Alex’s Reviews > Naked Lunch > Status Update

still the best of the "beats"--at least as their novelists went.

Faint praise, eh?

Curtainthief wrote: "Faint praise, eh?"

I actually like Burroughs and enjoy his cut-up word salad sci-fi books, but I am also a big sci-f and poetry fan. He is actually a smart writer who in some ways is too cynical and prescient to be parodied in the way his companions can be--someone closer to PKD than the flower power movement. That said, Naked Lunch defied all my expectations because I went in thinking it was some counter culture monument like Howl or On The Road, and was met with the most pleasant of surprises because it's not those things at all, so that may have colored my fondness for it.

The sci-fi stuff is the stuff I like. The incoherent sexual violence, not so much.

So Griffin, my question is, do I power through? Do we get around to more of the interesting sci-fi stuff, or are the last 65 pages of nightmare orgy interminable?

truthfully, I don't remember, which perhaps says mor about me than the book. I'd say it's worth finishing, but I'm sure by now you also know what Bill is up to.

For whatever it's worth coming from a stranger online, Naked Lunch was not a favorite of mine either. I think I rated it three stars. I have no doubt that Burroughs was much smarter than I, so perhaps some of this book was lost on my plebeian brain. Just my two cents.

And as you say, the sexual violence was somewhat unpleasant to me, too.

Thanks Wes. I mean, I'm on GR precisely because I'm looking for the opinions of strangers online.

Good point, Curtainthief. I suppose I'd say the same. On another note, looks like we're both reading Burton. I commend your taste.

Back atcha.