Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text by William S. Burroughs Jr

10 reviews

smalls411's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, and Medical trauma

ed_moore's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.5

Burroughs’ ‘Naked Lunch’ is an exploration of the drug addiction problem plaguing 1960’s America, written by an author recently recovered from 15 years of addiction. It is told primarily through a series of tangled vignettes which mixed with the nature of depicting addiction and hallucination the story is extremely difficult to follow. Instead you are just forced to take in snippets of extremely uncomfortable text to read. 

I came so close to DNF’ing this, and I never do let myself DNF books, that being the only reason I pushed through. Burroughs claimed in his afterword that the goal of the book alongside depicting the American junk scene was to criticise the capital punishment system in America and question why addiction is frowned upon more than such, though both are criticised. To me, it didn’t read like this. It was just constant exposure to awful scenes of rape, murder, gang rape, child rape, violent rape. It was just a horrific pornographic book on a drug high which had no sympathy or remorse for the topics it was describing, handled them crudely with no respect and didn’t even particularly condemn such. The scenes were persistent and quiet graphic too so it was just consistently uncomfortable and sickening to read. 

Rape being the prominent unsettling element of the book, it was not the only one. It was also extremely sexist, racist and would frequently discuss the concept of hypnotising the homosexuality out of someone and was blatantly crude and homophobic throughout. It really ticked every box on the type of person you don’t want to be.

I didn’t take anything positive from ‘Naked Lunch’ at all and hated it from the first chapter. If I was brave enough to DNF a book this would’ve absolutely been the first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

joshgroven's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Medical trauma, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

crufts's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Disclaimer: I only read the first 30%. After that, I got the gist and didn't feel the need to read the rest. There's no plot, so it doesn't really matter if you miss some chapters or read it out of order.

After hearing the title mentioned several times over the years, I became curious about Naked Lunch and decided to read it.

In poetic, lyrical, psychedelic language, the author paints a picture of an America addled by junk - that is, opioid drugs in all their forms. Plagued by addicts of every substance under the sun, the society he depicts is in a state of complete moral and physical degradation.

Other words I would use to describe this book: deranged, delirious, fevered, stream of consciousness, extremely offensive, nonsensical, bizarre, and over the top. Don't go into this book expecting a plot, consistent characters, or any shred of common sense. It's not a story at all, it's more like a really long slam poem.

Overall, I found the book more historically interesting than anything else - i.e., what on earth did Burroughs write that caused such a stir at the time? It was interesting to see the author railing against capital punishment, and also how he considered addicts to be sick people suffering an illness rather than being morally bankrupt (which was the dominant opinion at the time).

I am unable to choose a star rating due to how obscenely obscene the book is. However, you may find it interesting to check the book if you're hunting for inspiration to write an insane or delirious character.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Biphobia, Body horror, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Lesbophobia, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Self harm, and Vomit

Minor: Transphobia

Please seriously consider the content warnings in this and other reviews. The author wrote the book intending to bring light to the "naked" reality of drug addiction and moral decay that he observed and experienced.
However, I will note that there are hardly any named or recurring characters, and there's a certain fever-dream-like quality to the writing style. As a result, many of these scenes come off as more bizarre than distressing.

Again, please be warned, the book basically consists of one gross and deranged scene after another.

jblago's review

challenging dark funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A book to more absorbed than read. When I started I was understandably challenged just comprehending each sentence as I read it, sometimes rereading the same paragraph multiple times simply to understand the words themselves let alone any semblance of deeper meaning or overall plot. But as I read more I became more comfortable with the style of this book. A literal Diary of a Madman. Junk-sick and mostly disgusting, yet proud and satirical on a level I have yet to see in any other book, film, or other art piece. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Trafficking, Abortion, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Abandonment

Minor: Homophobia, Pedophilia, Islamophobia, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

The satirical nature of the book makes it HEAVY with content warnings, but within context everything has its purpose. Each word serves its raison d’etre perfectly, in spite of its outward appearance.

moranguinhos's review against another edition

challenging dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

even in the annotated version there were so many words i had to google. half were drugs & the other half were sex acts. wild vacation read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Murder

gleerest's review against another edition

challenging funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Racial slurs, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Racial slurs, and Violence

lain_darko's review against another edition

challenging dark funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, Antisemitism, Medical content, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

emcee_othello's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t think William S. Burroughs meant for anyone to understand Naked Lunch. I doubt even he completely understood what he’d made, especially if we’re to trust his assertion that he wrote most of it while strung out on heroin. But even after he’d sobered up and began editing, I think Burroughs recognized the hallucinogenic potency of his words and decided that the toxic prose contained in Naked Lunch was the only true and unabridged way to represent the life of a junkie.

Burroughs insisted that drug addiction was a disease—a “junk virus” that threatened humanity as much as any other deadly ailment. But he also recognized that heroin abuse could only be promulgated in a capitalist system. Drugs are the perfect commodity. They sate a primal appetite for pleasure, turn ordinary people into lifelong customers, and most importantly transform a curious mind into one wholly dependent on product. Addicts move at the whims of pushers—desperate to feed a fix, made to wait for hours or days, and always in the losing position in a bargain. It could be an allegory for consumerism if opioid abuse wasn’t still an epidemic today.

If Naked Lunch is about anything, it’s about the miserable life of an addict. The paranoia, the sickness, the lethargy of being hooked on heroin. But it’s also about the world that addiction creates—the “perfect capitalism” of the drug market. Naked Lunch is as much about sickness as it is about how drug pushers both illegal and corporate exploit and experiment on people. Burroughs insinuates that the pusher, the pharmacist, the CIA are all just as addicted to power and control as their customers are to their product. See the junkies go ape as they tear each other apart and hang themselves for sex. See the scientist observing from a window, hands soaked in blood, shaking his head in disappointment. See it here, then look around you; you might be eating at the same lunch, too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Violence, Excrement, and Medical trauma

It’s some crazy stuff! Very obscene.

alicejwhite17's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual content, Violence, and Alcohol