Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

"The boy felt a silent black clunk fall through his flesh. The Sailor put a hand to the boy’s eyes and pulled out a pink scrotal egg with one closed, pulsing eye. Black fur boiled inside translucent flesh of the egg.

The Sailor caressed the egg with nakedly inhuman hands — black-pink, thick, fibrous, long white tendrils sprouting from abbreviated finger tips.

Death fear and Death weakness hit the boy, shutting off his breath, stopping his blood. He leaned against a wall that seemed to give slightly. He clicked back into junk focus."

Not sure how it took me so long to read this book that's absolutely foundational to lit, especially the kind I like. You see the influence on Pynchon, Gaddis, Ballard, but there's no hit quite as pure and incandescent as Naked Lunch itself. A fiery star of a novel, perpetually going supernova. ( )

también en: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

El Almuerzo Desnudo no es un libro largo en comparación a otros que he leído pero no pude pasar de la primera página. No me gustó la traducción del libro, es demasiado tosca. No sé si el autor se expresa así en el escrito original, sólo sé que no me gustó nada.

No le di la oportunidad ahora y tampoco creo que la vuelva a dar ninguna otra en el futuro, no es mi tipo de libro.

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You know, I'm not sure if I can review this book or write what I learned because I could never really finish it. I keep getting lost in his text and that's awesome, but I really wish I could finish the damned book.

One thing that I did read and learned is that Talking assholes are fucking funny as hell.

I was genuinely afraid to read this book, so much so that for a time i had removed it from my to-do list completely. I still have scar tissue from the [b:Story of O|40483|Story of O (Story of O #1)|Pauline Réage|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464369941s/40483.jpg|2462307] (actually a pretty good story), [b:The 120 Days of Sodom|6351885|The 120 Days of Sodom|Marquis de Sade|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348124889s/6351885.jpg|6538460] (aaaaaarrggghhh!) and the only Burroughs i've previously read [b:The Soft Machine|23937|The Soft Machine (The Nova Trilogy #1)|William S. Burroughs|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388756111s/23937.jpg|2320862], which was Harsh to say the least, way harsh.

But i finally got up the courage... and you know what, this is a light breeze compared to 'Soft Machine' and its funny... like genuinely Funny about 25% of the time. Another 20% is decipherable and generally interesting, however that still leaves 55% which is kind of pointless.

The first half of the book in particular is almost a complete waste and i became convinced i was going to give it 1 star, but there were times during the second half where i seriously considered 3 stars. There are satirical moments about trying to cure gay people, about the control drugs exert and the control governments want to exert, about advertising and conforming to the norms etc. good stuff, but still too little of it.

By the way the funny moments, in my head i kept picturing them as like tv parodies for the most part, like those ads in 'Robocop' or 'Starship Troopers', or those sitcom parodies in 'Natural Born Killers' or 'Mr. Robot', but someone is telling you the 'Aristocrats' joke at the same time :P .
Note, i might have built up a higher tolerance for junk than the average reader ;) . ( )

Naked Lunch: the Restored Text by Phyllis Kronhausen (2004)