http://www.wbur.org/news/npr/113610846
By Tom Vitale
October 8, 2009
First published 50 years ago, William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch
is a dark, wild ride through the terror of heroin addiction and
withdrawal, filled with paranoia, erotica and drug-fueled hallucinations.
In an introduction (of sorts) to the novel, Burroughs wrote that the
book was a result of "detailed notes on sickness and delirium" that
he took during his 15 years of heroin addiction. As he explained in a
1985 interview: "It was just my character. ... I always was attracted
to the run-down, or the old or the offbeat."
Burroughs hadn't always intended to be a man of letters. An heir to
the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, he initially studied medicine
at Harvard before falling into the group of misfit writers who
eventually evolved into "The Beats." Though Burroughs said his work
had little in common stylistically with fellow Beats Jack Kerouac and
Allen Ginsberg, he credits their encouragement in helping him get started.
"I sort of resisted the idea of being a writer," he said. "But Jack
[Kerouac] definitely did encourage me. And he said that I would write
a novel called ... Naked Lunch. That's his title, Kerouac."
Burroughs described the novel as "a frozen moment when everyone sees
what is at the end of every fork." Poet Anne Waldman says that at the
time it was published, Naked Lunch offered a stark contrast to the
prevailing vision of reality during the Eisenhower years:
"It's not the woman with her Kelvinator refrigerator, opening the
door to show you how crisp the lettuce stays," says Waldman. "It's
the 'naked lunch' ... where you see reality clearly, you see the
lettuce decomposing."
That shocking reality caused a furor when excerpts were published in
the University of Chicago's literary magazine in 1958. A Paris
pornographer took note and published Naked Lunch in France the
following year. Then in 1962, Grove Press issued the first American
edition. A year later, a Boston bookstore owner was arrested for selling it.
During the obscenity trial, the book was defended by writers Norman
Mailer, Ginsberg and John Ciardi. Finally, in 1966, a high court
ruled that the book had redeeming social value and was therefore not obscene.
Regina Weinreich, who teaches Beat Generation literature at New
York's School of Visual Arts, believes the novel represents an
alternative way of life, one that focuses on the individual as
opposed to the masses.
"It cuts through the norms of society the way that we all have to
be polite, the way we all have to follow our institutions, our
governments, our addictions," Weinreich explains. "The alternative is
to be [an] individual, and to go to those places on our own."
To date, Naked Lunch has sold more than 1 million copies; a 50th
anniversary edition of the novel is due out next month from Grove Press.
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