Naked Lunch

 

I thought I would have finished Death in Venice by now, but I have been falling asleep as I read it. So I wanted to talk about the book I finished a few days ago, Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.

A long time ago I tried watching the Naked Lunch movie and was never able to get through it. I do remember the beginning having a lot to do with an exterminator who was addicted to the powder insecticide. So when I started reading this book I expected to start reading about an exterminator. Nope - not at all. In fact, I found one short section about an exterminator, but it was in the last 3rd of the book and a pretty negligible part of the story.

I don't know what to think of this book. Even though I finished it less than a week ago, I can't seem to remember anything concrete about the story. This is probably because it was the disjointed ramblings of a man addicted to opiates. Burroughs himself states in the introduction that he doesn't remember writing it, at least how he felt as he wrote it. These were notes he took while drifting in his junk-induced dream state. So I guess it isn't all that surprising that the book feels like some kind of bad dream, the details of which keep slipping through my grasp.