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WP_139 (RORSCHACH SERIES)/ 2008
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Paintings 2 | | Medium: | acrylic on paper | | Size (inches): | 14.3 x 10.1 | | Size (mm): | 364 x 257 | | Catalog #: | WP_0139 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse/ the usual central vertical fold.
Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it "creative observation." Creative viewing. (William S. Burroughs)
-www.wisdomquotes.com/003149.html
William S. Burroughs -
William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914(1914-02-05) – August 2, 1997; pronounced /ˈbʌroʊz/) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his experiences as an opiate addict, a condition that marked the last fifty years of his life. A primary member of the Beat Generation, he was an avant-garde author who affected popular culture as well as literature. In 1984, he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs
Naked Lunch -
Naked Lunch (sometimes referred to as The Naked Lunch) is a novel by William S. Burroughs originally published in 1959.
Having previously written Junkie and Queer this is the third novel written by the beat writer; although only his second to be published. His second novel, Queer, remained unpublished until 1985.
The book was originally published with the title The Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 by Olympia Press. An American edition by Grove Press followed soon after in 1962. The American edition was titled Naked Lunch and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition. This is because the Grove Press edition was in fact based on an earlier 1958 manuscript that Allen Ginsberg had in his possession.[1] The article the in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition.[2] Nonetheless The Naked Lunch remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi Books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name, especially in the UK where these editions circulated. [3]
Time magazine included the novel in its "TIME" 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".[4]
David Cronenberg released a film of the same title based upon the novel and other Burroughs writings in 1991.[5]
Plot introduction:
The book is written in vignettes and uses the cut-up technique to create some of its structure. It can be argued that this makes the chapters rather erratic and difficult to read for some, although Burroughs himself stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order.[6] The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from America to Mexico, eventually ending in Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone. The vignettes (called 'routines' by Burroughs) are drawn from Burroughs' own experience in these places, and his addiction to drugs (notably heroin and morphine).[7][8] The way Burroughs has written the novel ensures that the reader only sees part of the picture - as much as he wants to share. It often happens, given this structure, that something mentioned in the book is not explained or elaborated upon until much later. This idea, relating to different perspectives within a larger picture, is itself a theme which runs throughout this book. The novel's mix of taboo fantasies, peculiar creatures (like the predatory Mugwumps), and eccentric personalities all serve to unmask mechanisms and processes of control, and have led to much controversy. By de-centralising plot Burroughs focuses on literal caricatures, satire and parody throughout the novel.
Explanation of the novel's title:
Burroughs states in his introduction that Jack Kerouac suggested the title. "The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."[9] In a June 1960 letter Jack Kerouac wrote to Allen Ginsberg saying he was pleased that Burroughs had credited him with the title but had not recently heard from him. He states in his letter that Ginsberg misread 'Naked Lust' from the manuscript, and only he noticed; that section of the manuscript later became Queer, although the phrase does not appear in either of the two final texts of the novel.[10]
Plot summary:
The book follows the adventures of William Lee (aka Lee the Agent) who is the writer of the book - Burroughs' alter ego in the novel - as well as his pen name for Junky.[11] His journey starts in the US where he is fleeing the police, in search of drugs and his next fix. There are short chapters here describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way.
Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr. Benway. For what, we are not told - perhaps he is a subject of Benway's more than anything else. We are told all about Benway through his previous doings in Annexia. The plot then moves to a state called freeland - somewhat limbo between the world we know and Interzone - where we learn of 'Islam Inc.' and characters who follow Lee into Interzone are introduced - Clem, Carl, Joselito amongst others.
A short section then jumps in space and time to a market place. The Black Meat is sold here and parodied to Junk. Action then moves straight back to the hospital where Benway has his finest hour - as a manipulative, uncaring and corrupt monster.
Time and space again shift and we are now in Interzone. Hassan, the villain of the novel and "a notorious liquefactionist," is throwing a violent orgy. AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc, decapitating people and imitating a pirate. Hassan is not too pleased with this and tells AJ to not darken his doors again, he also describes him as a "factualist bitch" - a tern which is explained much later. A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University and the book moves on to an orgy AJ is throwing - a parody of Hassan's - more comical than aggressive.
The book then shifts into descriptive mode and we see the market and some form of government. Characters including the County Clerk, Benway, Dr Berger, Clem and Jody are developed through heavy dialogue and their own sub-stories.
Finally the book starts to explain itself and we are told of the four parties of Interzone, we are then told more stories about AJ, perhaps this is to allow us to understand what party he represents - the factualists. After finally describing Interzone properly the novel breaks down into sub-stories, irrelevance and nonsense. The police finally catch up with Lee, although he kills them and goes on the run once again.
The book ends 'No glot... ...C'lom fliday'
(which is Chinese Pidgin English 'No got... come back Friday')[12]
Literary significance and reception:
Naked Lunch is considered Burroughs' seminal work, and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of often 'obscene' language (something Burroughs recognized and intended), the book was banned in many regions of the United States, and was one of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held. The book was banned by Boston courts in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder and acts of pedophilia), but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. This was significant, as it was the last major literary censorship battle in the U.S.[13] The Appeals Court found the book did not violate obscenity statutes, as it was found to have some social value. The hearing included testimony in support of the work by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.[14]
Sections of the manuscript were published in the spring 1958 edition of the University of Chicago student run publication The Chicago Review. The edition was not well received, and caused the university administration to discuss the future censorship of the Winter 1959 edition of the publication, resulting in the resignation of all but one of the editors. When the editor Paul Carroll published BIG TABLE Magazine (Issue No. 1, Spring 1959) alongside former 'Chicago Review' editor Irving Rosenthal, he was found guilty of sending obscene material through the U.S. mail for including "Ten Episodes from Naked Lunch", a piece of writing the Judicial Officer for the United States Postal Service deemed "undisciplined prose, far more akin to the early work of experimental adolescents than to anything of literary merit" and initially judged it as non mailable under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 1461. [15]
Upon publication, Grove Press added to the book supplementary material regarding the censorship battle as well as an article written by Burroughs on the topic of drug addiction. In 2002, a "restored text" edition of Naked Lunch was published with some new and previously suppressed material added.
The redeeming literary merit of the work is found in the biting satire and social criticism many of these episodes contain. Burroughs digests the modern American mind and spits out a wild, repulsive parade of images and characters that encapsulate the state of the 20th century. From the seedy abortionist who solicits pregnant women on the street, to the racist County Clerk who represents rural intolerance, to the macho father who buys a prostitute for his fifteen year old son on his birthday, only to discover the kid literally got a "piece of ass", Naked Lunch exposes the under workings of the American experience, and shows the beginnings of a social pathology and hypocrisy that would erupt in the 1960s as a 'culture war'. Burroughs himself found the material disturbing to write, but also a cleansing of his life-long frustrations and unconsciously repressed experiences.
On a more specific level, Naked Lunch protests the death penalty. In Burroughs' Deposition: A Testimony Concerning A Sickness, perhaps the most shocking and pornographic section of the book, "The Blue Movies" (appearing in the vignette A.J.'s Annual Party) is deemed "a tract against capital punishment." Within "The Blue Movies," three overtly sexual adolescents take part in hanging one another, wherein Burroughs lewdly mocks by incorporating auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Using believable metaphors representing addiction to such things as, most notably heroin, along with medical practice such as Benway resorting to subway abortions after having his license revoked, and even homosexuality, Burroughs repudiates America's consumerist post-World War II state, and the overall human addiction to control. Unfortunately because of its absurdity and strong drug content, many readers misinterpret Naked Lunch as merely a drug novel written by a delusional addict.
Allusions and references:
Allusions in other works
The book contains what is generally considered to be some of Burroughs' most memorable and quoted passages. One of the most quoted is a section (or, to use Burroughs' terminology, a "routine") known as "The Talking Asshole". This story-within-a-story involves a man who teaches his anal orifice to talk, a trick he soon regrets when it develops a personality and mind of its own and eventually takes over the man's body. The man is eventually incapable of doing anything other than consuming and excreting, becoming an "all-purpose blob." Notable recordings and performances of this routine include Frank Zappa reading it during 1978's The Nova Convention (it was recorded and released by Giorno Poetry Systems), by Burroughs himself in his mid-1990s CD Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, and it is quoted virtually verbatim by Peter Weller's character in the film version of Naked Lunch.
Several characters would reappear in many later works, most notably the surgeon Dr. Benway, Clem Snide "the Private Asshole", and Inspector Lee. In 1989, Burroughs published Interzone, a collection of short stories and other writings including a chapter entitled "WORD" that at one time was considered for inclusion in Naked Lunch.
Poet Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs' close friend, refers to Naked Lunch in his introduction to his epic poem "Howl".
Burroughs wrote portions of Naked Lunch (and performed most of the editing) in room #9 of the Hotel el Muniria in Tangier. Today, photos of Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other beat generation poets hang on the walls of the adjoining bar, the Tangerinn.
There have been many references to Naked Lunch in popular culture, all of which are listed below.
* The British science fiction magazine Interzone gets its name from Naked Lunch.
* The music group Steely Dan takes its name from a dildo mentioned in Naked Lunch.
* The music group Clem Snide also takes its name from a character in Naked Lunch.
* The graphic novel Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, contains a fictional science magazine called "Nova Express", the name of which originates in Naked Lunch.
* The music group Showbread titled one of their songs "Naked Lunch" in their 2006 release Age of Reptiles.
* The internationally renowned DJ Spooky took his nickname "That Subliminal Kid" from the novel Nova Express.
* In 1994, the band Bomb The Bass released their album Clear which contains a track called "Bug Powder Dust" featuring beatnik psychedelic rapper Justin Warfield. The lyrics of that song contain a lot of references to characters, places and actions that are part of the book, as did Warfield's 1993 album My Fieldtrip to Planet 9.
* In 1998, the Austrian DJ/remixer/producer duo Peter Kruder & Richard Dorfmeister released the album The K&D sessions including two remix versions of the Bomb the Bass title "Bug Powder Dust".
* An episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation includes a character named Dr. Benway.
* In the 1984 Alex Cox film, Repo Man, there is a hospital scene in which Dr. Benway and Mr. Lee are paged. The two are also paged in a hospital scene in the 1998 film Dark City.
* The instrumental post-rock band Tortoise included a song entitled "Benway" on their 2001 album Standards.
* Experimental, blues rock ensemble from Norton, VA: The Benways, showcase Burroughs continuing influence.
* The post-punk band Joy Division recorded a song on their début album Unknown Pleasures called "Interzone."
* Numerous recordings of Burroughs reading excerpts from Naked Lunch have been released over the years, as well as a full audio book version issued a few years before his death.
* The book's name also turns up (apparently at random) in "FLCLimax," the final episode of the anime FLCL, where it is shouted in a rhyming fit ("...Naked Lunch, Hawaiian Punch!") by character Haruhara Haruko.
* Referred to in the book The Liar by Stephen Fry.
* In 2006, the British electronic band Klaxons released a track called "Atlantis to Interzone".
* New York art-rock/avant-garde band, Sonic Youth, released a full version of Dr. Benway's House, on their deluxe edition of 1991's Goo album. An excerpt of the track is featured on William Burroughs' Dead City Radio album.
* In The Simpsons episode "Bart on the Road", Bart, Milhouse and Nelson sneak into an R-rated movie called "Naked Lunch". When they emerge, disappointed, Nelson points out that he can "think of at least two things wrong with that title."
* In the album Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, by The Firesign Theatre, one track includes a story where the 1960s counterculture becomes the mainstream, and a bomber pilot drops a load of eight million hardcover copies of Naked Lunch on the last "un-hip" stronghold in the world in Nigeria. The track also features a character named Dr. Benway.
* Quotes from the film were used on a track on the album Lord of the Harvest from Bootsy Collins under the band name Zillatron. The track was titled "Exterminate".
* The protagonist of the Stephen Chbosky novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, "Charlie", reads this book at the suggestion of his teacher and mentor, "Bill".
* The novel Move Under Ground features Burroughs playing William Tell to fight off Lovecraftian creatures called mugwumps, that have been formed by Cthulhu possessing the average people of America.
* On the Master Ninja I episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel and his robot sidekicks show their newest invention; pop-up books based on classic literature. Crow tries to show his contribution, a pop-up version of Naked Lunch, but no one wants to open it.
Film adaptation:
Main article: Naked Lunch (film)
Ever since the 1960s, numerous film makers considered how to adapt Naked Lunch for the screen. Antony Balch, who worked with Burroughs on a number of short film projects in 1960s, considered making the film as a musical with Mick Jagger in the leading role, but the project fell through when relationships soured between Balch and Jagger.[16] [17] Others, too, wanted to bring the novel to celluloid, but it was ultimately deemed unfilmable.
It was not until 1991 that Canadian director David Cronenberg took up the challenge. Rather than attempt a straight adaptation of the novel, however, Cronenberg instead took elements from the book and combined them with elements from Burroughs' own life, to create a fiction-biography hybrid and a film about the writing of the book.
Peter Weller starred as William Lee in this film, Lee being the pseudonym Burroughs used when he wrote Junkie. The film incorporates events from Burroughs' own life, including the accidental shooting of his wife (played in the film by Judy Davis), along with routines from Naked Lunch. For example, one scene shows Weller as Lee reciting the "Talking Asshole" routine from the novel, almost verbatim.
Footnotes:
1. ^ William S Burroughs, 'Naked Lunch', the restored text edition, edited by James Grauerholtz and Barry Miles, 2001. Refer to Editors Notes, page 242
2. ^ William S Burroughs, 'Naked Lunch', the restored text edition, edited by James Grauerholtz and Barry Miles, 2001. Refer to Editors Notes, page 240
3. ^ http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/burroughs-books/index.html A collection of Burroughs book covers,with accurate date, country and press information
4. ^ http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/0,24459,naked_lunch,00.html Time top 100 Novels
5. ^ Naked Lunch (1991)
6. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/realmedia/burroughsw/burroughsw3.ram Burroughs On Cutup
7. ^ Burroughs, Naked Lunch
8. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/burroughsw1.shtml BBC Radio Burroughs interviews
9. ^ William S Burroughs, 'Naked Lunch', the restored text edition, edited by James Grauerholtz and Barry Miles, 2001. Page 199
10. ^ William S Burroughs, 'Naked Lunch', the restored text edition, edited by James Grauerholtz and Barry Miles, 2001. Editors Notes Page 235
11. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0123221/bio Biography of Burroughs detailing the use of his pen name William Lee
12. ^ From the novel (Note: "Old time, veteran Schmeckers, faces beaten by grey junk weather, will remember....In 1920s a lot of Chinese pushers around found The West so unreliable, dishonest and wrong, they all packed in, so when an Occidental junky came to score, they'd say: 'No glot....C'lom Fliday....'")
13. ^ Burroughs, Naked Lunch
14. ^ http://www.artdamage.com/wsb/trial.htm testimony
15. ^ http://www.poetrycenter.org/about/perspectives/usps.html The Big Table court decision
16. ^ landmarkafterdark.com - May 18 & 19: NAKED LUNCH
17. ^ GETTING 'NAKED' ON SCREEN | David Cronenberg | Pop Culture News | News | Entertainment Weekly | 1
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch
The Soft Machine -
The Soft Machine is the title of a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961 and was Burroughs' first novel after the groundbreaking publication of Naked Lunch. It was originally composed using the cut-up and fold-in techniques from manuscripts belonging to The Word Hoard. It is part of The Nova Trilogy.
Title and structure:
The title The Soft Machine is a name for the human body, and the main theme of the book (as explicitly written in an appendix) concerns how control mechanisms invade the body.
The book is written in a style close to that of Naked Lunch utilizing the cut-up method to an even greater degree.
It is further quite easy to identify passages borrowed and cut in from the work of two other authors: The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot and The Tempest by William Shakespeare.[citation needed]
After the main material follow three appendices, the first explaining the title (as mentioned above) and two accounts of Burroughs' own drug abuse and treatment using apomorphine. Here Burroughs clearly states that he considers drug abuse a metabolic disease and writes about how he finally escaped it.
Plot summary:
The main plot (which is intermingled with other plots) appears in linear prose in chapter VII, The Mayan Caper. This chapter, which can even be read as a short story on its own, portrays a secret agent (presumably the same Bill Lee who appeared in Naked Lunch) who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using "U.T." (undifferentiated tissue). As such an agent he makes a time travel machine and takes on a gang of Mayan priests who use the Mayan calendar to control the minds of slave labourers used for planting maize. The calendar images are written in books and placed on a magnetic tape and transmitted as sounds to control the slaves. The agent manages to infiltrate the slaves and replace the magnetic tape with a totally different message: "burn the books, kill the priests" which cause the downfall of their regime. The techniques used for changing bodies involves several chemical, biological and sexual magic-like practices and many things can go wrong.
Characters:
The characters of The Soft Machine fall into three categories:
* Characters from the previous novel Naked Lunch: Dr Benway, Clem Snide, Sailor, Bill Gains and Kiki.
* Characters associated with the Nova mythology:
o The Nova Mob: Mr Bradley Mr Martin, Johnny Yen, Sammy The Butcher, Green Tony, Izzy the Push
o The Nova Police: Inspector Lee, Hassan i Sabbah, agent K9, The Subliminal Kid, Technical Tilly
* Characters recycled from the work of other authors:
o Jimmy Sheffields from the novel Fury by Henry Kuttner
o Salt Chunk Mary from the novel You Can't Win by Jack Black
o Danny Deaver from poem with the same title by Rudyard Kipling
o Billy Budd and Captain Verre comes from the short-story Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Editions:
The Soft Machine has been printed in no fewer than three different editions, each time revised by the author.
1. The first edition was printed by Olympia Press in Paris, 1961 as number 88 in the Traveller Companion Series and featured 182 pages arranged in 50 chapters of about 8 pages each. This edition was color coded into four different chunks and very fragmented.
2. The second edition was printed by Grove Press in the United States, 1966. In this edition, Burroughs removed 82 pages and inserted 82 new pages, and the remaining 100 pages had been rearranged and restructured using further cut-ups. Much of the added material was linear, narrative prose, which is arguably a lot easier to read than the very disorganized first edition. Many chapters were renamed and rearranged in this edition, and the color code from the first edition was removed.
3. The third edition was printed by John Calder in Great Britain, 1968. This time most chapter titles were intact from the second edition, but will begin at more natural places in the text, whereas the second edition could place them in the middle of a sentence. The chapter 1920ies War Movies has been renamed The Streets of Chance. 20 pages of new material had been added, plus circa 8 pages from the first edition which had previously been removed in the second edition. About 5 pages of material which was present in both the first and second edition was removed. This edition also included an "Appendix" and "Afterword".
Burroughs himself was very displeased with the first edition and this was the main reason for rewriting it so thoroughly: in 1961 he wrote to his friend Allen Ginsberg that he rewrote it extensively while he was working on Dead Fingers Talk, mostly because he was displeased with bad cut-ups and introduced linear material to replace it. In a letter to John Calder he claims that he intended the appendix to be published in Playboy Magazine as a promotional device for the book.[citation needed]
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soft_Machine
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