Lewis Jones

Beating his demons

Naked Lunch: 50th Anniversary Edition, by William Burroughs

issue 15 August 2009

When I first read Naked Lunch, as a teenager sleeping rough in a Greek olive grove, I thought it funny, baffling and vile, its hallucinatory horrors recalling paintings by Francis Bacon — ‘mouth and eyes are one organ that leaps forward to snap with transparent teeth’. A diet of ouzo and dodgy mousaka played havoc with my bowels, and the pages before me were soon behind me, which I thought would please William Burroughs, whose humour was decidedly cloacal.

It would also have pleased Edith Sitwell, whose review suggested that such was a fitting use for the book: ‘I do not wish to spend the rest of my life,’ she sniffed, ‘with my nose nailed to other people’s lavatories.’ By happy chance, I learn from Burroughs (an excellent film by Howard Brookner, found on video.google)

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