Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Naked Lunch: The Restored Text by William S. Burroughs

5 reviews

jblago's review against another edition

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

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

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

madisontoth's review against another edition

challenging funny slow-paced

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

5.0

i think this book changed my life. i’ve never read anything like this before in my life and it was so fucking fun!! i’m in love with burroughs’ writing style and every single other book i’ve read after this has just fallen flat. there’s literally nothing like this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Drug use, Medical content, Addiction, Medical trauma, Rape, and Body horror

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, Excrement, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, and Violence

It’s some crazy stuff! Very obscene.

krisdamnit's review against another edition

challenging dark funny medium-paced

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

4.0

The reason I enjoyed this book so much was partially because it's all artsy and clever and avant-garde, but also because it's the book equivalent of a shock image. The amount of stuff that happens in this book, the horrible, horrible stuff, is so just unapologetic that I found myself enjoying the ride, even waiting to see what absolute ridiculous crap would happen next. This definitely isn't the book for you if you don't want to be shocked or have some type of disgusting image seared into your brain, because while I'm not one to quote from books, I won't be forgetting some choice words from this one.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Excrement, Gore, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Addiction, and Blood