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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text Audiobook
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Publisher Description
Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson; on the relationship between art and obscenity; and on the shape of music, film, and media generally, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture.
Naked Lunch is the unnerving tale of Bill Lee, addicted to hustlers and narcotics, and his monumental descent into Hell. His journey takes him from New York to Tangiers, as he runs from the police and searches for a place to buy and take drugs. Ultimately, he enters the hallucinatory fantasy world of the “Interzone,” a nightmarish urban wasteland where individual freedom confronts the forces of totalitarianism.
Reedited by Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs’ longtime editor James Grauerholz, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text corrects errors present in previous editions and incorporates Burroughs’ notes on the text, several essays he wrote about the book, an appendix of new material, and alternate drafts from the original manuscript. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a valuable and fresh experience of this classic of our culture.
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"Thorough exploration of the internal chaos in a troubled soul, diverse and troubling but honestly abrupt in an awareness of the contemporary world, a life stew with the recipe detailing all the angst, mistakes and psychotic breaks of turmoil in a desperate search for understanding and personal acceptance, though the stew when served has a bitter and nauseous taste which many have discovered is difficult to swallow. This art is a perfect example of how difficult it is to understand each other’s internal lives and how we experience others, it is everyone’s right to view their opinions, though they are legitimate it somehow clarifies how deep into the hidden world of our lives most want to shy away from, to close their minds or have not ridden the rollercoaster deep into the oubliette of their own psyches as yet to be able to comprehend the story that is presented before them in the naked lunch. It may leave a bad taste, but it’s naked reality in a poetic fantasy of self survival and why it’s important we are here for each other and most of all, if you close your mind to this book and discard it as violent, or just about drugs, self indulgent or crazy, then it’s a sign you are lucky enough to either have avoided the impact the dark reality of this world has on offer or one has closed their minds from is there and in so doing leaves one vulnerable to the dark reality the day it comes calling.I am thankful I have not led the life of William S Burroughs though I can appreciate the journey, I read this book along with authors Gibson and Ballard as a teenager and found them extraordinary. The journey of artists who test the boundaries to understand our souls and relationships, the world and how we manifest our reality into it. I later became a firefighter and Ballards book ‘Crash’ was a struggle due to the dark and gruesome reality I lived that most don’t see, I came away from those years thankful for having been a firefighter and contributed to our communities though with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the close proximity to the suffering and ultra reality that is existing daily just out of sight, away from the self satisfying corporate, self indulgent shopping lifestyle, the I want it now syndrome and character is being eroded from our children in greater depth each generation. Such books as these aided my character and intellect with the burden of that horror and allowed me a deeper understanding even more after the fire and rescue service on the many rereads. We all find a way to expose the reality we ignore by smearing this money, privilege and television led reality to hide from the truth, we should step up and acknowledge it so we can make changes and not hide from the difficult to digest. Blessings to you all and be safe. "
— Mark (5 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“Burroughs possesses a special literary gift…[Naked Lunch] takes a coldly implacable look at the dark side of our nature.”
— New York Times -
“Ever since Naked Lunch…Williams S. Burroughs has been ordained as America’s most incendiary artist.”
— Los Angeles Times -
“William S. Burroughs’ classic tale…is invigorated by this enthusiastic reading. Mark Bramhall offers a professional performance peppered with every trick of the actor’s trade to make it a resonating effort. He approaches the work with such energy that the story seems like a new entity, freshly relevant and timely. Listeners will lose themselves in the journey of junkie William Lee as he makes his way from bizarre destination to even more bizarre destination in this unforgettable novel.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“If Naked Lunch is one of your favorites from the Beat Generation, you MUST, MUST listen to this audio performance! Hallucinatory visions will fill listeners’ minds as narrator Mark Bramhall tells the maddeningly fragmented story of drug addict William Lee, who moves in and out of various states of consciousness as he flees the police, taking to the road and eventually landing in Mexico. Bramhall deftly delivers the nonlinear vignettes that comprise this basically plotless novel, creating a narrative drive that will keep listeners tuned in…The only one who might have done a better job of narrating is Burroughs himself.”
— AudioFile -
“A great, an essential novel…[It] prefigures much that has occurred in history, the popular media, and high and low culture in the last four decades.”
— The Commercial Appeal -
“He was 20th-century drug culture’s Poe, its Artaud, its Baudelaire. He was the prophet of the literature of pure experience, a phenomenologist of dread…Burroughs had the scary genius to turn the junk wasteland into a parallel universe, one as thoroughly and obsessively rendered as Blake’s.”
— Salon -
“Mark Bramhall’s powerful, fully vocalized performance is searing. The characters, with a multitude of accents and a variety of disorders, are individualized memorably and in keeping with the intent of the text. The novel, turns the profane into art. The reading turns the squalid into richness of subject matter. Not for everybody, but an important classic, nevertheless, and a superb narration.”
— SoundCommentary.com -
“William was a shootist. He shot like he wrote—with extreme precision and no fear.”
— Hunter S. Thompson -
“A masterpiece. A cry from hell, a brutal, terrifying, and savagely funny book that swings between uncontrolled hallucination and fierce, exact satire.”
— Newsweek
Awards
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One of Time Magazine's Best 100 English-Language Novels from 1923–2005
Naked Lunch Listener Reviews
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" I did not finish. Don't know how to say I started and gave up on a book here. Can anyone advise me? "
— Judy, 2/20/2014 -
" Just: drugs. "
— Micki, 2/18/2014 -
" I had to read this for a Psychopharmacology course. I absolutely hated the experience of reading this book. I am pretty open-minded, but the vulgar and obscene imagery was very difficult to get through. However, reading this book did illustrate its purpose that illicit psychotropic drugs can really mess up a person... especially authors. "
— Kristen, 2/3/2014 -
" Being neither an addict nor a user (nor a pedophile), maybe I'm not qualified to read, much less comment on Naked Lunch. There were some passages that were brilliant, but most of it, well, not so much. But at least now I can say I read (and finished - somehow) Burroughs' masterpiece. I just hope no one asks me why, because I'm asking myself the same thing. "
— Dale, 2/2/2014 -
" Everyone knows I love the beats. Ginsberg is my idol and Kerouac changed my life. But I'm going to be very honest here, this book is disgusting. It makes no sense, is boring, and is disgusting. There I said it. "
— Haylee, 1/30/2014 -
" Man, props to Burroughs for writing the first book that forced me to quit due to obscenity. Hassan's Rumpus Room (which includes several extremely brutal descriptions of sodomizing a young boy) is one of the most reprehensible things to ever be put on paper. "
— Brett, 1/29/2014 -
" Weird!!! "
— Andy, 1/14/2014 -
" I know should have tried harder to read this, but I just couldn't force myself "
— Anne, 1/13/2014 -
" Didn't actually finish the book. Couldn't do it. I made it about halfway and decided that the visualization I got in my head were too disturbingly disgusting. Too much for me to handle. "
— Cara, 12/23/2013 -
" Made it to page 65 and decided this was not for me. Too disgusting. "
— Andrew, 12/18/2013 -
" weeeiiiiirrrddddd "
— Tyler, 11/29/2013 -
" Bullshit! Extreamly vivid imagery of every type of depraved pornographic bullshit an opium adelled genius could describe. "
— Ed, 11/21/2013 -
" I am having a bit of a difficult time understanding what's going on but I like how it's twisting my brain in knots. Hopefully I can untangle them when I reach the end. "
— Ashton, 10/28/2013 -
" Hated it. Abandoned it at around 50 pages in. Pointlessly foul. "
— Kirsten, 7/6/2013 -
" One good thing came out of this rambling, drug-fueled ode to chaos and immersion in psychotropic paranoia. That was the name "Steely Day" for a remarkable 70s band. In the novel it was the name of a dildo. "
— John, 3/15/2013 -
" a classic! yuck. "
— Alice, 11/17/2012 -
" I have an English literature degree from a top uni and I am an English teacher but I have to freely admit that I did not get this book. I am now reading junky which is fantastic but this had to go down as one of the most overrated tracts of drivel of all time. "
— Bianca, 9/29/2012 -
" A rough read. I can now, however, understand the comparisons to A Modest Proposal. "
— Ns, 9/14/2012 -
" I did read most of this book because I felt it was an important and influential book of the 20th Century. However, I hated it!!! It is very disturbing, as I believe it was meant to be. Not my kind of literature. "
— Audrey, 6/15/2012 -
" Hated it. Don't even bother... "
— Christine, 11/7/2011 -
" I like anything that surprises me. This surprised me. Compared to the other beat writers, it was more interesting. By the time I got to the ape surgeon in South America, I said... wow. "
— Yong, 10/30/2011 -
" What can be said here ~ if you've heard of it, if you are marginally interested in it ~ read it. A life changing read. Truly bizzarre. One of the most raw satires that's ever been produced. "
— Jared, 10/1/2011 -
" Because it would be rude not to give it any stars. "
— Shelby, 8/27/2011 -
" Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs (Grove Press 1959)(Fiction) is about a drug addict by a drug addict? A classic of what? Nevermind...2/10, finished 5/16/11. "
— Dave, 5/16/2011 -
" One of the quintessential novels of American decadence, perversion, and intellectual violence. It is without equal in it's descent into deviance. "
— Ross, 5/14/2011 -
" Fragmented vignettes in no order whatsoever. You could start reading it from the middle to the beginning then from the end to the middle and it won't matter. To me, it was a drag reading it, but nevertheless it is a 20th century classic. "
— Yahya, 5/8/2011 -
" I liked the theory behind it more than actually reading it, the cut-up technique can get tedious in it's anti-structure. "
— Andy, 4/8/2011 -
" Brief passages of genius that are worth reading even through all the muck and slim of the drug addled hallucinations. "
— Benjamin, 4/7/2011 -
" this is a plot-less rag of paper... "
— Gavin, 4/7/2011 -
" This is part of the Times Best list. I totally disagree. It is just awful. It consists of a series of ramblings about drugs, murder and sex. "
— M, 4/4/2011 -
" Is Burroughs a genius or a junky who writes like a genius? At this point, I don't think I care. "
— Annie, 3/30/2011 -
" One of my favorite books, enjoy the movie but go to the true masterpiece afterwards which is the text. "
— David, 3/28/2011
About William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) was an American author, painter, and spoken-word performer who has had a wide-ranging influence on American culture. Jack Kerouac called him the “greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.” Norman Mailer declared him “the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius.” A postmodernist and a key figure of the beat generation, he focused his art on a relentless subversion of the moral, political, and economic conventions of modern American society, as reflected in his often darkly humorous and sardonic satire. He wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six short-story collections, and four collections of essays. No fewer than five books of his interviews and correspondence have been published. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians and made many appearances in films. He was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1983 and in the following year was appointed to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
About Mark Bramhall
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.