Shocking to go from Hemingway to Burroughs. This was evident on page 1 of Burroughs’ novel, Naked Lunch. Circling around junkies and “fezz”, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this new style of writing. Burroughs was all over the place. But it really didn’t matter. Because, either way, I wanted to keep going. The technical term for this is the cut-up technique, where the author rearranges text at random in order to interrupt the linear movement of normal literacy. Fascinating and weird. What is weird are the terms “flowing” on pages. My eyes grew large when I first starting reading, and my head sort of cocked to the right, and a sigh of “whoa” was driven around my mouth. I didn’t have an expectation going into the book, except knowing that Burroughs was one of the influential writers, along with Ginsberg and Kerouac, from the Beat Generation. The book was written in Tangiers, Morroco between 1954 and 1957. In 1959 the book was published in Paris, and by 1962 Naked Lunch was banned in many parts of the US because of the books obscenities. The Massachusetts Supreme Court found the book was of social value, therefore not obscene. The ruling marks one of the last major censorship cases in the US.

My brother sent me this video a long time ago, and sent it to me again today. I had forgotten that I had heard it once before. This time, I don’t think I’ll forget. It’s called “Words of Advice For Young People”.

References:
Wikipedia, Naked Lunch
Wikipedia, Cut-up-technique
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