Naked Lunch Author: William S. Burroughs James Grauerholz Barry Miles | Language: English | ISBN:
B0090G0NRU | Format: EPUB
Naked Lunch Description
Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Now, nearly forty years after the book's first U.S. appearance, Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs's longtime editor James Grauerholz have given us an edition of the book that includes many editorial corrections and incorporates Burroughs's notes on the text, several essays he wrote over the years about the book, and, most excitingly, and appendix of forty pages of new material and alternate drafts from the original manuscript, which predates the edition that was eventually published by Olympia Press in Paris. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a valuable and fresh experience of perhaps his most enduring artistic legacy.
- File Size: 2758 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Publisher: Grove Press; 1st edition (March 7, 2001)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0090G0NRU
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,985 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
...
hmm,
this book, wow, this book, is f****** amazing. I've read Howl, I've read On The Road (excellent by the way), I've read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Kingdom of Fear, The Rum Diary, and such by Hunter S. Thompson. I feel like the other beats were building up to this, and HST was impossible WITHOUT William S. Burroughs. Naked Lunch is a masterpiece. I don't think there is another book like it, so full of invention, creativity, like a zoo of freaks or a jungle of mountain lions. Be afraid, be very afraid, this is not for middle schoolers, nor even high schoolers (Burroughs himself obviously inspired by Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World). I would even say that college might be a bit too soon (most of my peers were idiots (unless it was a philosophy class [hey ho!])): "that's too much reading!"
No, Naked Lunch is something I have spent time building up to. I have spent time with counter-cultureists and know their style. I read maybe a quarter of Ulysses, and while that was way harder, Naked Lunch also induced headaches. I wouldn't say someone should just jump into it in terms of literary retrospective, but in terms of imagination, the novel is in a class all its own.
Some are going to really dislike the use of sex. Some are going to really dislike the mention of drugs. Some will just hate the inventive use of language that is more like a poem and a riddle than an essay. I say dive in! Why not just go with it? Don't feel like you have to read Naked Lunch to get onto the next thing, read it like a fine wine, taking in a little bit here and there. After all, Burroughs spent at least a decade getting Lunch complete. Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in pieces over two and a half years. Joyce wrote Ulysses over about the same time Burroughs took.
Naked Lunch Preview
Link
Please Wait...