Naked Lunch

This article is about the novel. For the movie, see Naked Lunch (film), for the Austrian band of the same name, see Naked Lunch (band).

Naked Lunch
also The Naked Lunch

First edition, published in France, with original title
Author	William S. Burroughs
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Olympia Press
Publication date	1959
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	9783548028439

Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs. It was the third novel he wrote, but was the second of his novels to see publication. The book was first published as The Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 by Adrien Bisson; an American edition by Grove Press followed soon after in 1962. The American edition was titled Naked Lunch and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition. The American edition was in fact based on an earlier 1958 revision of the text that Allen Ginsberg had in his possession. The article the in the title most likely was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition. Nonetheless the The Naked Lunch title version was also used for the 1969 Corgi Books edition.

David Cronenberg released a film of the same title based upon the novel and other Burroughs writings in 1991.

Origin of the title

Burroughs was relieved when he finished Naked Lunch. But he did not know what to call the title, so when talking to Jack Kerouac from a foriegn country, he decided to ask him. Kerouac suggested Naked Lust, but since it was foriegn not everything went through. So, Burroughs thought he said Naked Lunch and called the story that.

Controversy

Naked Lunch is considered Burroughs' seminal work, and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of often 'obscene' language (something Burroughs recognized and intended), the book was banned in many regions of the United States, and was one of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held. The book was banned by Boston courts in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder in pedophilic acts), but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. This was the last major literary censorship battle in the U.S. The Appeals Court found the book did not violate obscenity statutes; the hearing included testimony in support of the work by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.

In 1959 sections of the manuscript were published in the spring 1958 edition of the University of Chicago student run publication The Chicago Review. The edition was not well received, and caused the university administration to discuss the future censorship of the Winter 1959 edition of the publication, resulting in the resignation of all but one of the editors. When the editor Paul Carroll published BIG TABLE Magazine (Issue No. 1, Spring 1959) alongside former 'Chicago Review' editor Irving Rosenthal, he was found guilty of sending obscene material through the U.S. mail for including "Ten Episodes from 'Naked Lunch'", a piece of writing the Judicial Officer for the United States Postal Service deemed "undisciplined prose, far more akin to the early work of experimental adolescents than to anything of literary merit" and initially judged it as nonmailable under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 1461. (The Big Table court decision)

Upon publication, Grove Press added to the book supplementary material regarding the censorship battle as well as an article written by Burroughs on the topic of drug addiction. In 2002, a "restored text" edition of Naked Lunch was published with some new and previously suppressed material added.

Plot summary

Naked Lunch consists of many loosely related vignettes in which several characters such as the sadistic, sociopathic and borderline incompetent Dr. Benway reappear. The primary character is agent Bill Lee.

The book's structure anticipates the cut-up technique Burroughs would later employ in novels such as the so-called "Nova Trilogy" (The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express). The stories draw from his experiences in Tangiers and his life in America and Mexico, as well as a tour through South America he undertook after accidentally shooting his common-law wife Joan Vollmer in the head while supposedly playing a drunken game of William Tell. Throughout this period he became addicted to several drugs (notably heroin and morphine). The novel's mix of taboo fantasies, peculiar creatures (like the predatory Mugwumps), and eccentric personalities all serve to unmask mechanisms and processes of control. Burroughs explains the title as “a frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of every fork.” The title was suggested by Burroughs's friend Jack Kerouac, who proposed that it be "Naked Lust", but Burroughs misheard him and titled it "Naked Lunch". The novel is a particularly grand illustration of Burroughs's skill with dialogue. Poet Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs' close friend, refers to Naked Lunch in his introduction to his epic poem "Howl".

The book contains what is generally considered to be some of Burroughs' most memorable and quoted passages. One of the most quoted is a section (or, to use Burroughs' terminology, a "routine") known as "The Talking Asshole". This story-within-a-story involves a man who teaches his anal orifice to talk, a trick he soon regrets when it develops a personality and mind of its own and eventually takes over the man's body. The man is eventually incapable of doing anything other than consuming and excreting, becoming an "all-purpose blob." Notable recordings and performances of this routine include Frank Zappa reading it during 1978's The Nova Convention (it was recorded and released by Giorno Poetry Systems), by Burroughs himself in his mid-1990s CD Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, and it is quoted virtually verbatim by Peter Weller's character in the film version of Naked Lunch.

Several characters would reappear in many later works, most notably the surgeon Dr. Benway, Clem Snide "the Private Asshole", and Inspector Lee. In 1989, Burroughs published Interzone, a collection of short stories and other writings including a chapter entitled "WORD" that at one time was considered for inclusion in Naked Lunch. According to some sources, Burroughs' original title for the novel Naked Lunch was also Interzone.

Interpretation

The redeeming literary merit of the work is found in the biting satire and social criticism many of these episodes contain. Burroughs digests the modern American mind and spits out a wild, repulsive parade of images and characters that encapsulate the state of the 20th century. From the seedy abortionist who solicits pregnant women on the street, to the racist County Clerk who represents rural intolerance, to the macho father who buys a prostitute for his fifteen year old son on his birthday, only to discover the kid literally got a "piece of ass", Naked Lunch exposes the under workings of the American experience, and shows the beginnings of a social pathology and hypocrisy that would erupt in the 1960s as a 'culture war'. Burroughs himself found the material disturbing to write, but also a cleansing of his life-long frustrations and unconsciously repressed experiences.

On a more specific level, Naked Lunch protests the death penalty. In Burroughs' Deposition: A Testimony Concerning A Sickness, perhaps the most shocking and pornographic section of the book, "the Blue Movies" (appearing in the vignette A.J.'s Annual Party) is deemed "a tract against capital punishment." Within "the Blue Movies," three overtly sexual adolescents take part in hanging one another, wherein Burroughs lewdly mocks by incorporating auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Using believable metaphors representing addiction to such things as, most notably heroin, along with medical practice such as Benway resorting to subway abortions after having his license revoked, and even homosexuality, Burroughs repudiates America's consumerist post-World War II state, and the overall human addiction to control. Unfortunately because of its absurdity and strong drug content, many readers misinterpret Naked Lunch as merely a drug novel written by a delusional addict.

In popular culture

Burroughs wrote portions of Naked Lunch (and performed most of the editing) in room #9 of the Hotel el Muniria in Tangier. Today, photos of Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other beat generation poets hang on the walls of the adjoining bar, the Tangerinn.

• The British science fiction magazine Interzone gets its name from Naked Lunch.
• The music group Steely Dan takes its name from a dildo mentioned in Naked Lunch.
• The music group Clem Snide also takes its name from a character in Naked Lunch.
• The graphic novel Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, contains a fictional science magazine called "Nova Express", the name of which originates in Naked Lunch.
• The music group Showbread titled one of their songs "Naked Lunch" in their 2006 release Age of Reptiles.
• The internationally renowned DJ Spooky took his nickname "That Subliminal Kid" from the novel Nova Express.
• In 1994, the band Bomb The Bass released their album Clear which contains a track called "Bug Powder Dust" featuring beatnik psychedelic rapper Justin Warfield. The lyrics of that song contain a lot of references to characters, places and actions that are part of the book, as did Warfield's 1993 album My Fieldtrip to Planet 9.
• An episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation includes a character named Dr. Benway in one episode.
• In the 1984 Alex Cox film, Repo Man, there is a hospital scene in which Dr. Benway and Mr. Lee are paged. The two are also paged in a hospital scene in the 1998 film Dark City.
• The instrumental post-rock band Tortoise included a song entitled "Benway" on their 2001 album Standards.
• The post-punk band Joy Division recorded a song on their debut album Unknown Pleasures called "Interzone."
• Numerous recordings of Burroughs reading excerpts from Naked Lunch have been released over the years, as well as a full audio book version issued a few years before his death.
• The book's name also turns up (apparently at random) in "FLCLimax," the final episode of the anime FLCL, where it is shouted in a rhyming fit ("...Naked Lunch, Hawaiian Punch!") by character Haruhara Haruko.
• Referred to in the book The Liar by Stephen Fry.
• In 2006, the British electronic band Klaxons released a track called "Atlantis to Interzone".
• New York art-rock/avant-garde band, Sonic Youth, released a full version of Dr. Benway's House, on their deluxe edition of 1991's Goo album. An excerpt of the track is featured on William Burroughs' Dead City Radio album.
• In The Simpsons episode "Bart on the Road", Bart, Milhouse and Nelson sneak into an R-rated movie called "Naked Lunch". When they emerge, disappointed, Nelson points out that he can "find at least two things wrong with that title."
• In the album Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, by The Firesign Theatre, one track includes a story where the 1960s counterculture becomes the mainstream, and a bomber pilot drops a load of eight million hard-copies of Naked Lunch books on the last "un-hip" stronghold in the world in Nigeria.
• Quotes from the film were used on a track on the album Lord of the Harvest from Bootsy Collins under the band name Zillatron. The track was titled "Exterminate".
• The protagonist of the Stephen Chbosky novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, "Charlie", reads this book at the suggestion of his teacher and mentor, "Bill".
• The novel Move Under Ground features Burroughs playing William Tell to fight off Lovecraftian creatures called mugwumps, that have been formed by Cthulhu possessing the average people of America.

Film adaptation

Main article: Naked Lunch (film)

Ever since the 1960s, numerous film makers considered how to adapt Naked Lunch for the screen. Antony Balch, who worked with Burroughs on a number of short film projects in 1960s, considered making the film as a musical with Mick Jagger in the leading role, but the project fell through when relationships soured between Balch and Jagger. Others, too, wanted to bring the novel to celluloid, but it was ultimately deemed unfilmable.

It wasn't until 1991 that Canadian director David Cronenberg took up the challenge. Rather than attempt a straight adaptation of the novel, however, Cronenberg instead took elements from the book and combined them with elements from Burroughs' own life, to create a fiction-biography hybrid and a film about the writing of the book.

Peter Weller starred as William Lee in this film, Lee being the pseudonym Burroughs used when he wrote Junkie. The film incorporates events from Burroughs' own life, including the accidental shooting of his wife (played in the film by Judy Davis), along with routines from Naked Lunch. For example, one scene shows Weller as Lee reciting the "Talking Asshole" routine from the novel, almost verbatim.

External links

• RealityStudio.org -- A Burroughs community featuring a moderated forum, Burroughs texts, exclusive interviews, news, and more.
• Essays and photographs on William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Tangier Beat Generation, Joujouka
• The Boston Trial of Naked Lunch.