. Rather, we learn the truth bits and pieces at a time, often out of order, and eventually are able to see the full picture in retrospect.So the structure of Naked Lunch did not really bother me. Naked Lunch is broken into individual vignettes that are unrelated but technically tied together by a thin plot. What really stopped me from enjoying the book is that everything seemed so disconnected that I could not see any real relevance between parts. Individual parts were great, especially the hallucinatory cityscape scenes that reminded me a lot of the odder parts of Gravity’s Rainbow (especially the scenes in Peenemunde or the expanding city.) But unlike many other dense postmodern novels, the scenes never seemed to have any significance to the overall plot, they just were weird for the sake of being weird.naked-lunchThis problem becomes especially clear in the more graphic and disturbing scenes. I do not consider myself overly prudish when it comes to the darker side of life, but Naked Lunch is by far the most disgusting and disturbing book I have ever read. The point of all the terrible scenes is to evoke the feelings of terribleness and horror that are part of modern society, and more precisely the life of a heroin addict. However, they never seemed to have more going on than mere shock value and their effort to disturb the audience.I will compare Naked Lunch to Ulysses by James Joyce, because both books ended up being banned and required a trial to establish whether or not they were too obscene for the general public. Ulysses has its fair share of questionable scenes (especially Episode 13 with Leopold’s voyeuristic masturbation) but they serve a deeper purpose. In the episode mentioned earlier, the scene establishes the loneliness and isolation of Leopold Bloom. His voyeuristic tendencies are an outward expression of his inward feelings of impotence and loneliness. We learn a lot about Leopold as a person and we are given insight into a part of our own psyche that may be suppressed or hidden. We learn to relate to Leopold. The scenes in Naked Lunch, however, doing nothing more than disturb the audience and never really establish a deeper meaning beyond helping us feel disgusted by our society. This really bothered me. I can stomach disturbing or inappropriate images, but they have to have meaning. Otherwise they are just pornography.But Naked Lunch is not completely bad. There are some interesting ideas and the writing can be hilarious at times. Like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed some of the parts, but not enough to enjoy the book as a whole. I will openly admit that I very possibly just “didn’t get it.” The best thing that I got from Naked Lunch is that I can see the influence of William Burroughs on my favorite authors and I was once again convinced that I never want to be a heroin addict (as if I needed more convincing). I cannot recommend this book to anybody. If you want to read it, fine. I may even go back sometime in the future to try to wring a little bit of meaning out of it, but as it stands I was severely disappointed by Naked Lunch.

Well you've got to start somewhere if you want to see what all the fuss is about. This book has less sex and eroticised hangings and murderous cowboys than the later stuff, and is perhaps consequently more readable (!!) than the later stuff too. Joking aside, a proper modern classic, and all praise to Brion Gysin and others in the cut-up world who helped too.

A massive struggle of a read but worth it in its own way. Quite a sickening and gross read but very clever. Maybe a little over complicated got the impression that the Mr Burroughs was babbling on sometimes. Also somewhat misogynistic. But a MUST read.

All the text is underlined on Kindle, recommend finding a different edition.

Mind blowing experience all in text form.Something totally out of the ordinairy .Read and find out,make your own mind up

Wanted this book for a very long time but often put off buying it. Great value and the book itself is incredible, would recommend to anyone who enjoys the dystopian genre! One of Burroughs' best works!