OK bibliophiles, I need your help! I'm (trying) to read Naked Lunch, and not getting very far!

[cleanhippie]

I read the first 15 pages at least 5 times. I kept going back, thinking I had missed something. About half-way through now.

Where is the plot? What is this about? What the fuck is going on? These are the questions that were running through my mind, so I had to cheat and do a bit of research to see just WHAT this book is about.

So aside from the obvious ramblings of a heroin induced fantasy, does this book HAVE a point? Does it HAVE a plot or story line? Just WHAT makes this apparent nonsense so popular?

Or should I just shut up and read it and get out of it what I get out of it?


Any help is appreciated.

[graywarrior]

1. You need to get stoned first

[orpupilofnature57]

4. In most cases.

[cleanhippie]

6. Well, thats good advice for nearly ALL situations...

And I tried that too. I can get immersed in the book and stop my brain from asking questions, but I get to the end of a segement, and I snap out of it and say, "What the fuck!!!"

I just am not "getting" it.

[orpupilofnature57]

10. The movie 'Brazil ' did the same thing to me.

[cleanhippie]

13. I loved that movie!

Now I have to go watch that again.

[graywarrior]

35. Did you just say something? Sorry, I'm high.

[tgearfanatic234]

41. +1

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Considering who wrote it and when 1959 ,I think it's an exercise in Existential..

thinking, or just an omage to Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'.The movie was good I love Judy Davis.

[pinto]

3. Just reading it through, like watching a movie or the landscape going by on a train worked for me.

:hi:

[Bluenorthwest]

5. What you want to do is cut it up, and then put it back together in

either a random order, or an order of your own selection, read that and call it Naked Lunch. I am not joking. The Gysin Cut Up Method was the way the book was written. The events are non linear, and could be read in any order....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up
The thing is a set of 'turns' or 'routines'. The main character, the narrator Bill Lee, uses different names at different times in the book.
The book should come with scissors and an electric fan to blow the bits around, to be reconstructed into the Naked Lunch you like best....it is the American Plan at the Beat Hotel.
I recommend reading the last part next, at very least, and also forgetting about any notion of order or through line in the ordinary sense.
His book Junky is much more direct reading. Wild Boys and Nova Express my favorites.

[orpupilofnature57]

7. I love his voice over on Materials song ' Seven Souls '

[Bluenorthwest]

24. Here's how I learned of Burroughs. I was a kid and I went to see

Laurie Anderson, and the first thing in her show is a slide which said "Language is a virus from outer space"- William S Burroughs. I thought, who the hell is this guy, that she's billing him before herself, showing his name before showing her own face, his words before her own?
Laurie was great that night. Loved that she pointed to a lineage of the word.

[bengalherder]

37. My favorite is Material's

"Words of Advice" also with Burroughs :hi:

[orpupilofnature57]

39. They remind me of ' Tangerine Dream '

[cleanhippie]

8. Thanks. I had read about the cut-up method it was written in, and that helped me a bit.

But man o man, it just doesn't make any frikking sense.


I'm just not "getting" what all the hullabaloo is about.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. stop making sense.

Language is a virus from outer space, after all. Communicable communications, dangerous materials.

[orpupilofnature57]

23. Cosmic Debris

[cleanhippie]

26. That brings back memories...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUjjFETMTxE

[orpupilofnature57]

33. One of the best concerts I ever attended ,David Byrne is a genius.

[provis99]

9. why did you start at the beginning?

Start at some random page, read a few pages, skip some paragraphs, read earlier pages, read every second sentence, etc.

You have to understand how Burroughs wrote the novel. He wrote it straightforwardly, then cut and pasted various segments here and there, breaking up the flow of the writing. So the final product is not read like a conventional story.

Consider this: looking at a da Vinci painting, you are looking at a representation of something; everything flows logically; the Mona Lisa looks like a picture of a young lady. But if you look at a Jackson Pollock painting, you are not looking at a representation of something: look at the painting upside down, with one eye closed, look at the colors, look at the frame, etc. you won't get a straightforward "thing" that Pollock is trying to show you.

Burroughs's Naked Lunch is similar to that Jackson Pollock painting.

[cleanhippie]

14. Because thats how one is supposed to read a book?

But the more I read up on the cut-up method, I understand that its just not SUPPOSED to make sense.

[orpupilofnature57]

16. It's like a tree falling in the forest ,and a bunch of deaf people are standing..

right next to it .

[provis99]

18. it takes skill to read the Kerouac stream of consciousness stuff, too.

Heck, even Hemingway can throw you for a loop, unless you know how to read him; he makes a great art out of the inane comments of dull people.

[orpupilofnature57]

21. Kerouac was deep ,Papa was shallow ,and over appreciated.

[cleanhippie]

27. Oh, SNAP! You're gonna start a fight with that!

:popcorn:

[orpupilofnature57]

31. No No ,your right ,I loved 'Snows of Kilimanjaro'

[cleanhippie]

32. ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


In the words of Gomer Pyle...."Ohh, you're gonna go to hell for that!"

[orpupilofnature57]

34. watching that and listening to the 528hz frequency ,could cure me ,thanks

[cleanhippie]

36. How is it that we have not yet met here?

I am totally picking up what you are putting down.

[orpupilofnature57]

38. I got in to such a Flame Jan/20/10 , and have just started posting again.

And love talking to cooool people like you.

[cleanhippie]

40. .

B-):hippie: :smoke:

[begin_within]

11. How about the Dharma Bums by Kerouac instead.

A good one to read after "On the Road."

[orpupilofnature57]

15. How about 'Steppenwolf ' by Hesse or 'Siddhartha'

[The_Casual_Observer]

12. This isn't really meant to be read as a straight forward novel, it's concept stuff.

It's amazing that it was ever published and then reprinted so many times. It's a curiosity I guess.

[1620rock]

17. Throw the damn thing away...

There are too many great books to be read in a lifetime to waste time on crap like that.

[orpupilofnature57]

19. Name one.

[cleanhippie]

28. Thats pretty harsh opinionated stuff there...

What appeals to one may repulse another...

[Goblinmonger]

42. You probably say that about Faulkner, too, then.

*Note to self to not take literary suggestions from 1620rock*

[Speck Tater]

20. You're not trying to read it with your clothes on, are you? Rookie mistake. nt

[cleanhippie]

29. FFS, thats it! How could I have missed it.

Its...its so fucking obvious now...

[Bluenorthwest]

25. Let Bill read it to you, it is really helpful. Here he is with suitable

ambient music...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIsm22dHpsw

[cleanhippie]

30. Holy shit, thats even MORE bizzare.....

But I'm certainly gonna "enhance" myself later and watch some of those videos.

Thanks for that link!

[Moe Shinola]

43. I don't think Burroughs really got his style together until...

later in his career. I like his last fiction novel, The Western Lands, more than any others of his, and I recommend it over Naked Lunch, which was just all over the place and I don't think he had his style figured out yet.