One particular sentence of Naked Lunch appositely summarizes this extraordinary experience of a novel: "Confusion hath fuck his masterpiece."

It's a frenetic and shocking and original work of art.

Questo libro può essere considerato capolavoro da alcuni e spazzatura da altri. Io non mi sento di chiamarlo in nessuno dei due modi, anche se propendo più per il secondo. 'Pasto nudo' è, come dice anche Burroughs stesso nella postfazione, proprio ciò che il titolo sta a suggerire. Burroughs ha passato quindicini anni a drogarsi, sperimentando tutti i tipi di droga esistenti o quasi, e in questi anni ha scritto 'Pasto nudo'.

"Uno scrittore può scrivere soltando di una cosa: di quello che c'è davanti ai suoi sensi al momento di scrivere. Sono uno strumento di registrazione... Non presumo di imporre una storia, una trama, una continuità... Finché riesco a registrare direttamente certe aree del processo psichico posso avere funzioni limitate... Il mio obiettivo non è quello di intrattenere..."

Vero. Su questo ha perfettamente ragione, come dargli torto? Ma cosa succede se l'autore è sotto l'effetto di droghe pesanti? Questo libro è come un viaggio: ci si avventura nella mente di un tossico che vede tutto distorto, allucinato. Ci sono interi passaggi che si possono tranquillamente definire pornografici e insensati, frasi a casaccio e assenza totale di filo logico. Lo posso capire, data la situazione. Ma uno sano di mente non può comprendere a pieno 'Pasto nudo'. Lo stesso Burroughs, sempre nella postfazione, dice di non ricordarsi quasi per niente di aver scritto questo libro. Si drogava e quello che aveva davanti agli occhi in quel momento lo scriveva. Punto.

"Gli scrittori parlano dell'odore dolcemente nauseante della morte mentre qualsiasi tossico può dirvi che la morte non ha odore... un odore che impedisce di respirare e al tempo stesso gela il sangue... l'incolore non-odore della morte... nessuno può respirarlo né sentirne l'odore attraverso le rosee circonvoluzioni e i neri filtri sanguigni della carne... l'odore della morte è inequivocabilmente un odore e un'asoluta assenza di odore... l'assenza di odore colpisce il naso prima di ogni cosa perché la vita organica ha un odore... la privazioni dell'odore è avvertita come cecità dagli occhi, silenzio dalle orecchie, stress e assenza di peso dall'equilibrio e dal senso di orientamento."

A Burroughs si può attribuire genio? No, non credo. Scrivere un'accozzaglia di fesserie sotto l'effetto di droge non è una trovata geniale. Può piacere a qualcuno, ma non credo sia così esilarante. C'è da dire che nella postfazione (che è lunga ben 40 pagine) Burroughs tira fuori il meglio di sé. Col senno di poi parla della droga in un modo molto più interessante che il libro vero e proprio:

"Il mercante di droga non vende il suo prodotto al consumatore, vende il consumatore al suo prodotto"

Questo sta a dirci quanto sia privi di capacità razionale i drogati. Vivono di droga e per la droga, non esiste altro.

"Se volete alterare o annientare una piramide di numeri in correlazione seriale dovete alterare o rimuovere il numero alla base. [...] Il tossicodipendente della strada, che ha bisogno della roba per vivere, è l'unico fattore insostituibile nell'equazione della droga. Quando non ci saranno più tossicodipendenti disposti a comprare la droga non ci sarà più traffico di droga. Finché esisterà il bisogno della droga, ci sarà qualcuno pronto a soddisfarlo"

Quello che dice Burroughs in sintesi è: non ci si dovrebbe concentrare nel catturare gli spacciatori, ma nel recuperare i tossici. Se fai smettere alla gente di assumere droghe, gli spacciatori non la venderebbero più. Giustissimo.
Mette i brividi la descrizione che Burroughs dà di sé quando si trovava nello stadio più grave di dipendenza da droghe pesanti:

"Il vaccino che può relegare il virus della droga tra le ombre del passato esiste già. Si tratta della Terapia a base di Apomorfina [...] Ho trovato questo vaccino in fondo al tunnel della droga. A quel tempo vivevo in una stanza nel Quartiere Indigeno di Tangeri. Non facevo il bagno da un anno e non mi cambiavo né spogliavo se non per infilarmi un ago ogni ora nella grigia carne fibrosa e legnosa che caratterizza la fase terminale della tossicodipendenza. Non pulivo né spolveravo mai la stanza. C'erano scatole di fiale vuote e mucchi di immondizia alti fino al soffitto. Luce e acqua non veniva più erogate da tempo perché non pagavo le bollette. Non facevo assolutamente nulla. Ero capace di guardarmi la punta della scarpa anche per otto ore di seguito. Venivo spinto all'azione solo quando la clessidra delal droga rimaneva vuota."

La verità è che:

"Perché la droga non mi bastava mai, non basta mai a nessuno."

Per concludere una piccola chicca a favore della legalizzazione della marijuana in Italia:

"La marijuana non causa assuefazione. Non ho mai visto prove di effetti negativi in presenza di un uso moderato. Un uso prolugato ed eccessivo può causare psicosi".

3+

Μου έχει προκαλέσει μεγάλες αναταράξεις το Γυμνό γεύμα και λόγος δεν είναι η αρτιότητα του. Ούτε άρτιο, ούτε καλογραμμένο είναι. Ωστόσο όμως πρόκειται για πολύ ψυχοφθόρο κείμενο. Ο νους βρίσκεται σε τεράστια όξυνση λόγω της πρέζας, ή μάλλον επειδή ακριβώς η πρέζα τον κάνει να στρέφεται προς τα μέσα για να αφουγκραστεί τα καλέσματα της, στρέφει προς τα έξω μια ματιά που κόβει σαν το διάολο και συλλαμβάνει πράγματα σε όλη τη διάσταση τους. Όπως ένας κόσμος που μαστίζεται απ’ την πλήξη και τις ανάγκες της σεξουαλικής ταυτότητας που για άλλους είναι ένας άντρας ή μια γυναίκα, για άλλους όμως η ίδια η διαστροφή με όποια ονομασία κι αν της δώσουμε και όσα συμπλέγματα κι αν επικαλεστούμε. Δεν εξετάζεται εδώ αυτό, αλλά ό,τι υπάρχει. Είναι λοιπόν ένας κόσμος φουλ στη λαγνεία που καμουφλαρισμένη ή γυμνή εμφανίζεται απ’ το μπάτσο που συνήθισε να ζει ανάμεσα στα πρεζόνια, μέχρι τον έμπορο που το μόνο πια που του δίνει ευχαρίστηση είναι το πρεζόνι ‘’έτοιμο για όλα’’, μα περισσότερο απ’ όλα για να παρακαλάει, τρέμοντας.

Οι αναταράξεις σχετίζονται με κάτι ακόμα. Ρωτήστε τους εαυτούς σας, αν ακόμη κι εκείνοι που φροντίσανε να επιτύχουν σε όλα, αν νιώθουν ολοκληρωμένοι, πως όλα έχουν εκπληρωθεί και όλα είναι καλά, ή στο μέτρο του καλύτερου δυνατού καλά. Θα σας πουν όχι. Πάντα κάτι λείπει, ένα κομμάτι που δεν έκατσε όπως έπρεπε γιατί δε βρέθηκε αυτό ακριβώς που θα ολοκληρώσει, παρά μόνο ένα για να μοιάζει, να προσομοιώσει, μια τσόντα, κάποια πατέντα. Κι έπειτα η ζωή κυλά και κυλά και κυλά, βυθίζεσαι, συμβιβάζεσαι και μια στο τόσο, προκύπτει μια στιγμή που χάνεις τον έλεγχο, γιατί θες να τον χάσεις. Πχ όταν μεθάς και περνάς την κόκκινη γραμμούλα αλλά δε σταματάς γιατί σου αρέσει η σκέψη – παραλήρημα, η ελευθερία κι η άνεση με την οποία πετάγεσαι απ’ εδώ κι από ‘κει και μαζί κάθε κίνηση είναι μεν βεβιασμένη λόγω της μέθης, αλλά έχει και μια αίσθηση σα να είσαι μέσα σε νερό ή σε υμένα ( που θα ‘λεγε κι η Νιν ), ή σα να επιπλέεις στις πρωτεϊνες που μυρίζουν άντρα, ή στις πρωτεϊνες που μυρίζουν γυναίκα. Αυτή η αίσθηση ελευθερίας που τη γεύτηκες και τη φοβήθηκες είναι που σου λέει ότι κάτι δεν πάει καλά.

Ο λόγος που ταράχτηκα δεν είναι πως περίμενα στα 36 το Μπάροουζ να μου τα πει όλα αυτά, είναι κάτι τρομερότερο: η συνειδητοποίηση πως τα παιδιά ονειρεύονται. Εκτός όμως απ’ το να ονειρεύονται, ζητάνε. Κάποιες φορές και πολύ περισσότερο στις μέρες μας όταν ζητούν, παίρνουν. Κάποτε – κάποτε όλοι ζούμε σε μια τέτοια κατάσταση που εκπληρώνονται όσα ζητάμε…ΕΥΚΟΛΑ. Και το εύκολα δε μας κάνει, μας οδηγεί να μη σκεφτόμαστε, να μην ονειρευόμαστε, να βουλιάζουμε, να μαραζώνουμε σαν τους Ανούσιους βαλτωμένους γεροντοεφήβους που τόσο όμορφα αποτύπωσαν στο χρόνο ένας Πούσκιν, Τουργκένιεφ, Τολστόϊ, Μπαλζάκ, Στεντάλ κ.α. Όταν δεν υπάρχουν όνειρα, όταν δεν υπάρχουν επιθυμίες, παρά μόνο ο Φόβος για εκείνα που δε λέμε ούτε στον εαυτό μας, αυτό μπορεί να οδηγήσει στην αναζήτηση καταστάσεων που θα μας κάνουν συνεχώς να κινούμαστε εκτός ελέγχου, να είμαστε παγωμένοι μέσα μας, ληθαργικοί και όμως κοφτεροί, σε μια αέναη συνουσία μέσα στο τίποτα δε συμβαίνει, ενώ όλα κινούνται και συμβαίνουν.

Ο Μπάροουζ είναι το επιστέγασμα του ανθρώπου αυτού, του κομψευόμενου λέοντα που οι επιθυμίες του εκπληρώνονταν, δεν είχε κάτι να περιμένει, δεν είχε κάτι να παλέψει, παρά μόνο ένα να κρύψει, να αποφύγει, να ξεχάσει: την ομοφυλοφιλία του. Όλοι μας έχουμε σκελετούς, που μπορεί να μη λέγονται ομοφυλοφιλία αλλά για τον καθένα τα δικά του φαντάζουν βουνά. Δε νιώθω καμιά συγγένεια με το Μπάροουζ σε πρώτη φάση. Απ’ την άλλη δεν ξεχνώ ότι κάποιες φορές το κοινωνικό πιώμα με ωθεί να πιώ λίγο παραπάνω γιατί έχω ανάγκη την απώλεια ελέγχου. Είναι ωραία η απώλεια ελέγχου, αρκεί να μην είναι ελεγχόμενη ενώ είναι ελεγχόμενη. Το μυαλό έχει τεράστια δύναμη, στο σώμα, στο πνεύμα, στη βούληση. Μπορεί να πείσει για οποιαδήποτε κατάσταση, ακόμη και για την έλλειψη ελέγχου το σώμα, ενώ έχει προειδοποιήσει ήδη το πνεύμα. Και αυτό με φέρνει στο άλλο άκρο απ’ το Μπάροουζ, ιδεολογικά.

Το ίδιο το βιβλίο, είναι βαρύ και πολύ δύσκολα προσπελάσιμο. Δεν είναι βιβλίο για να περάσεις ευχάριστες ώρες ενώ διαβάζεις. Ο Μπάροουζ μοιράζεται την εμπειρία του απ' όταν άρχισε η κάθοδος, όπως είναι αφτιασίδωτη...ΓΥΜΝΗ. Είναι μόνο για να διεγείρει τη σκέψη και ορισμένα συναισθήματα. Κάπου κάπου προσπέρναγα λέξεις ή προτάσεις, με έκανε να βαριέμαι. Σε άλλα σημεία ήμουν δικός του με τα χίλια. Είναι η ιστορία του κόσμου ιδωμένη μέσα σε στιγμές τρέλας, παράνοιας και υπερβολικής οξύνοιας, ένα παραλήρημα όπου κάθε γεύση έχει αποκτήσει γνωρίσματα που είναι σα να μας μιλούν για όλα εκείνα που γουστάρουμε και για όσα φοβόμαστε πολύ και σιωπηλά, για όσα δε θέλουμε να αποδεχτούμε, για το φόβο που προκαλεί η συνειδητοποίηση που θέλουμε να τρενάρουμε. Και αυτός ο κόσμος δε διαφέρει σε τίποτα απ’ το συνηθισμένο, ίσως να ‘ναι πιο γρήγορος, αλλά επίσης κανένας δεν αποδέχεται την απόρριψη και όλοι τα θέλουμε όλα. Και η κ@λα κατευθύνει πάντα τη ζωή, με όποια μορφή ή μετάφραση της και όλα αποτελούν μέρος μιας διαρκούς και παγκόσμιας συνουσίας σε κάθε μορφή της, απ’ το πάνω – κάτω του εκκεντροφόρου, μέχρι το μέλι που σου στάζει στα χείλη εκείνος που πριν σ’ εκμεταλλευόταν, μέχρι ν’ αρχίσει ξανά το ίδιο καρουζέλ κοροϊδίας με τα ξεβαμμένα παιχνίδια και την εφιαλτική μουσική που δε βλέπεις ούτε τα παιχνίδια σάπια, ούτε η μουσική σ’ ενοχλεί, ίσως πιο μετά να γίνει κι αυτό, άλλωστε κάθετί χάνει τη γεύση του, ώσπου να την ξαναποκτήσει, ακόμη και μέσω ενός άλλου προσώπου, ή όταν αλλαχτεί το μακιγιάζ των κλόουν.

Του κλέβω μια τελευταία σκέψη για να σας τη δώσω:
Για καθέναν το ναρκωτικό γίνεται το ναρκωτικό Του, όπως κι η αρρώστια γίνεται η αρρώστια ΤΟΥ που σημαίνει ότι η λήψη κι η στέρηση αποκτούν τα δικά του γνωρίσματα. Αυτό πέρα απ’ το προφανές συνεπάγεται κάτι ακόμη. Δεν υπάρχει κατάσταση που να σημαίνει το ίδιο για καθένα μας. Άρα και ο φίλος που σου λέει να δοκιμάσεις κάτι, δεν ξέρει, φαντάζεται. Και παράλληλα σκέφτηκα το εξής, διαβάζω ένα βιβλίο του Γιουνγκ που ένα σημείο στο οποίο με έβαλε σε μεγάλες σκέψεις είναι αυτό που λέει πως κατανόηση υπάρχει μόνο όταν καθένας διατηρεί την ατομικότητα του και όχι όταν παρατάει τη δική του αποδεχόμενος του άλλου. Αυτό μας λέει για κάθε μορφή πρέζας λοιπόν πως αυτό που προσφέρει είναι συντροφιά – συντροφικότητα. Άρα αν κανένας δεν καταλάβαινε τους σκελετούς σου, μα προπαντώς εσύ ο ίδιος δε μπορούσες να τους αποδεχτείς, ούτε μετά θα μπορείς, ίσα – ίσα που στις στερήσεις θα γίνονται οι χειρότεροι εφιάλτες σου, για να γυρίσω και στα λεγόμενα του Μπάροουζ.

Read it in tangier but didn’t do heroin so it didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve

I fail to see the point. All of the suppurating sores and humping of gangrenous limbs wore thin. If Mr. Burroughs was trying to make a statement about the state of mental health care in this country, not to mention his own drug addled mind, he did so in the first twenty pages. The remaining two-hundred-and-fifty or so are superfluous.

One night after a successful business meeting in Rotterdam, in a prefab square in the bombed-out center of the city, a fellow from the Dutch merchant marine - affable, unguarded and courteous, as only the very young (as we were) can be - passed me his opium in a government-sanctioned bar.

It knocked me out. I was suddenly on the Wrong End of his Yo-Yo.

As I became cold as a skipping stone, he - with likely ulterior motives - offered to walk me back to my hotel.

"Agenbite of Inwit." (repeat until exhausted...).

Straight as a knife, I feigned innocence, left him at the door, and sank back in my room into a dreamless sleep.

How I made my flight at Schipol next day I don't know!

I don't think I ever saw the point of Burroughs' title - but I have a hunch it's the same stark lunch I had. Many of our shamefully-unsung vets see it on their plates when their awful PTSD kicks in - God save 'em all!

Anyway, way back in 1967 I caught the Postmodern English Lit bug.

I celebrated New Year by gorging my literary appetite on the short stories of Franz Kafka. I started Joyce’s Ulysses (agenbite of inwit...) after reading his autobiography of Stephen Dedalus, whom I mistook for myself.

Suddenly I had an attitude.

And travelling to Montréal that summer for Expo - The World’s Fair - I immersed myself in its heady postmodernism, and discovered there a cornucopia of literary leads that would take me down fictional rabbit holes throughout my twenties.

Back home, I blasted Thelonius Monk and Charlie Rouse from my book-strewn room and digested the countercultural babblings of Evergreen Magazine, shyly purchased in Montréal.

That was my teenaged attempt at an Identity Statement!

I think it was in the latter publication that I first heard of Burroughs.

Finding a copy at my Mom’s (avant-gardiste!) public library, I stuck it into my backpack for a weekend at my longtime friend David’s family cottage, along with our buddy, Rob, later our lawyer.

Neither of them raised an eyebrow. There was a lot of ferment back in the 60’s!

We hitchhiked to the crossroads from which a long, dusty hike past five miles of cornfields awaited us.

At the cottage there was a hand pump for water and no electricity, but I slogged through this book in the daylight hours.

To an innocent like me it was largely incomprehensible.

There, laid out before my ignorant eyes, were multitudinous arcane references to the mysterious paraphernalia of heroin addiction.

Oh, and homosexuality - to which I have similarly remained a green stranger - and for which fact Burroughs was forced to wage a battle all the way to the US Supreme Court.

But the writing itself was to die for.

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.

And there was one golden message that has never failed to set off the red alarm button for me, even fifty years plus after reading it: “You’ve GOT to see what’s ON THE END OF YOUR FORK.”

That’s no joke, folks. Modern Life is NO GAME. It’s playing Hardball with us even as we sleep.

Yet it was all too much for this straight kid. And even now I’m still trying now to attain Burrough’s' surreal clarity.

That first attempt to ingratiate myself to the farthest-fetched postmodernism failed.

I was bowled over - but not won over.

But reading books like this goes a long way towards explaining why -

In my dotage -

I have become such a quiet and banal, ordinary househusband. Still trying to WAKE UP... as slowly as humanly possible!

It's a zoo out there.

Man I just really did not enjoy this one. The drug-induced hallucinations and stream of consciousness was interesting for like 30 pages or so, but it got old really fast. It was brutal and honestly just unpleasant to read about, which may work for some people but just didn’t work for me. And the main theme seemed to be don’t do drugs because they’ll mess you up, and it seems kinda obvious. This is one of those books that I just don’t understand why it’s on the required reading list for so many high schools around the country.

Video review

Best enjoyed on an empty stomach.

'There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose “story” “plot” “continuity”... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer...'

I think the above is an important statement from Burroughs; the reader should be aware that this is the author's perspective before venturing into the obscene, disintegrating, rotting, spiraling, loosely connected echoing stories and essays that make up this book. To say that the writing is raw would be understating it's nature, to label it as experimental is to be too high-brow about it, and to write it off as trash from a deranged mind would be both easy to do and wrong. This is not an enjoyable read, but it can be appreciable.

*In other words read at your own risk, the book and the remainder of this review, it's not for the weak-of-stomach, the sensitive-soul, or the easily offended.*

I will say that placing a star-rating on this work is more than a little difficult. Whatever I think of this book, or pieces therein, I did not "like" it, that is for certain. At the same time, to rate it lowly does not seem accurate as I think it has quite a bit of merit, bodily fluid covered merit as it may be. A compromising three-stars would perhaps be the worst option of all though, as it imparts a feeling of neutrality and/or indifference, and there is nothing neutral of inoffensive about it. So take the rating and shove it really - this book is a sensory overload, a mind-numbing, skin-crawling exploration of the thoughts and perceptions of a drug addicted and probably brilliant, yet disturbed mind. I found many of these loosely held together vignettes, often only conceptually linked, to be representations of what a Hell might that give the likes of Dante Alighieri, Hieronymus Bosch, and Nobuo Nakagawa a run for their money. What we have here is a living hell that only a real junky could appreciate, but then again it's not really all that simple. This book is often overtly sexual (jism is an oft repeated word), and yet almost always violent and/or dehumanizing; there are also splashes of Burrough's dark humor, the darkest of humor (at times literal gallows humor), but in turns it can elevate, alleviate, and subjugate the ghastly tableau. Shock does blind one to the writing for a while, but the human mind can adjust and before the end you can appreciate the writing alongside the horror.

A moderated glimpse or three between the pages:

'I am passing room 10 they moved me out of yesterday... Maternity case I assume... Bedpans full of blood and Kotex and nameless female substances, enough to pollute a continent... If someone comes to visit me in my old room he will think I gave birth to a monster and the State Department is trying to hush it up...'

'"I have something you want," his hand touched the package. He drifted away into the front room, his voice remote and blurred. "You have something I want... five minutes here... an hour someplace... two... four... eight... Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... Every day die a little... It takes up The Time..."'

'A tea head leaps up screaming "I got the fear!" and runs into Mexican night bringing down backbrains of the world. The Executioner shits in terror at the sight of the condemned man. The Torturer screams in the ear of his implacable victim. Knife fighters embrace in adrenalin. Cancer is at the door with a Singing Telegram...'

Echoes of probing for a vein; red orchid blooms in a syringe; protoplasm; mugwump; ectoplasm; jism; shitting; hanging.

A rambling, crazy book. I'd read it mostly for its contribution to the formation of voice and structure, as well as its energy. On a plot level, it's nothing particularly amazing, and the mania and excess of it can also be a turn off. Read it for its reputation as a minor classic, but there are other books worth your time more than this.

Conviene gettare la spugna fin da subito, il Pasto Nudo non è una storia, non ha una trama e non può essere capito, può solo far male. Il romanzo tossico per eccellenza, un miscuglio aberrante di sostanze lisergiche e corrosive sotto forma di parole, dietro parole dietro parole. Sono i deliri di un pazzo, di un genio e di un drogato allo stesso tempo, sadismo e masochismo, tossicume, volontà di scappare da questa pioggia d'acido, la mente sciolta e sanguigna di qualcuno che era stato davvero vivo si corrompe in tempo reale, senza che la corrosione avvenga in un luogo e in un tempo unici e determinati, il pazzo non delira su se stesso, il pazzo cerca di diventare un mondo a sé, dopo essere stato tradito, stuprato e pugnalato. Per quanto gli avvenimenti ripugnanti, sanguinari e repellenti abbondino l'assalto non è nella carne, l'assalto è il delirio. Più reale della realtà fisica perché come qualcuno disse in seguito, impazzire talvolta è la reazione più appropriata alla realtà.

The Dream World of the Junk Addict
17 September 2020

tYou know how there are images that you see on Facebook that you basically can’t unsee? Well, this is like those images but in book form. You probably also know that there are books that you will not find in the library of a Christain School. This is definitely one of those books, and I dread to think what would have happened to me if I was caught reading this book (though a part of me suspects that half the teachers probably wouldn’t know anything about this book, though I suspect that that would change pretty quickly if I had brought it to school, and read aloud from it during English class). Yeah, this book is pretty confronting, and quite surprising as well.

tThe thing that got me was that this book is pretty explicitly homosexual, and the reason that they tried to ban it in Boston was because it had references to pedophilia. Like, come on, surely they would have objected at the very explicit homosexual acts that this book portrays, considering that it was illegal back then. We are talking about a period when the government turned on one of the world’s greatest computer scientists, and one of the men that was instrumental in defeating Hitler simply because he preferred men to women, yet they didn’t get up in arms over this particular book.

tOkay, one of the reasons was because there were already obscenity trials in the works so the publishers basically held off publishing this book while waiting for the outcome of the trial (namely Tropic of Cancer, a book that was published by the same publisher). I guess we know the outcome considering that I have just read this book, and it is also considered to be one of the seminal books of post-war America. I guess it also tells us that at the time people were pushing the boundaries to see what was permissible and what was not, though I guess this is a thing that is still happening to an extent. In another sense, it is also evidence that some people will use to point out the degradation of society, but honestly, it isn’t as if this is the only, or even first, obscene book that was ever published. Seriously, have a read of some of those Ancient Roman novels (or even the Greek ones), and they had been in print for centuries (Golden Ass comes to mind).

tOne thing that stood out in my mind is that if you wanted to write about your experiences on drugs, then this is probably the way that you should write it. Like, once again, this isn’t the first, and it certainly isn’t the last, book that people have written about their experiences, but you get the impression that the fifteen years that Boroughs is writing about really was like some sort of dream where the events really seemed to merge into each other. This is what stream of consciousness really is about, and honestly, I can’t see how you could write about your experiences on drugs without resorting to stream of consciousness. I guess it captures the feeling and the experience brilliantly.

tYeah, this book sort of doesn’t make any real sense, but it isn’t supposed to. It is just a series of stories, and these stories aren’t in any specific order. Interestingly there is one story where the main characters end up becoming statues, almost as if it is the reverse of the story of Narcissus, where the statue became a human. The locations jump all over the place, from Mexico City to Tangiers, to New York, but once again, the impression we are getting is that Boroughs was simply living in a dream world through that time, though he was also taking copious notes as well, no doubt because I suspect he wouldn’t have remembered anything, and even then, referring back to his notes probably wasn’t all that helpful either.

tIn another sense, you get the impression of the dirty and grotty lifestyle of the heroin junky, much more than you do from his other book, Junky, though in this book you are living it as opposed to being an observer from the outside. Yet the thing that sort of catches me is how homosexuality and drug use is so intertwined within this book. There have been arguments that homosexuality and drug use are intertwined, but I think that is absolute rubbish. I have known heterosexuals who use drugs, and I have known homosexuals that would never touch the stuff. Sexual orientation and drug use have no connection whatsoever. Yet, I have to admit that I generally don’t go into homosexual literature all that much, though of course I really don’t like those books that simply throw homosexual characters into the mix just to be different.

tYeah, I’m not too sure what to say about this book, but it has landed upon my shelf which contains all of those books that I really do want to read a second time, so I guess that settles it.