synopsis:

'Naked Lunch' is Burroughs's epic beat-generation portrait of drug addiction. Before presenting the completed work (which consists of a series of sketches) to his publisher, Burroughs mixed the pages on a table in the company's office - a procedure which he claimed would create as good an ordering of the contents as any other.because this novel consists of non-linear sketches, thoughts and descriptions, it is hard to give a summarise it.

on this book:

Burroughs did not seem to have planned 'Naked Lunch' as a single book. He wrote much of the raw material as separate scraps while living in Tangier during the mid-fifties, while his friends were finally becoming famous in America. When Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (see "And shocks of hospitals and jails and wars...", Methadone pretty [phrases] and "Moloch whose Soul is electricity...") visited him in Tangier they encouraged him to put the pieces together and try to get it published. Kerouac came up with the title. Olympia Press, the controversial Parisian publisher run by Maurice Girodias published the first edition in 1959 (Olympia Press took a chance on many controversial books, and Girodias shows up as a character in the film I Shot Andy Warhol, about valerie solanas; see "the male chromosome is an incomplete..." and of walking abortion [phrases]). The book took a little while before it got noticed, and didn't really become a sensation until the early 60's, when Burroughs began making appearances to publicize it. it is seen as the essence of burroughs' work.because of some obscene and explitic descriptions, the publication of 'naked lunch' was almost forbidden in america, despite defences by norman mailer and allen ginsberg. after a trial in massachusetts the book was declared legal by the state court in 1966.

A movie called 'Naked Lunch' was directed by David Cronenberg in 1991; it was not so much a film of the book (which is non-linear in structure) as a treatment of Burroughs' life story.see also: "Junk is the ideal product..."
"Rock and roll adolescents storm into..."