Please note this is a review based on the novel by Burroughs not the film by David Cronenberg which I hear is simply mind bending and splendid :)This novel was one of the biggest mind fucks I have ever had. Before I even finished reading the book I found myself re-reading passages and certain chapters just trying to get a grip on what was going on and in the end I'm not even sure if I got the final message correctly.
The Beat writers have been a fascination for me for the last couple months and I find Burroughs to be the most fascinating of the bunch. Sure some may say that Kerouac and Ginsberg can write better, with a more jointed story but I'd put Naked Lunch up against any of their best works.
The stream of conscience that this novel is written in makes it difficult for some people to digest put I find it works extremely well for a book of this manner. It allows us only to see what Burroughs wants us to see. This makes me feel disjointed but intrigued.
William Lee starts this novel off with a weird journey in search of his next fix. He eventually makes his way to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway where Benway tells him of all his previous works in Annexia. Dr. Benway is one of the most fascinating characters in literature. He is a man with no conscience only looking to advance his performance instead of caring for his patients. This is a great parody of the medical field in general that is so open to experimenting on their patients to advance their performance.(An interesting fact: Dr. Benway was the first ever online persona ever recognized. In real life!)
It then moves to a place called The Interzone. This place is a wasteland devoid of any decency. In fact the first glimpse we get of the Interzone is the charcter Hassan throwing an orgy that has been wrecked by a character named AJ who is decapitating people. This Interzone is used to satirize everything from decency , what we truly find decent. Many people hold relatively liberal views but when faced with a situation like this we are absolutely disgusting we soon forget our "we should be free to do what we feel" mantra. It also satirizes politics but making all the parties n the Interzone seem ridiculous. I also believe it is used to satirize higher education as shown by the mocking of the university professors and students.
The book then shifts back to William Lee who is finally caught but he kills the two police officers after him and is on the run again. When he calls the Narcotics squad though there is no one by the names of the two officers making it seem like a drug induced dream of Lee's.
One of the major themes though I find is how Burroughs is trying to tackle mind control devices. Whether it being government. medicine or sexuality(Benway tells us how in Amnesia there was no homosexuality because there was no deviancy.) He also explains how he could control people sexually(He would train men to shit on the sight of him and after he would eat their assholes out while the man crying still ejaculated. He describes it as "tasty"
Finally This one was of the greatest novels ever written by a man who obviously had a very unique view on the world and gladly shared it with us through his ironic, post modern satire and truly mind bending prose.
P.S. Any hipsters out there this would look great in your back pocket.
91/100 A
-Hutz
No comments:
Post a Comment