I saw part of the movie " NAKED LUNCH" and while interesting, I didn’t really understand it. I was wonder if the book clears it up any or is just as confusing?
Nope, the book doesn’t help clear things up any.
It may help to know that William Bourroughs was a major drug addict.
The movie was partly an adaptation of the book, and partly a biopic of Burroughs. The “William Tell” scene in the movie really happened. The centipedes? Drugs. The book is an important one in Beat literature, but, if you’re looking for a cohesive plotline or anything like that, look elsewhere. WS Burroughs doesn’t even remember writing it – that should give you some clue as to what you’re dealing with.
I may be talking out my ass here, but I believe Naked Lunch was at least semi-autobiographical. A somewhat disjointed collection of stories based on his experiences as a heroin addict and his self-imposed exile in Tangiers (which becomes the fictional “Inter-Zone” in the book.) after he accidently killed his wife while on the run from the law in Mexico as a result of his drug activities.
Is it anything like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”(Which I liked but at least had a semblence of a plot)?
I read the book then saw the movie, they aren’t very similar. I liked the book even though I definetly didn’t understand what was going on some of the time, the movie on the other hand was pretty bad, it seemed as though it tried to capture the disjoint nature of the book but the screenwriter veered to far from the original material and it just became rediculous
Only if you’re smacked up in a north African hotel room staring at the end of your shoe for a couple of months.
(Incidentally, Burroughs was the grandson (?) of Burroughs adding machine, cash register and ill-fated computer fame.)
[nelson] I can think of at least two things wrong with that title![/nelson]
Didn’t Burroughs mail the novel over a long period of time in little scraps to Allen Ginsberg?
The story I’d always heard was that Jack Kerouac went to Tangeir to get Burroughs into a treatment program in London. When they got there, they found him alone in his room with empty morphine boxes piled to the ceiling and the handwritten manuscript to Naked Lunch scattered on the floor. Burroughs refused to leave until the manuscript had been typed up, so Kerouac sat down and did it. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), Burroughs hadn’t numbered the pages, so it was Kerouac who decided the order that the book is in now. This info is from an article in the Beat Reader, but it’s been a few years since I read it.
The book’s not really supposed to be understood like a regular novel or movie. It’s net emotional and intellectual effect is what’s important, like a poem. It operates not just on “dream logic”, but on supercharged morphine-dream logic. Frankly, I like Junky and some of his poetry better.
Maybe it was Junky that was sent piecemeal to Ginsberg.
To be fair, he is dead 
It makes so, so much sense. I mean, don’t you understand that rubbing yellow powder into the gaping, talking asshole of your typewriter is a metaphor for, uh, how bad milk is for you?
I didn’t remember much of the movie, just the talking beetle typewriters.
Wierd. Though I’ve heard that part of it was accepting his homosexuality.
Well, seriously, I did think the film did function as a very surreal take on trying to deal with and understand ones homosexuality. All the undercover conspiracy stuff worked as a very interesting metaphor.
The way I heard it is this: Burroughs had been strung out on heroin in Tangiers. He had been writing as he was able, and took his notes with him to London(?) where he went to rehab. Eventually it became a book, and after a couple of decades someone decided to make a movie of it. Unfortunately, the book was unfilmable. So instead, they decided to make a movie about the writing of the book.