As I am sure I have mentioned before, I have a poster with 100 “must read” novels on it. It’s a scratch-off. You scratch off novels when you read them. Despite being a well-read fellow, I hadn’t even read half of those books, and I decided I would do what I could to read the rest. Since then, I have passed the halfway mark, but some books are longer than others and take a bit more time.
1959’s Naked Lunch is one of the shorter ones. And…that is about all I can definitely say about it.
Naked Lunch is told in a nonlinear, some might argue nonsensical, manner, where a narrator known as Lee has some encounters with narcotics officers. Lee does have an addiction to heroin, but what exactly happens in the novel, I don’t know that I can really say. There are some sections that are written that seem to, for lack of a better description, make sense in the generic manner, but most of the novel is not really set for any sort of coherent, linear plot.
And I somehow enjoyed the trip.
No pun intended.
Most of this work has Lee seemingly describe a place called the Interzone, where a wide variety of eccentric characters live and work. And by “work,” I mean mostly engage in all kinds of sex and drugs, whether physically possible or not. It may not make a lot of sense at first glance, and I wouldn’t even try to guess. Mostly, I just dug the way Burroughs used words to describe all manner of impossible experiences. My best guess is the novel is mostly a story of a drug trip Lee took. Is that right? I have no idea, and honestly, it doesn’t matter.
I don’t really feel equipped to say much about this book. It is not for everybody by a long shot, but if you want prose that feels like poetry and has a strange edge to it, then Naked Lunch is the blatantly weird book for you.
Grade: A-
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