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[Image] William S. Burroughs
WSB: Naked Lunch
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Naked Lunch: Vision, Form, Style, Impact
from Jenny Skerl's William S. Burroughs
[Image] Naked Lunch purports to be a record of a man's
addiction to opiates, his apomorphine treatment, and
cure. On the literal level the novel can be seen as the disjointed
memories and hallucinations of withdrawal. The "Introduction" and
the "Atrophied Preface" (last section) frame the novel in these
terms and instruct the reader in how to read the book. The untitled
first section recapitulates the action of junkie and ends with the
narrator in Tangier. The style of this section shows a further
development of the experimentation in "In Search of Yage," Lee, the
narrator-protagonist, has assumed totally the addict-hustler
personality, and the narrative is interspersed with satirical
fantasy episodes. In the second section ("Benway") and throughout
the rest of the book, fantasy takes over, transforming Tangier into
the imaginary realm of Interzone, and the experience of addiction
and withdrawal is used as a basis for social satire.
Naked Lunch represents the same quest through drugs found in
junkie and "In Search of Age" but without hope of transcendence. In
Naked Lunch the quest finally ends in heightened visions of the here
and now. Again and again the novel explodes into visionary episodes
that reveal the permanent alienation of the disillusioned
protagonist who opposes the delusions of addiction with his new
insight: "I Don't Want To Hear Any More Tired Old Junk Talk and Junk
Con. . . . The same things said a million times and more and there
is no point in saying anything because NOTHING Ever Happens in the
junk world" (NL, P. xiii)." The introduction rejects the earlier
endless quest for nirvana as self-deceptive and suicidal escapism.
All drugs have been tried and all have led to greater bondage rather
than freedom from the conditions of physical and social existence.
[Image] The terms "addiction" and "'junk" are not to be
interpreted only on the literal level in Naked Lunch;
they are also metaphors for the human condition. From the former
addict's special angle of vision he perceives that all of humanity
is victimized by some form of addiction. The addict's experience has
led to the realization that the body is a biological trap and
society is run by "control addicts" who use the needs of the body to
satisfy their obsession with power. Thus the narrator can say: "The
junk virus is public health problem number one of the world today"
(NL, P. xii).
In Naked Lunch Burroughs is conveying a message that is
metaphorically stated and visionary in intensity, not simply
reporting observations as in junkie. His subject is a state of mind,
not a quest. The action is the flow of consciousness, not the
travels of a geographical wanderer. But because he is working in a
narrative form, he needs characters, action, and setting to convey
his ideas and as a vehicle for satire. The answer to these needs in
Naked Lunch is the creation of an entire metaphorical world, or a
mythology. Drawing upon the popular materials he had explored in
earlier fiction, Burroughs begins to build a mythology and to
transform himself into a pop artist.
The hustling, amoral life-style of the "carny world" of
addicts, criminals, and sexual deviants provides the physical,
social, and economic environment of Naked Lunch. The chief setting
is Interzone, an imaginary dystopia described as the "Composite
City." It is a composite of all the places that were the scenes of
Burroughs's drug quest: the southern United States, South America,
Tangier, and the junk neighborhoods the world over as described in
Junkie. The name "Interzone" recalls the Canal Zone of Panama, which
"In Search of Age" described as a city of cheap hustlers, sleazy
sex, and petty officials: "The Panamanians are about the crummies
people in the Hemisphere" (YL, P. 9). Interzone also refers to
Tangier, which was an international zone governed until 1956 by a
group of European powers called the Board of Control. The natives
are mostly Arabs and South Americans, the southern redneck County
Clerk governs the town on the frontier, and the colonized Island
opposite the Zone is a parody of Gibraltar. The settings are
reminiscent of the shifting, amorphous, and decaying junk
neighborhoods of junkie. Interzone is the modern city as Waste Land,
in which all the cities, peoples, and governments of the world are
combined into one huge beehive of commerce, sex, addiction,
political manipulation, and rivalry.
Interzone is also described as a single building consisting of
bedrooms and a polyglot Market "where all human potentials are
spread out" (NL, p. 106). Inhabitants spend their time copulating,
shooting up, and making deals in a parody of Western
capitalist-consumer societies. Sexuality is on the level of
pornography, particularly the "blue movie"; all inhabitants are
addicted to drugs, sex, or power; and all commerce is on the level
of vice and confidence tricks. The economic theories of capitalism's
apologists or its Marxist critics are replaced by Burroughs's
Algebra of Need, outlined in the introduction. Pyramids of power and
wealth are built from man's total need for drugs, sex, or power, and
junk traffic supplies the model for all economic and political
empires: 'Junk is the ideal product . . . the ultimate merchandise.
No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and
beg to buy. . . . The junk merchant does not sell his product to the
consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve
and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies his client.
He pays his staff in junk" (NL, P. vii).
Burroughs's political analysis is a form of the conspiracy
theory, the common man's perennial answer to the problems of history
and government. A secret few conspire to manipulate and control the
many. The political parties of Interzone seek to rule the world
through total physical and mental control of the human race; they
are all 11 control addicts" who oppose individualism and
nonconformity. Religious leaders are given short shrift as part of
the power elite that manipulates the masses. One short section on
religion reduces the great religions of the world and their founders
to "The Prophet Hour," the religion of radio and TV preachers and
revivalists' tents, that is, religion as carnival entertainment. The
basic carny social relationship of con man and mark, controller and
victim, is the basis of Burroughs's pop analysis of power and the
social order.
The science and art of this world are also drawn from popular
culture. The science of Naked Lunch is the popularized scientific
knowledge of the mass media (obsessed as Burroughs is with the
causes and cures of cancers and viruses) and the pseudo science of
Hubbard's Scientology, Wilhelm Reich's orgonomy, and Burroughs's
analysis of addiction and the apomorphine cure. For Burroughs these
systems of thought can, like popular art, reveal what is suppressed
by currently accepted theories: "Well, these non-conventional
theories frequently touch on something going on that Harvard and MIT
can't explain. I don't mean that I endorse them wholeheartedly, but
I am interested in any attempt along those lines."" Furthermore, a
pseudo science tries to give an all-inclusive formula for natural
phenomena, which conventional science has never attained, usually
communicated through a metaphorical system of ideas, that is, a
mythology. A pseudoscientific panacea appeals to the popular mind;
the mythological form suits Burroughs's style of thinking and
creating.
[Image] Naked Lunch begins to develop the pop mythology
that the later works elaborate and complete. In Naked
Lunch Burroughs transforms the body's addictive nature into an
entity called the "Human Virus" or the "evil virus." The virus lives
upon the human host, satisfying its own needs for drugs, sex, or
power (the three basic addictions for Burroughs) through demonic
possession, which dehumanizes the human being by making him
subservient to a physical or psychological need. When
addicted/possessed, the human being becomes identical with the virus
and regresses to a lower form of life. Numerous transformations in
the novel from man to subhuman organism illustrate this hypothesis.
Willie the Disk, for example, is an informer-addict whom police use
as a bloodhound. Bradley the Buyer is addicted to contact with
junkies and becomes a man-eating monster eventually destroyed by
flame throwers. Dr. Schafer's "de-anxictized man" turns into a giant
black centipede. The most important episode illustrating this
process is the story of "the talking asshole" told by Benway in the
central section of the book: "Ordinary Men and Women." In this
story, a man is taken over by one of his bodily functions (the
"lowest") and reduced to "one all-purpose blob." The episode is
brilliantly funny and terrifying at the same time. At the end of the
story, Benway points out the moral and puts forth Burroughs's own
views about "the basic American rottenness" revealed by popular
culture, and the dangers of bureaucracies, which are like cancers or
viruses (NL, pp. 133-34).
In Burroughs's mythology, the social structure mirrors the
individual process of addiction/possession on a larger scale. The
social dynamic of ad- diction is that of predator and victim, the
Algebra of Need: "The face of ,evil' is always the face of total
need. . . . In the words of total need: 'Wouldn't you?' Yes you
would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do
anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of
total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in
any other way" (NL, P. vii). The major social institutions built
upon this cannibalistic structure are also viruses or cancers
(cancer is said to be a virus in Naked Lunch), which take over the
healthy social body and warp it to fill the needs of a parasitic
organism, eventually leading the human race to destruction. The
Narcotic Bureau, for example, is cited as a parasitic social agency
seeking to perpetuate itself through increasing its scope and
powers. The orgasm-death of the hanged man, a recurrent image, also
illustrates the evil of the social system based on the Algebra of
Need. The imagery of downward metamorphosis and the orgasm of the
hanged man, which previously appeared in junkie, assume an even
greater importance in Naked Lunch as repeated motifs illustrating
the mythology of addiction.
As in junkie, the most important characters representing social
controllers are doctors. Politicians and religious leaders receive
far less attention because doctors' central role in a mythology of
addiction corresponds to what Burroughs sees as their central role
in American society: those who use science and technology to control
and degrade man. And in the popular mind, doctors are the most
highly respected professionals in the United States. Dr. Benway, Dr.
Fingers Schafer ("The Lobotomy Kid"), Dr. Berger, and the German
doctor of "Joselito" represent the type of the mad scientist and
parody the modern scientist's disregard for the human and social
results of his experimentation. Benway is the servant of repressive
social systems, using his knowledge to control human behavior. The
end of his experiments is the IND (Irreversible Neural Damage), a
body with- out a mind. Dr. Schafer produces the "Complete All
American De-Anxietized Man," a black centipede. Dr. Berger creates
perfectly healthy men through brainwashing that removes all thought.
When his "overliberated" end-products lose their usefulness as
subjects, they are sent to "disposal." These controllers who use
knowledge and power to dehumanize complement the subhuman victims
that appear elsewhere in the novel. Both types are derived from the
caricatures injunkie, but the mythic context of Naked Lunch gives
these types greater artistic power.
The action of the myth consists of a battle between the forces
of good and evil for control of the human individual and the human
race. The three conspiratorial parties of Interzone the
Liquefactionists, the Divisionists, and the Senders-seek to rule the
world through parasitic possession. They are all "control addicts. "
All three parties attempt to make all men conform to a single image
reflecting the person or force in control. The Liquefactionists, the
party of the far right, plan to liquidate everyone but them- selves.
Carried to its logical conclusion, liquidation would ultimately
eliminate everyone except one man. This party is a parody of modern
totalitarianism and racism. Sexually, it is associated with
sadomasochism. The Divisionists, the moderate party, plan to take
over by flooding the world with their own replicas, or clones.
Again, the goal is domination by one man (and one sex) through
eliminating everyone except one set of replicas. This party is a
parody of the biblical creation of man, homosexuality, and the
conspiracy theory of politics.
The totalitarian party of the left is the Senders, whose
members attempt to control everyone through mental telepathy, the
greatest evil of all ac- cording to Burroughs. Again, Sending must
lead to only one man in control of a brainwashed subhuman
population. The ultimate Sender or villain of the myth is Salvador
Hassan O'Leary, who plays all the villainous roles in the novel
under various aliases. Senders are associated with addiction, the
totalitarian Mayan civilization, the downward metamorphosis of man
to insect, and the use of science for evil purposes-some of
Burroughs's major themes. In fact, the Senders are identified as the
ultimate enemy, and Sending seems to underlie all the evils of
control. Sending is called an addiction (NL, P. 168), a cancer (NL,
P. 155), and is finally identified as the Human Virus (NL, p. 168).
The only force fighting these evil parasites is the Factualist
party, the fourth party of Interzone. The Factualists are a radical
group that represents anarchic individualism, as Eric Mottram first
pointed out." Factualist agents attempt to foil the plots of the
villains simply by revealing them. In a way, the entire novel can be
seen as such a revelation, and the two Factualists in the book-Lee
the Agent and A. J.-are Burroughs's alter egos. Factualist
revelation is equated with the murder of a villain and with the
apomorphine cure for addiction. There is a flaw in the Factualist
pro- gram, however. Since all the agents are human, they are all
potential addicts who may succumb at any moment: "all Agents defect
and all Resisters sell out" (NL, p. 205). Thus the situation is
never resolved; the cosmic battle between good and evil goes on and
on, like the continuing plot of a comic-strip adventure, as
Burroughs remarked in an interview with Ann Morrisette.
Salvador Hassal O'Leary and A. J., mortal enemies representing
the controllers and the liberators, are very much alike as
characters in that neither has any permanent personality or identity
and both assume many similar roles. This is shown most clearly in
two sections, "Hassal's Rum- pus Room" and "A. J.'s Annual Party,"
in which each character sponsors a similar sex orgy. Only the
results of their actions reveal that Hassal uses tricks to profit
and control, and A. J. uses jokes to expose and liberate. Hassal and
A. J. are not characters, but opposing forces that assume many
shapes. In junkie Burroughs began to portray characters as the locus
of im- personal forces; in the mythic world of Naked Lunch, this
kind of character is the vehicle for the godlike powers of a
Manichaean universe.
Bill Lee, Burroughs's version of himself as addict-writer, is
another "character" who barely exists except for his voice and his
actions. The persona is even more of a cipher than before, appearing
at the beginning and end as the withdrawing addict and Factualist
Agent. Lee's voice is that of the hipster-addict, telling stories
about his adventures. He has the tone and vocabulary of the carnival
barker, the street hustler, or the conman. Lee's actions are those
of the Factualist Agent: he infiltrates enemy organizations, reveals
their plots, and thereby "murders" evil. His unpunished murder of
Officers Hauser and O'Brien in the last episode is a metaphor for
factualist liberation. Because the police are seeking to confiscate
his manuscripts as well as his drugs, his gun, and his person, Agent
Lee is also the writer of Naked lunch, who destroys evil by writing
about it.
The title "naked lunch" refers to the authorial intention to
"reveal the facts." The "naked lunch" means both the act of seeing
and what is seen. Use of the title in the introduction and the
preface establishes the naked lunch as seeing, and particularly
seeing the naked lunch itself "on the end of every fork" or "on the
end of that long newspaper spoon." Within the body of the book, the
naked lunch of human life is portrayed as cannibal- ism, oral-anal
sex, orgasm-death, and coprophagy. "To lunch" is to see the vision
but also to be a part of it, for no one can escape the human
condition. Only a kind of mental freedom is implied by the act of
seeing clearly.
In using pseudo science to create a popular mythology,
Burroughs is entering the realm of popular literature: popular
science becomes science fiction. In Naked Lunch Burroughs makes use
of the full range of popular literary resources: news media,
advertising, and popular fiction In all of its forms (magazines,
paperbacks, comics, movies, radio, and television serials). From all
of these and from his own contact with the underworld, Burroughs
gains his enviable command of popular speech-vocabulary, idioms, and
rhythms. From news media and advertising, Burroughs also adopts the
goal of writing to change consciousness: "Naked Lunch is a blue-
print, a How-To Book . . . How-To extend levels of experience" (NL.
p. 224).
From the various forms of popular fiction, Burroughs derives
his plot, characters, and many characteristic images. Naked Lunch
draws from the detective story, the Gothic tale, older science
fiction of the mad-doctor variety, and pornography. The popular
motifs from these fictions include the secret agent, the alienated
private eye, the mobster boss and his gang, the mad doctor and
amoral scientific experimenter, monsters, zombies, vampires, body
snatchers, space-time travel, secret plots, secret formulas or
weapons, intelligent nonhuman beings, nearly inhuman villains,
sadomasochistic fantasies, and other perversions. What all these
popular forms have in common is a paranoid view of the world that
Burroughs accepts as valid. Popular art, like pseudo science,
reveals what society would like to repress. As Benway remarks at one
point in the novel, "there's always a space he- tween, in popular
songs and Grade B movies, giving away the basic American rottenness"
(NL, p. 133).
The New Form of Naked Lunch
[Image] The new vision of Naked Lunch is presented in an
experimental form derived from painting, photography,
film, and Jazz. The basic technique Burroughs chose to use is
juxtaposition, called collage or montage in the visual arts. The
overall structure of Naked Lunch is a montage of "routines"
that-theoretically can be read in any order. Burroughs announces
this structure in the "Atrophied Preface" when he says, "You can cut
into Naked Lunch at any intersection point" (NL, p. 224) and "The
Word is divided into units which be all in one piece and should be
so taken, but the pieces can be had in any order" (NL, P. 229).
Each routine is an independent piece introduced by a title
indicating subject or theme. (The first routine is the only one
without a caption.) The routines are dramatically realized fantasies
consisting of monologues, dialogues, plot episodes, scene
descriptions, and collage passages of associative imagery. Within
the routines, Burroughs's technique is jazz like improvisation.
Typically, Burroughs begins with a person, a conversation, or an
event that is factual or credible and improvises on this theme in a
fantastic and satiric vein. The routines in Naked Lunch vary in
length from two or three pages to twenty-five pages. The shorter
ones consist of one or two episodes; the longer ones contain
several. Structure within routines is based on a rhythm of expansion
and contraction: statement of theme, improvisation, climax,
sometimes return to theme, and then a new improvisation. Narrative
transitions may be provided (such as a character in one scene
introducing a story) -or episodes may be juxtaposed without
transition. As improvisational flights continue, Burroughs often
carries a narrative through to a violent, chaotic conclusion with an
"all hell breaking loose" effect. The riots at the end of the
"Benway" and "Ordinary Men and Women" sections are examples of
building up to an explosive climax. Sometimes improvisation leads to
a collage passage: a prose poem of juxtaposed images built around a
single theme. The end of "Algebra of Need," "Hauser and O'Brien,"
and the "Quick" section, which concludes the "Atrophied Preface,"
are examples. These collage passages are static and descriptive. The
effect is contemplative rather than violent.
The work as a whole exhibits this organic and improvisational
pattern. Naked Lunch begins with the factual and autobiographical
introduction, which explains the author's addiction and cure, and
the first routine, which recapitulates the biographical journey of
junkie. From this base, the novel moves into fantasies of addiction
and control, building up to the central routines: "The Market,"
"Ordinary Men and Women," "Islam Incorporated and the Parties of
Interzone," "The County Clerk," and "Inter- zone." This group of
routines in the heart of the book contains the most detailed,
concentrated descriptions of Interzone, its inhabitants, and the
mythic plot, as well as Burroughs's most wide-ranging social satire.
The remaining routines return primarily to the themes of addiction
and control, but with the added themes of escape and rebellion. The
later routines also include more collage sections than those in the
first half of the book. Naked Lunch ends with an autobiographical
preface that discusses quite directly the novel's technique and
metaphors and a clinical appendix that lists and discusses drugs
mentioned in the novel. Thus the work is framed by factual,
autobiographical sections that address the reader directly, guiding
him into and out of an extraordinary text. Although the routines can
stand alone and the form is a montage, the order is not random.
There is an overall psychological pattern, an order of increasing
complexity in the use of experimental technique, and a didactic
frame.
Burroughs chose a montage and improvisational structure for
Naked Lunch for three reasons: it is a way to present the flow of
consciousness; it is a way to expand the reader's consciousness, and
it is an effective satirical technique. Naked Lunch is overtly
presented as a record of the writer's consciousness: "There is only
one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses
at the moment of writing. . . . I am a recording instrument. . . . I
do not presume to impose 'story' 'plot' 'continuity.' . . . Insofar
as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process
I may have a limited function. . . . I am not an entertainer . . . "
(NL, p. 22 1). Thus the mythic content is autobiographical; the
characters are But- roughs's alter egos; the plot, his inner
conflicts; the structure, that of his actual experience; the
texture, that of his individual perceptions; the themes, his own
spiritual quest and discovery. The unusual composition is explained
as Burroughs's stream of consciousness and as a random collection of
notes. Furthermore, the introduction and preface state that the
novel consists of notes taken during the withdrawal sickness of a
drug cure a paranoid schizophrenic state that gives the surreal
visions the status of fact. Withdrawal also produces uncontrollable
sociability and the revelation of distasteful intimacies, according
to junkie. Naked Lunch is even more literal as unmediated experience
than the confession of a junkie and the epistolary "In Search of
Age": it is a diary that records experience as it happens, and the
act of recording is part of the experience.
The effect of montage, however, is a new vision. juxtaposition
asks the reader to make connections between the elements that are
set next to each other. The new mental associations are a form of
expanded consciousness. Furthermore, the lack of conventional
literary narrative gives powerful im- pact to the images presented,
which are taken out of their ordinary context and assume a dreamlike
power. Thus Naked Lunch is presented as "revelation and prophecy"
(NL, p. 229). It is not only a record of one individual's vision,
but an attempt to re-create that vision in the reader.
Both juxtaposition and improvisational fantasy @fill a
satirical function in Naked Lunch. These techniques enable Burroughs
to use his popular materials as a weapon for attacking the social
order. Montage juxtaposes the bourgeois and the hipster-addict,
public politics and the underworld, legitimate and illegitimate
business, organized religion and show business, literary and popular
art, science and pseudo science in order to show the evil inherent
in the entire system: the cynical control of the masses of common
men by and for the few through basic human physical and
psychological needs. The combination of avant-garde technique and
critical intention with popular materials is what makes Burroughs a
pop artist, not just one who uses popular materials. His literary
work is analogous to pop art of the same period.
Extensive use of montage increases the disorder of a
composition, but Burroughs has counteracted the centrifugal tendency
of montage with several unifying and ordering techniques. One is the
order of the routines described above, following a psychological
pattern and, to a certain extent, designed to orient and instruct
the reader. The mythology also ties the routines together by
providing an underlying narrative of which each fragment is a part.
Finally, the unifying sensibility of Burroughs lies behind the work:
Naked Lunch is the creation of one man's consciousness even though
he de-emphasizes this role by calling himself an "instrument" and by
calling attention to the collaboration of others. The vision and the
voice of Naked Lunch are idiosyncratic, unmistakably the product of
one personality called William S. Burroughs.
The Style of Naked Lunch
[Image] In Naked Lunch Burroughs has achieved his mature
voice, and the on- conventionality of his new style is
another element of experimental form in the novel. The style of
Naked Lunch is oral, colloquial, and parodic. The informal speech of
many groups is imitated, particularly the language of the addict
underworld. Burroughs has an ear for the vernacular and is extremely
successful in presenting the spoken word. His sensitivity and skill
are such that the novel's prose often approaches the status of
poetry. The representation of the spoken word in print is
responsible for Burroughs's unusual use of typography: his abundant
capitals, italics, and ellipses. Capitals and italics are used to
indicate tone and emphasis, usually ironic, and ellipses indicate
pauses. Ellipses are also used to join juxtaposed im- ages and
phrases in the collage passages, providing a nonverbal transition.
Capitals and italics are also used for headings that introduce
routines o sections, taking the place of narrative transitions. The
unusual typography emphasizes the unconventionality of the novel,
its fragmentary nature, and the colloquial rather than literary
style.
Naked Lunch is also a very funny book, and Burroughs's humor is
an important part of his style. Mary McCarthy says that Burroughs's
humor is "peculiarly American, at once broad and sly," pointing to
the country and vaudeville sources." But this contradictory humor is
also a result of the montage technique, which juxtaposes the
primitive and the sophisticated, combining humor that is gross and
simple, such as calling the hogs in a gourmet restaurant, and some
that is verbal and intellectual, such as Benway'. s description of
how he achieves total demoralization: "I deplore brutality. . . .
It's not efficient." Burroughs's major comic techniques are satiric:
the parody of social types and their language, the undercutting of
intellectual pretensions with physical grossness, the exaggeration
of the actual in satirical fantasy, taking metaphors literally, and
the humorous incongruity of arbitrarily juxtaposed images or
episodes, another kind of undercutting technique. Burroughs's
obscenity is a major element in his humor, as it is often an element
in traditional satire. In fact, Burroughs refers in the introduction
to Swift's "A Modest Proposal" as the model for some of his obscene
episodes. Grotesque and macabre images of sexuality, violence, and
death are used to undercut and ridicule, to shock into moral
recognition.
But in spite of all of the parallels with traditional satire,
Naked Lunch i ultimately a parodic rather than a satiric work. It
attacks without implying any positive standard as traditional satire
does. The individual, anarchic freedom that lies behind the
destructive satire exists in a vacuum, with no moral or social
structure to support it or to give satire any function but
destruction. The only values upheld by Burroughs's parodic style are
the energy, delight, and laughter that come from the freedom from
controlling structures and the joy in spontaneous response to inner
impulses and external context. These are the hipster's values, and
Naked Lunch is a Beat masterplece, embodying the hipster mentality,
which Burroughs had explored in life and in junkie.
The Impact of Naked Lunch
[Image] Naked Lunch has given its author a permanent place
in literary history because of its formal innovations,
its powerful attitude of revolt, and the controversy surrounding its
publication. The censorship trials, of course, attracted publicity,
but also attracted the attention of serious readers be- cause of the
authors and critics who testified on behalf of the novel. Critical
attention was further drawn to Naked Lunch when Mary McCarthy and
Norman Mailer praised the book highly at the Edinburgh International
Writer's Conference in 1962. Mailer proclaimed Burroughs "the only
American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by
genius. "Mary McCarthy defended her statement at the conference with
an influential essay on Naked Lunch, first published in 1963 and
still the best single critical piece on Burroughs." Grove Press was
able to obtain testimonials for Naked Lunch by Mailer, Robert
Lowell, Terry Southern, and John Ciardi, among others, for a
publicity pamphlet in 1962.
As a result of the high praise by well-known literary figures,
Naked Lunch was widely reviewed in the United States and England.
Many re- viewers praised the book for its power and serious purpose,
and Burroughs was compared to other avant-garde writers in the
modernist tradition. But Naked Lunch received strongly negative
reviews as well. Some reviewers thought the novel morally offensive,
artistically worthless, and revolting to the sensibilities of most
readers. The most notable of these protests, because of the
correspondence they generated, are those of John Wain in the New
Republic, William Phillips in Commentary, and an unsigned review
entitled "Ugh" in the Times Literary Supplement." The debate
following the TLS review was the longest and liveliest in that
publication's history. The critical controversy, however, has
established Naked Lunch as a seminal postwar work that must be
continually read and reevaluated regardless of the personal tastes
of individual critics.
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