Naked Lunch: Difference between revisions

 

My God, how do you summarize the 1959 novel ''Naked Lunch'' in mere words? The seminal work of [[The Beat Generation|beat generation]] author, [[William S. Burroughs]].

Some editions of the book include an author's foreword, where Burroughs [[Don't Explain the Joke|explains the title]]. The phrase "naked lunch" is meant to describe the [[Cassandra Truth|unvarnished truth about what people do to survive in society]]. The specific lunch that Burroughs wants to unclothe is the custom of [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|capital punishment]]. He objects to the fact that many [[Judge, Jury, and Executioner|people who endorse capital punishment]] are still reluctant to pull the switch, throw the first stone, or otherwise take on the moral responsibility for what he considers murder. In a sense, "naked lunch" is the opposite of euphemism. Thus his famous quote, "Let them see what is at the end of that long newspaper spoon." Of course, Burroughs, by his own admission, [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|doesn't remember writing most of the actual text of the book]], so the author's foreword could very well be [[Retcon]].

 

 

 

* [[Accent Relapse]]: While probably theatrics on Benway's part, he'll sometimes speak in an effeminate, stereotypically gay voice, and at other times speak like an American Southerner. Also: "Benway's voice drifts into my consciousness from no particular place... a disembodied voice that is sometimes loud and clear, sometimes barely audible, like music down a windy street."

** Also Salvador Hassan O'Leary, who is said to lapse into broken English in times of stress. "His accent at such moments suggests an Italian origin."

* [[Arc Words]]: Certain phrases and descriptions are repeated constantly throughout Burroughs's body of work. Most during his Nova Trilogy and Red Night Trilogy, but ''Naked Lunch'' has a few, as it is the culmination of all of his early work; 'blank insect eyes', 'like music down a windy street', 'shitting and pissing in terror', 'No glot. C'lom Fliday'.

* [[Ax Crazy]]: A.J., who, after crashing Hassan's orgy dressed like a pirate, decapitates middle-aged women while singing 'Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle of Rum'.

* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: Even the Factualists, the Interzone political party that Lee supports, are a bunch of psychos. It's just that they don't believe in what the ''other'' parties are doing -- like melting people (Liquefactionists), cloning themselves (Divisionists), or experimenting with [[Mind Control]] (Senders).

** And even so, the other parties are not all as separate in practice as they are in the abstract.

* [[Bury Your Gays]]: But only if they're [[Camp Gay]].

** Partially averted in the movie, where the [[Camp Gay]] Kiki is {{spoiler|eaten by a giant centipede Julian Sands}} but the the equally camp Allen Ginsberg stand-in {{spoiler|makes it out alive}}.

* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]

* [[Death by Sex]]: ''Orgasm Death'' is a reoccurring phrase in Burroughs's work, as is the image of a hanged man jizzing in his pants at the moment of death - which has been known to happen in real life, by the way.

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: The reptiles giving oral to the Mugwumps for a drug that prolongs life.

** In the movie, the Mugwumps' semen is sort of a metaphor for Burroughs' own narcotics use. It gives him brilliant creative ideas, yes, but it's also destroying him.

* [[Erotic Asphyxiation]]: He has a habit of writing scenes where teenage boys very sensually get their necks broken via noose.

* [[Erotic Dream]]: In fact, surreal pseudoporn makes up about a fourth of the book.

* [[Everybody Must Get Stoned]]: The Black Meat and Mugwump fluid, metaphors for the horror of addiction.

* [[Fantastic Caste System]]: The Parties of Interzone.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Thanks to the Divisionists. "If some citizen ventures to express a liberal opinion, another citizen invariably snarls: 'What are you? Some stinking nigger's bleached-out replica?'"

* [[Gorn]]: Lots of it.

* [[Sociopathic Hero|Heroic Sociopath]]: A.J. again. He's not actually heroic at all, but he's slightly less evil than most of the other characters (with the exception of Lee himself).

* [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face]]: Subverted. In the film, Clark Nova explains that Lee was 'programmed' to shoot his wife, Joan. Although this is based on a tragically straight [[Real Life]] example.

* [[Immodest Orgasm]]: Described as 'like a shooting star'.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: The Mugwump and a blonde boy in the book, Cloquet and Kiki in the film. Cloquet looks human enough... at first.

* [[Multiple Endings]]: While not present in the book, a short in the Burroughs anthology, ''Interzone'' contains a story called ''The Conspiracy'' that acts as an alternate ending to the ''Hauser and O'Brien'' section. Instead of calling the police station from a desolate payphone, Lee hides at a female acquaintance's apartment for a few days and muses about his fate.

* [[Nasty Party]]: Hassan's Orgy

* [[No Ending]]: After a succession of rambling, the book seems to end with an unseen cataclysm.

* [[Not So Stoic]]: Doctor "Fingers" Schaeffer.( {{spoiler|"Clarence!! How can you do this to me?? Ingrates!! Every one of them ingrates!"}})

* [[Too Kinky to Torture]]: Most of the lynching and dismemberment is completely consensual because they're all actors in a very grandiose and pretentious porno movie.

* [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]]: The film isn't as much based on the book, as it is based on Burroughs's own life with elements of the book incorporated. Then again, Burroughs very heavily drew on his experiences traveling abroad and that's the scary part.

* [[Villainous Crossdresser]]: Benway, in the film.

* [[Walking the Earth]]: Essentially what Burroughs did in the fifties, migrating from Chicago to New York to Mexico to South America to Tangiers to London. ''Junky'', ''Queer'', and ''Naked Lunch'' are all based on these experiences.

* [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic]]: Burroughs wrote in the preface that the hanging scenes were a tract against capital punishment 'in the style of Jonathan Swift'. One would find that easy to believe if he hadn't gone on to write about three more books about hanging, which makes the whole thing dubiously reek of [[Author Appeal]].

* [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]: Well, actually, it ''was''. Burroughs claimed, in the original foreword, that he wrote the first draft in a drug-cocktail haze and had no recollection of actually writing it -- although he later admitted that he was exaggerating.

** This is referenced [[Invoked Trope|in the movie]], where Lee has no memory of writing his manuscript, and suspects that it may not have even been him.

* [[William Telling]]: In [[The Film of the Book]], William Lee is shown shooting a glass of whiskey off of Joan Lee's head in what they called their "William Tell act." That's... basically how it happened in real life.

* [[Word Salad Title]]: Created accidentally by Burroughs' friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; while the work was still in progress, Ginsberg was reading aloud from the book (a portion, ironically, that was cut in later drafts), and Kerouac misheard two words and blurted out something like: '"Naked ''lunch?''" What the hell does ''that'' mean?'

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Lit Fic]]

[[Category:The Fifties]]

[[Category:Bizarro Fiction]]

[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]