The biography of a book is a literary genre awaiting development, and few books have had such an unusual birth and upbringing as William Burroughs's Naked Lunch. Even its proper name is in question: is it The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, or Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs? (It is the former in its original Paris incarnation, and in the British edition that followed. When the book came out in the United States in 1962, the definite article was dropped, and the author's middle initial added, signifying the ancestral family name Seward.) The book begins with the adventures of William Lee (also known as "Lee the Agent"), who is Burroughs' alter ego in the novel. His journey starts in the U.S. where he is fleeing the police in search of his next fix. There are short chapters describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way.

Fox, David J. (6 January 1992). " 'Sweet' Takes Honors From Film Critics". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 9 April 2017. Aries, Théophile (2009). "Burroughs' Visionary Lunch". In Harris, Oliver; MacFadyen, Ian (eds.). Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. p.198. ISBN 978-0-8093-2915-1. Softcover. Condition: Very Good+. First Edition. A crisp, clean, tightly bound softcover copy appearing unread, presenting light shelf wear only. a b McConnell, Frank (1991). "William Burroughs and the Literature of Addiction". In Skerl, Jennie; Lydenberg, Robin (eds.). William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. p.99. ISBN 0-8093-1586-6. softcover. Condition: fine. 1st edition. Quarto. Pp 128. Illustrated with photos in colour and b&w. Bound in pictorial wraps. Fore edges are a trifle curled and there is slight wear at the corners. Overall, a clean, handsome copy, very good indeed.

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If you've read the book and ever watched a Cronenburg film, you're eyes just bugged out and jaw dropped at the idea of it, right? If not, why not? Explain. Maslin, Janet (27 December 1991). "Drifting in and Out of a Kafkaesque Reality". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 November 2010 . Retrieved 1 April 2022. I suppose there is a sense in which Swift’s “Modest Proposal” may be regarded as obscene, or perhaps the final book of “Gulliver’s Travels.” But only a corrupt world will be disgusted by saeva indignatio. Swift’s starting-point was a sense of outrage with the world that the corrupt may still regard as insane. Burroughs’s vision is that of a man who has escaped from the agony of drug-addiction and regards the inferno with the cleansed eyes of the remembering artist. His introduction is autobiographical and clinical; he appends a long article from “The British Journal of Addiction.” Some of his more charitable readers, too weak-stomached to take the art, may wish to look on the whole work as a snakepit record, a terrible but necessary thesis on the nature of the life of the damned, a piece of unusually frank didacticism. They will be wrong, since Burroughs is demonstrating that his difficult subject can only be expressed through the static (that is, neither didactic nor pornographic) shaping of the artistic imagination. Ever see a hot shot hit, kid? I saw the Gimp catch one in Philly. We rigged his room with a one-way whorehouse mirror and charged a sawski to watch it. He never got the needle out of his arm. They don't if the shot is right. That's the way they find them, dropper full of clotted blood hanging out of a blue arm. The look in his eyes when it hit --- Kid, it was tasty.

I like some of the Beat literature, Kerouac's On the Road and Big Sur were enjoyable. I've always been told that Burroughs was the most influential, seminal, and avant-guard of the mix. How can I expect to connect with others when I can't even connect with myself? It's no wonder so many people online value pornography. It's the only time they're ever really in touch with themselves. Y'know?Johnson, Rob (2009). "William S. Burroughs as "Good Ol' Boy": Naked Lunch in East Texas". In Harris, Oliver; MacFadyen, Ian (eds.). Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. p.46. ISBN 978-0-8093-2915-1. Which is the very height of delusional madness. If you can be honest with yourself. Which is impossible to do FYI, because nobody ever really is honest with themselves. To assume you are is to admit you value your own bias. Which means you can't know when you're lying. Which suggests that you are inherently dishonest. Burroughs, William S. (2001). Grauerholtz, James; Miles, Barry (eds.). Naked Lunch (the restored texted.). Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-4018-1.

Alfred de Grazia. "Ed de Grazia: Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Barney Rosset: Their Struggles Against Censorship Recalled". Grazian-archive.com . Retrieved 2011-06-27. Avidar-Walzer, Sand (31 January 2014). "Welcome to Interzone: On William S. Burroughs' Centennial". Los Angeles Review of Books . Retrieved 4 July 2023. Tytell, John (1991). "The Broken Circuit". In Skerl, Jennie; Lydenberg, Robin (eds.). William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. pp.155–156. ISBN 0-8093-1586-6. So the Beat Generation ambassadors that sat down and tried to make sense out of the ramblings of the haphazardly collected writings, found among this mess of a manuscript something fresh and scary. The publishers they took it to saw the mess more than they saw the brilliance. Only after a few bits were published in a magazine called Big Table in 1959 and the writing was declared obscene and prosecuted did Maurice Girodias of Olympia Press, always spoiling for a fight on censorship, decided to publish. Ahhhh nothing like banning books to generate sales.Boyd, Susan C. (2009). Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. University of Toronto Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-1442610170. Burroughs writes like a doomed angel, and the strangled strains of the golden voice of this Man With the Golden Arm catch our hearts with their angry passion.