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Harper Perennial Modern Classics - Naked Lunch: The Restored Text [Paperback]

William Burroughs
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text Naked Lunch: The Restored Text 3.6 out of 5 stars (39)
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Book Description

3 May 2005 Harper Perennial Modern Classics

The anarchic, phenomenally strong-selling classic from the godfather of the Beats, featuring for the first time the restored text, all the accompanying essays, and newly discovered material from the original manuscript. Revitalised with a cool new jacket and an anecdote-packed P.S. Section.

Welcome to Interzone…

Say hello to Bradley the Buyer, the best narcotics agent in the business. Check yourself into the hospital where Dr Benway works – but don't expect adrenalin if you need it (the night porter shot it up for kicks). Meet Dr 'Fingers' Schafer, the Lobotomy Kid, and his greatest creation, 'The Complete American De-anxietized Man', a marvel of invasive psychiatry who has been reduced to nothing but a spinal cord.

Told by an Ivy League-educated narcotics addict, ‘Naked Lunch’ juxtaposes two journeys: the narrator's physical progress from America to North Africa, via Mexico, and a terrifying descent into his own altered consciousness. In this ‘Interzone’, loosely based on Burroughs' temporary home of Tangier, sex, drugs and murder are the most basic of commodities, and the basest desires have become completely banal.

Provocative, influential, morbidly fascinating and mordantly funny, ‘Naked Lunch’ takes us on an exhilarating ride through the darkest recesses of the human psyche – a ride which stunned the literary world when first published in the repressed 1950s, and is still guaranteed to épater more than a few bourgeois.

Over forty years since first publication, Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs' longtime editor James Grauerholz have compiled this definitive restored text, correcting numerous errors that have accumulated over the years, and incorporating all of Burroughs' notes and accompanying essays. Most exciting of all, this edition includes an appendix of newly discovered, never before seen material – including alternate drafts from the original manuscript and letters from Burroughs’ private correspondence.



Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial; New Ed edition (3 May 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0007204442
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007204441
  • Product Dimensions: 16.1 x 2 x 21.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 244,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

‘A true genius and first mythographer of the mid-twentieth century, William Burroughs is the lineal successor to James Joyce. “Naked Lunch” is a banquet you will never forget.’
JG Ballard

‘Prophesied with unerring accuracy the hideous modes that human behaviour would assume in the post-apocalyptic second half of the twentieth century. “Naked Lunch” is essential reading for anyone who maintains any illusions about anything.’ Will Self

‘William Burroughs broadened people’s conception of what makes humanity. In that way, he really was an American hero, a hero writer, and also just a great man.’ Lou Reed

‘A delirious exploration of sexual violence through the art of collage.’ Time Out

From the Back Cover

WELCOME TO INTERZONE…

Say hello to Bradley the Buyer, the best narcotics agent in the business. Attend international playboy A.J.'s annual party, where the punch is to be treated with extreme caution. Meet Dr 'Fingers' Schafer, the Lobotomy Kid and his giant centipede, 'The Complete American De-anxietized Man.' And enter the dark and infernal mind of Bill Lee as he pursues his daily quest for the ultimate merchandise…

Provocative, influential, morbidly fascinating, Naked Lunch is an apocalyptic ride through the darker recesses of the human psyche.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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First Sentence
I CAN FEEL THE HEAT closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train . . . Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By jman jr
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Just some thoughts on this particular edition of Naked Lunch.

In a nutshell - it's wonderful.
Hardback is housed in a handsome slipcase. (the photo Amazon has used is of the slipcase. The art on the book itself closely mirrors that of the usa 1st edition i.e. PERFECT!)

Page ends are black - Nice touch.

Contents wise we get -
The restored text.
And 100 + pages of extras inc assorted outtakes - Original introductions etc by Bill.

For a new edition - Grove press have done us proud - Any Bill fan should be very pleased to add this very fine volume to their collection and I should not at all be surprised if this version becomes a collectable in the future.

The novel itself?
A work of art and a unique novel that is worth every ounce of it's reputation as being one of the most important/ landmark novels of the 20th century.

Edition 5/5
Novel 5/5
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual Nastiness 25 April 2011
Format:Paperback
I read this 20 years ago and was frustrated by its inability to fit into my conception of a comprehensible novel.Now what was once its greatest flaw seems to be its greatest asset.It is a collage of sometimes grim scenarios peppered with the odd titbit of medical/anthropological/sociological insight and probably literature's first attempt at abstract impressionism.
Obviously not for people with conservative tastes or delicate sensibilities.
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39 of 46 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Small doses before bed may work best 30 Dec 2003
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Imagine you were able to recall all the weird dreams and nightmares you ever had in clear, vivid detail; taking in sights, smells, feelings, and those odd moments when the dream changes completely, but still - inconceivably, but somehow rationally - connected to the events of the moment before. Imagine you are a hopeless heroin addict, having sleeping and waking dreams compounded by an addict's hallucinations and paranoid excursions, often perceiving things through a trancelike psychosis. Imagine you have a pen in your hand. You've imagined William Burroughs disturbed, distorted and dreamlike prose. You've imagined what Naked Lunch would look and sound like.

That's my take on this almost impenetrable novel. It's fairly short by today's standards, but like old fashioned toffee - extremely chewy, time consuming and ultimately frustrating in all but small chunks. If the Naked Chef stripped down recipes to their bare essentials, then Naked Lunch is the complete opposite; a gorge-fest of dense, lyrical prose and vivid images melded together to form a collage around the subjects of addiction, sexual fascination and satire of the medical profession.

I gather this book doesn't employ the cut'n'paste narrative experiments of his later work, because with this book there is no coherent narrative. Yes, you could take any of these pages and put them pretty much anywhere and they would still make as much sense. But the cut up method implies a structured (but merely fragmented) narrative as many of us would know it. Naked Lunch is not like this. It is more random, flicking off onto tangents, as dreams do.

Does the sum of these Frankenstein parts add up to a meaningful whole? Well, that depends on what you enjoy in a book. If you enjoy prose loaded with lyrical dexterity, lurid images and simile; constant bemusement, and re-reading sentences because they seem unrelated to each other, with unconnected thoughts and images from one moment to the next - you may enjoy this book. Burroughs has a way with images, if nothing else. But if you are used to more conventional writing and narrative - a story even - then, like me, you may find it a frustrating experience. If James Joyce was a junkie, he would probably have written something like Naked Lunch first.

But I could not leave it alone, and persevered in small portions. The writing is intriguing and the images fascinating, but I was only 2-3 pages in when I wondered when the weirdness would stop and a book would begin. Maybe that is the triumph of Burroughs' work, that many will read it in spite of its avant garde nature. For those who find it heavy going, 'Junky', written earlier, may help. It foreshadows the style and experiences employed in Naked Lunch, but has a conventional narrative and gives some useful background to Burroughs' psyche, before he completely tripped out.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars what's at the end of every fork..........
this book was the game changer, one of the most vital and original works of the previous century, the 'ramones 1st album' of literature, in my opinion, the best book ever written. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Craig White
4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book.
This book is beautiful in a sick-grotesque-wild-hilarious-creative-mind-bending-outlandish-drug-filled-dirty-brave kind of way. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Craven
3.0 out of 5 stars Naked Lunch fails to live up to it's reputation.
This book has been on my “to do” reading list for some time, and now complete, I have to admit I wonder what all the fuss is about. Read more
Published 4 months ago by The Warwick Reader
2.0 out of 5 stars not a great book
i read reviews for this book, all of which being very good.
But it isn't written well at all! i understand obviously that's it's not a modern book but nonetheless i feel that... Read more
Published 8 months ago by alex
2.0 out of 5 stars am I alone in not getting it?
Requires huge patience to thread together the hellish illusions, trips, nightmares and distortions that make up the bulk of the narrative. Read more
Published 10 months ago by nickdavies
5.0 out of 5 stars Naked Lunch (1959)
The Restored Text with 100 + extra pages including original Introductions by the author:

This 1959 novel is William Burroughs's finest work, I think. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Ghost
5.0 out of 5 stars Naked Lunch, the blur of a book I still recommend
This is the kind of book that nobody reads for the plot, because, frankly, there is no plot to speak of, aside from Bill Lee's journey into his own sick and twisted subconscious. Read more
Published 14 months ago by steelo
2.0 out of 5 stars Not enough nudity and not enough lunch
I was shocked after reading this book that it could be titled "Naked Lunch". I purchased the book expecting an erotic novel peppered with food fetish related sex tales and was... Read more
Published 17 months ago by n o i r
1.0 out of 5 stars What is it with this so-called "CUT-UP" business?
What is it with this so-called "CUT-UP" business? That is not allowed. That is not good writing. Ask any ENGLISH teacher (as opposed to any gobbeldy-gook teacher) and he will tell... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Young
1.0 out of 5 stars Rubbish
I can't get on with this book at all. It may have been worth reading when it was first printed, just for the novelty of seeing deep profanity in print. Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2010 by ize
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can some of william burroughs work be read as occult manuals? 0 11 Jun 2011
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