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Naked Lunch
- 404 statements
- 79 feature instances
- 25 referencing feature instances
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Naked Lunch | |
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NakedLunch | |
| Naked Lunch | comment |
Describe Naked Lunch here.Hoo boy. How do you describe the 1959 novel Naked Lunch, the seminal work of beat generation author William S. Burroughs, in mere words?A dystopian sci-fi meets Dante's Inferno, but experienced by a heroin addict in the 1950s. A carnival of everything middle-class America apparently feared at the time: experimental sexuality, drug abuse, foreigners, interracial relations, "forbidden sciences", comic books, gang violence and mob rule. A Take That! against traditional American values and perceived hypocrisies which reads like a collaboration between Allen Ginsberg and the edgiest flamebait right out of 4chan.Some editions of the book include an author's foreword where Burroughs explains the title. The phrase "naked lunch" is meant to describe facing the unvarnished truth about what people do to survive in society — "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork" — and the specific lunch that Burroughs wanted to unclothe was the custom of capital punishment. He objected to the fact that many people who endorse capital punishment are still reluctant to pull the switch, throw the first stone, or otherwise take on the moral responsibility for the killing of a human being. In a sense, "naked lunch" is the opposite of euphemism. Thus his famous quote, "Let them see what is at the end of that long newspaper spoon." Of course, Burroughs, by his own admission, doesn't remember writing most of the actual text of the book, so the author's foreword could very well be Retcon.Naked Lunch was very loosely adapted into a film in 1991 by David Cronenberg. | |
| Naked Lunch | fetched |
2024-04-15T09:00:44Z | |
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2024-04-15T09:00:44Z | |
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Dropped link to Utopia: Not a Feature - ITEM | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_1073963d | type |
Psychosexual Horror | |
| Naked Lunch / int_1073963d | comment |
Psychosexual Horror: One of the many themes of this book is sex, homosexuality, pederasty and sexual cruelty. Often intertwining with the sheer depths of suffering and depravity that drug addiction can reduce a person to. | |
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No Celebrities Were Harmed | |
| Naked Lunch / int_1282bf4f | comment |
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Lee is an obvious stand-in for Burroughs himself. Andrew Keif is based on Paul Bowles, the author and composer who befriended Burroughs in Tangiers. | |
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Erotic Asphyxiation | |
| Naked Lunch / int_129a9466 | comment |
Erotic Asphyxiation: He has a habit of writing scenes where teenage boys very sensually get their necks broken via noose. | |
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Does This Remind You of Anything? | |
| Naked Lunch / int_14ed6ab7 | comment |
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The reptiles giving oral to the Mugwumps for a drug that prolongs life. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_15f76026 | type |
Inexplicably Identical Individuals | |
| Naked Lunch / int_15f76026 | comment |
Inexplicably Identical Individuals: An array of control-room menials pop up at different times and places, all of them referred to simply as The Technician — and most of whom share the same characteristics of working behind the scenes, having to make decisions that aren't in their job description, and suffering from indigestion. Of course, this is the kind of book where they actually could all be the same guy... | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_18d15922 | type |
Title Drop | |
| Naked Lunch / int_18d15922 | comment |
Title Drop: For the sub-sections And Start West, Lazarus Go Home, Ordinary Men and Women, The County Clerk, The Exterminator Does A Good Job, and The Algebra of Need. | |
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Multiple Endings | |
| Naked Lunch / int_1aa08f77 | comment |
Multiple Endings: While not present in the book, a short in the Burroughs anthology, Interzone contains a story called The Conspiracy that acts as an alternate ending to the Hauser and O'Brien section. Instead of calling the police station from a desolate payphone, Lee hides at a female acquaintance's apartment for a few days and muses about his fate. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_1f799027 | type |
Obstructive Bureaucrat | |
| Naked Lunch / int_1f799027 | comment |
Obstructive Bureaucrat: The County Clerk, and most of his employees in the Old District Court House. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_21d70919 | type |
Crapsack World | |
| Naked Lunch / int_21d70919 | comment |
Crapsack World: Aside from fifties America completely stripped of its feel-good pop-culture being a hellhole overrun with killer cops, racists, and drug addicts trapped by a broken system, you've got: Annexia, transformed into a subservient Police State by usage of mass trauma, sleep deprivation, and weaponised red-tape of contradictory statues that lead right into psychological torture that never leaves any physical scars. It's completely sterile and boring. Benway is responsible for Annexia's brutalising, and when Lee goes to visit him in the Freeland Republic, he has an international operation that gathers up as many drug addicts, insane, and "queers" to be turned into barely-sentient automatons or subject to experiments that aren't much better than mutilation. Whenever Benway gets called to some new contract, he releases all the patients he's been working on apparently for the laughs, which never fails to cause a violent riot. Interzone, every real-life Wretched Hive combined. Drugs that warp you into shriveled husks [[Body Horror or worse], sexualised murder a part of every day life where you run the risk of getting decapitated simply for going to a party, slavery, and Body Horror aplenty. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_222dc873 | type |
Black Comedy | |
| Naked Lunch / int_222dc873 | comment |
Black Comedy: Drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, political corruption, racism, all treated in a disturbingly light-hearted manner. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_233da103 | type |
Cordon Bleugh Chef | |
| Naked Lunch / int_233da103 | comment |
Cordon Bleugh Chef: After the owner of Chez Robert dies, his brother Paul (who has just gotten out of an asylum) takes over and begins... experimenting with the menu. "Imperceptibly the quality of the food declines until he is serving literal garbage, the clients being too intimidated by the reputation of Chez Robert to protest." The sample menu Lee offers begins with "The Clear Camel Piss Soup with boiled Earth Worms" and gets worse from there. | |
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Walking the Earth | |
| Naked Lunch / int_29292e6d | comment |
Walking the Earth: Essentially what Burroughs did in the fifties, migrating from Chicago to New York to New Orleans to Texas to Mexico to South America to Tangiers to London to Paris. Junky, Queer, and Naked Lunch are all based on these experiences. | |
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| Naked Lunch / int_299d33f2 | type |
IKEA Erotica | |
| Naked Lunch / int_299d33f2 | comment |
IKEA Erotica: Most of the sexual acts in the novel (at least those that don't involve torture, mutilation, or murder) are described as matter-of-fact, mechanical body functions. | |
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Bury Your Gays | |
| Naked Lunch / int_2a8a7ea6 | comment |
Bury Your Gays: But only if they're Camp Gay. | |
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Ax-Crazy | |
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Ax-Crazy: A.J., who, after crashing Hassan's orgy dressed like a pirate, decapitates middle-aged women while singing "Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle of Rum". | |
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Mad Scientist | |
| Naked Lunch / int_3517000d | comment |
Mad Scientist: Dr. Benway, played hilariously straight. Nor is he the only one, judging by the references to Dr. Limpf, Dr. Tetrazzini (who saw surgery as an art form), and 'Fingers' Schaeffer, the Lobotomy Kid. And then there's Doctor Berger, of the Mental Health Hour, who claims proudly to have cured the neuroses of all kinds of patients, from homosexuals to writers. "I got enough health for the whole fuckin world!" | |
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French Cuisine Is Haughty | |
| Naked Lunch / int_35db4433 | comment |
French Cuisine Is Haughty: Which makes Chez Robert a perfect target for one of A.J.'s nasty pranks. He instigates a riot by demanding ketchup with his meal (or — accounts vary — by bringing in his own ketchup and dousing the food in it); the owner, chef, and sommelier all burst into a rage and chase him around the dining room with meat cleavers and broken champagne bottles. | |
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Clone Degeneration | |
| Naked Lunch / int_38326b11 | comment |
Clone Degeneration: The Divisionists' replicas need to recharge (through physical — but not necessarily sexual — contact) with their original body or 'mother cell', but are dyed and altered with body molds to disguise the fact that they're replicas. | |
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Properly Paranoid | |
| Naked Lunch / int_3aec9e5e | comment |
Properly Paranoid: With all the weird shit running around, it makes perfect sense for Lee to flee the country as fast as he can. | |
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First-Person Peripheral Narrator | |
| Naked Lunch / int_3d5377e5 | comment |
First-Person Peripheral Narrator: William Lee | |
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Fur and Loathing | |
| Naked Lunch / int_3e0a0709 | comment |
Fur and Loathing: "Guard in a uniform of human skin..." | |
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Wretched Hive | |
| Naked Lunch / int_40cbee83 | comment |
Interzone, every real-life Wretched Hive combined. Drugs that warp you into shriveled husks [[Body Horror or worse], sexualised murder a part of every day life where you run the risk of getting decapitated simply for going to a party, slavery, and Body Horror aplenty. | |
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Genre Roulette | |
| Naked Lunch / int_4b1ca7d2 | comment |
Genre Roulette: An undercover look at drug culture, raunchy porn, biting social satire, science-fiction and some hard boiled noir thrown in for good measure. | |
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Rambling Old Man Monologue | |
| Naked Lunch / int_4e6cb27f | comment |
Rambling Old Man Monologue: The County Clerk is given to these; we're subjected to one that goes on for almost five pages, and only ends because he has to take a restroom break — at which point Lee interrupts desperately to try and get his business handled. | |
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Making Love in All the Wrong Places | |
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Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Usually on the gallows. | |
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Body Horror | |
| Naked Lunch / int_504a1991 | comment |
Body Horror: All over the place - Burroughs uses often-fantastical disease and deformity as a metaphor for addiction, lust, and loss of autonomy. Among the most prominent examples are: Bradley the Buyer - originally just another junkie who both sold and used, his need for heroin became a need for heroin and anything to do with it, to the point of his body falling apart and resembling a semi-congealed lump of stinking mucus. Turning to being a stool pigeon for the cops somehow transforms him into an oozing slime who dissolves his victims by enveloping them. The "talking asshole" routine - a man starts to speak through his asshole. Eventually his brain atrophies, his mouth seals over, and he becomes a life support system for his anus. The "complete deanxietized man" - a lobotomized patient transforms into a giant centipede. The "reptiles" - people addicted to the semen of mugwumps. They've atrophied into little more than receptacles for the substance. Willy the Disk, a junkie turned into a living drugs probe for the cops. He's charmingly described as having turned into a warped, ashen nearly-inhuman hunk whose face has been half-rotted from endless drug injections, especially his mouth. It's rotten into a black hole-like orifice lined with erect hairs - hence, 'Willy the Disk'. A less surreal example is a female prostitute who intentionally keeps lesions open on her arms and legs with a pin so she can drip in heroin without the need for injection via a syringe. | |
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Sex Signals Death | |
| Naked Lunch / int_506bf16a | comment |
Sex Signals Death: Orgasm Death is a reoccurring phrase in Burroughs's work, as is the image of a hanged man jizzing in his pants at the moment of death — which has been known to happen in real life, by the way. In the chapters ''AJ's Annual Party" and "Hassan's Rumpus Room", people are mutilated and hanged during or shortly after having sex. AJ's description of a suspected snitch being given a lethal dose of rat poison and not junk is set up like a voyeuristic burlesque act: an audience pays to watch someone "perform", and AJ's loving depiction of the mole's face as he hits his death throes sounds suspiciously orgiastic. | |
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Of Corsets Funny | |
| Naked Lunch / int_577d4b8f | comment |
Of Corsets Funny: The results of a stomach tuck are referred to as a Flesh Corset, but Lee warns us that the sloppier surgeries lead to FC's that are "subject to break and spurt your horrible old guts across the floor." | |
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Fantastic Racism | |
| Naked Lunch / int_57b80b45 | comment |
Fantastic Racism: Thanks to the Divisionists. "If some citizen ventures to express a liberal opinion, another citizen invariably snarls: 'What are you? Some stinking nigger's bleached-out replica?'" | |
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Fantasy Counterpart Culture | |
| Naked Lunch / int_57d43e40 | comment |
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Interzone is a dystopian caricature of Tangier, Morocco, albeit with other various influences (see Culture Chop Suey above). | |
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BlackAndGreyMorality | |
| Naked Lunch / int_588d766f | comment |
Black-and-Grey Morality: Even the Factualists, the Interzone political party that Lee supports, are a bunch of psychos. It's just that they don't believe in what the other parties are doing — like melting people (Liquefactionists), cloning themselves (Divisionists), or experimenting with Mind Control (Senders). And even so, the other three parties are not all as separate in practice as they are in the abstract. | |
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Police Are Useless | |
| Naked Lunch / int_59907e4f | comment |
Police Are Useless: Hauser and O'Brien chase Lee all the way to Interzone (or maybe just around New York, we're not sure) then get killed by pistol fire after Lee shoots up some dope. | |
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Everybody Must Get Stoned | |
| Naked Lunch / int_5abe5b74 | comment |
Everybody Must Get Stoned: The Black Meat and Mugwump fluid, metaphors for the horror of addiction. | |
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Magic Genetics | |
| Naked Lunch / int_5e105542 | comment |
Magic Genetics: The Divisionists cut off chunks of their flesh and grow full replicas of themselves in petri dishes. | |
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Erotic Dream | |
| Naked Lunch / int_66b98472 | comment |
Erotic Dream: In fact, surreal pseudoporn makes up about a fourth of the book. | |
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Too Kinky to Torture | |
| Naked Lunch / int_671a3e1 | comment |
Too Kinky to Torture: Most of the lynching and dismemberment is completely consensual because they're all actors in a very grandiose and pretentious porno movie. | |
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Heroic Comedic Sociopath | |
| Naked Lunch / int_6e8a4791 | comment |
Heroic Comedic Sociopath: A.J. again. He's not actually heroic at all, but he's slightly less evil than most of the other characters (with the exception of Lee himself). | |
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The Immodest Orgasm | |
| Naked Lunch / int_6f44042b | comment |
The Immodest Orgasm: Described as 'like a shooting star'. | |
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Jigsaw Puzzle Plot | |
| Naked Lunch / int_715704e5 | comment |
Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Whether or not there even is a plot is up for debate. Regardless, every scene reveals something more is going on then we're being told. | |
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Arc Words | |
| Naked Lunch / int_7464705c | comment |
Arc Words: Certain phrases and descriptions are repeated constantly throughout Burroughs's body of work — most during his Nova Trilogy and Red Night Trilogy — but Naked Lunch has a few of its own, as it is the culmination of all of his early work: 'blank insect eyes', 'recall when (I) [event happened]', 'like music down a windy street', 'shitting and pissing in terror', 'No glot. C'lom Fliday'. | |
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Naked Lunch / int_7464705c | |
| Naked Lunch / int_790b1e6 | type |
Nasty Party | |
| Naked Lunch / int_790b1e6 | comment |
Nasty Party: The orgy in Hassan's Rumpus Room. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_790b1e6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_790b1e6 | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_790b1e6 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_7a265daa | type |
Eagleland | |
| Naked Lunch / int_7a265daa | comment |
Eagleland: Occasionally comes in for its share of brutal criticism, but two characters worth mentioning are Clem and Jody — a pair of vaudeville comedians turned Soviet agents, whose sole mission is to travel around the Third World on the KGB's dime, sabotaging every country they visit while acting like the worst Type 2 Eagleland stereotypes possible in order to ruin America's reputation. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_7a265daa | featureApplicability |
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Naked Lunch / int_7a265daa | |
| Naked Lunch / int_808cbaeb | type |
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking | |
| Naked Lunch / int_808cbaeb | comment |
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The County Clerk remembers a lynching: | |
| Naked Lunch / int_808cbaeb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_808cbaeb | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_808cbaeb | |
| Naked Lunch / int_823c6e3e | type |
Large Ham | |
| Naked Lunch / int_823c6e3e | comment |
Large Ham: THE GREAT SLASHTUBITCH! | |
| Naked Lunch / int_823c6e3e | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_830f2f0e | type |
Police State | |
| Naked Lunch / int_830f2f0e | comment |
Annexia, transformed into a subservient Police State by usage of mass trauma, sleep deprivation, and weaponised red-tape of contradictory statues that lead right into psychological torture that never leaves any physical scars. It's completely sterile and boring. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_830f2f0e | featureApplicability |
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Naked Lunch / int_830f2f0e | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8485d41a | type |
Interspecies Romance | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8485d41a | comment |
Interspecies Romance: The Mugwump and a blonde boy. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8485d41a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8485d41a | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_8485d41a | |
| Naked Lunch / int_898ff050 | type |
Villain Protagonist | |
| Naked Lunch / int_898ff050 | comment |
Villain Protagonist: A.J. is one of the intended heroes of the book, a "laughable, lovable eccentric" whose track list of pranks include showing up at a fancy-dress ball dressed as a condom; spiking the punch at an Anti-Fluoride Society meeting with a vine that melts the gums; spraying himself with bug spray, then releasing a swarm of potent, aphrodisiac insects into the New York Metropolitan Opera House on opening night, creating a massive orgy; and initiating a riot at a five-star restaurant that ends with the owner dying of a rage-induced heart attack and being eaten by famished hogs. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_898ff050 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_898ff050 | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_898ff050 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8b6e8d7 | type |
Anachronic Order | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8b6e8d7 | comment |
Anachronic Order: The chapters are arranged in the order in which they came back from the printer; Burroughs and his friends decided that they couldn't really improve on it. Burroughs was famous for doing this 'cut-up' in his other poetry, as well. Except for the section where Lee kills Hauser and O'Brien. It was originally supposed to happen near the beginning, but was moved to the end, creating another contradiction in space and time where Lee is presumably back in America, after having traveled through Mexico and South America into Africa. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8b6e8d7 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_8b6e8d7 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch / int_8c995bfc | type |
Zero-G Spot | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8c995bfc | comment |
Zero-G Spot: "Ever make sex in no gravity? Your jissom just floats out in the air like lovely ectoplasm, and female guests are subject to immaculate or at least indirect conception..." | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8c995bfc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8c995bfc | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch / int_8e5c28c | type |
Crystal Spires and Togas | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8e5c28c | comment |
Crystal Spires and Togas: Naked Lunch begins Burroughs' proud tradition of juxtaposing the hallucinatory horrors of paranoid high-tech dystopias with Mayincatec-esque iconography. This is taken to new levels in his next book, The Soft Machine. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_8e5c28c | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_8e5c28c | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_8e5c28c | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9a0870ae | type |
Screw Yourself | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9a0870ae | comment |
Screw Yourself: "Sex with a replica is strictly forbidden and almost universally practiced." | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9a0870ae | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9a0870ae | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_9a0870ae | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9b0f37de | type |
Contemplate Our Navels | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9b0f37de | comment |
Contemplate Our Navels: Behind all the filth and horror, Burroughs is crying. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9b0f37de | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9b0f37de | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_9b0f37de | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c1f758a | type |
Kill It with Fire | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c1f758a | comment |
Kill It with Fire: Bradley the Buyer, who has gone from just another junkie to some kind of hellish body-eating amoeba, requires an execution by flamethrower once the Justice system gets fed up with the fact they can't actually nail the guy for eating his victims when they can't find any trace of the victims; suggested for The Complete All-American De-anxietized Man. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c1f758a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c1f758a | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_9c1f758a | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c550e26 | type |
Word Salad Title | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c550e26 | comment |
Word Salad Title: Created accidentally by Burroughs' friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; while the work was still in progress, Ginsberg was reading aloud from the book (a portion, ironically, that was cut in later drafts), and Kerouac misheard two words and blurted out something like: "'Naked lunch'? What the hell does that mean?" | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c550e26 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9c550e26 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_9c550e26 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9d12bbc1 | type |
Foreshadowing | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9d12bbc1 | comment |
Foreshadowing: Hassan is referred to by several of his many aliases ('The Shoe Store Kid', 'Placenta Juan the Afterbirth Tycoon') before actually appearing. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9d12bbc1 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_9dab0a6e | type |
Continuity Nod | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9dab0a6e | comment |
Continuity Nod: The opening pages contain many very brief mentions of characters and events from Burroughs's first two novels, Junky and Queer, such as Bill Gains in someone else's overcoat and Lupita, Lee's Mexico City pusher, seated like an Aztec Earth Goddess. Hell, even the description of the Mugwump eerily recalls a suspicious individual mentioned towards the end of Junky. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_9dab0a6e | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_9dab0a6e | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_9dab0a6e | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a04f6f | type |
And I Must Scream | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a04f6f | comment |
And I Must Scream: "Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?" The long and short of it is that the man atrophies and becomes a barely-sentient support system for his anus. The literally hung boys are described as being put into Iron Lungs. Barring some kind of weird Interzone treatment, an Iron Lung is more-or-less permanent (on top of already becoming quadraplegic from the hanging). | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a04f6f | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_a8a04f6f | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a4b41e | type |
Not So Stoic | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a4b41e | comment |
Not So Stoic: Doctor "Fingers" Schaeffer. ("Clarence!! How can you do this to me?? Ingrates!! Every one of them ingrates!") | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a4b41e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_a8a4b41e | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_a8a4b41e | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b5fb096b | type |
People Puppets | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b5fb096b | comment |
People Puppets: Senders control people by telepathically transmitting their thoughts. This was the inspiration behind another movie by David Cronenberg. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b5fb096b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b5fb096b | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_b5fb096b | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b9561236 | type |
A Good Name for a Rock Band | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b9561236 | comment |
A Good Name for a Rock Band: The band Steely Dan got their name from a dildo in this book. The group Clem Snide took theirs from a recurring Burroughs character who appears for the first time in Naked Lunch. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_b9561236 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_b9561236 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bccb6703 | type |
Cement Shoes | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bccb6703 | comment |
Cement Shoes: Alluded to several times in Burroughs's word mosaics. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bccb6703 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bccb6703 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_bccb6703 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bd635007 | type |
Fauxreigner | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bd635007 | comment |
Fauxreigner: A few characters in the novel attempt to disguise their ethnic origin, although they often give away the fraud by adopting ludicrous names. Salvador Hassan O'Leary is just the most obvious, but there's a throwaway reference to an Ali Wong Chapultepec. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bd635007 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_bd635007 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_beb9a361 | type |
Anti-Hero | |
| Naked Lunch / int_beb9a361 | comment |
Anti-Hero: Our first introduction to Lee is repaying a passerby who saved him from pursuing police — he sneeringly decides the man's a homosexual and sets him up to buy fake weed. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_beb9a361 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_beb9a361 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_beb9a361 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bef696dd | type |
Mind Screw | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bef696dd | comment |
Mind Screw: Literally at one point ("This brain atrophy already"). | |
| Naked Lunch / int_bef696dd | featureApplicability |
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Naked Lunch / int_bef696dd | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c00484eb | type |
Accent Relapse | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c00484eb | comment |
Accent Relapse: While probably theatrics on Benway's part, he'll sometimes speak in an effeminate, stereotypically gay voice, and at other times speak like an American Southerner. Also: "Benway's voice drifts into my consciousness from no particular place... a disembodied voice that is sometimes loud and clear, sometimes barely audible, like music down a windy street." Also Salvador Hassan O'Leary, who is said to lapse into broken English in times of stress. "His accent at such moments suggests an Italian origin." | |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_c00484eb | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c86b7046 | type |
It's Not Porn, It's Art | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c86b7046 | comment |
It's Not Porn, It's Art: Slashtubitch's opinion on his 'blue movies' and, of course, the book itself as decided by the Supreme Court. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c86b7046 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_c86b7046 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_c86b7046 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_cd1b0fcc | type |
Prima Donna Director | |
| Naked Lunch / int_cd1b0fcc | comment |
Prima Donna Director: The Great Slashtubitch, except he directs epic porn films. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_cd1b0fcc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_cd1b0fcc | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_cd1b0fcc | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d45c0b86 | type |
Refuge in Audacity | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d45c0b86 | comment |
Refuge in Audacity: A terror attack at a meeting of Islam Inc., wherein the terrorist detonates a grenade he shoved up his own ass. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d45c0b86 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d45c0b86 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_d45c0b86 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d8979db6 | type |
Dr. Feelgood | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d8979db6 | comment |
Dr. Feelgood: The County Clerk recounts a conversation with his local pharmacist: | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d8979db6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_d8979db6 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_d8979db6 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_db38d6ca | type |
Torture Technician | |
| Naked Lunch / int_db38d6ca | comment |
Torture Technician: Doctor Benway, an expert-for-hire in systems of control and repression; although he's very careful to insist that his methods stop short of physical torture except as a last resort, it's clear that psychological torture is his stock in trade. The following quote precedes an entire passage describing how he traumatised an entire small nation into Pavlovian compliance. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_db38d6ca | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_db38d6ca | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_db38d6ca | |
| Naked Lunch / int_df60d405 | type |
Culture Chop Suey | |
| Naked Lunch / int_df60d405 | comment |
Culture Chop Suey: Interzone, although primarily based on Tangiers, seems to incorporate elements of the American Deep South (Cunt Lick County), the South American rainforests (The Upper Baboonsasshole), and socialist Europe (Annexia). There are repeated descriptions of buildings and houses, in a hundred clashing styles, all crammed in next to each other in the City. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_df60d405 | featureApplicability |
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| Naked Lunch / int_df60d405 | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_df60d405 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_e88e8a8f | type |
Writer on Board | |
| Naked Lunch / int_e88e8a8f | comment |
Writer on Board: Burroughs isn't afraid to express his opinions on whatever he wants, usually in the form of condemning farce. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_e88e8a8f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_e88e8a8f | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_e88e8a8f | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ea2e9f2d | type |
No Ending | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ea2e9f2d | comment |
No Ending: After a succession of rambling, the book seems to end with an unseen cataclysm. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ea2e9f2d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ea2e9f2d | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_ea2e9f2d | |
| Naked Lunch / int_edcc813f | type |
Fantastic Caste System | |
| Naked Lunch / int_edcc813f | comment |
Fantastic Caste System: The Parties of Interzone. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_edcc813f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_edcc813f | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_edcc813f | |
| Naked Lunch / int_eef85d73 | type |
People's Republic of Tyranny | |
| Naked Lunch / int_eef85d73 | comment |
People's Republic of Tyranny: Annexia, based on East Germany and other Soviet satellite states. Noteworthy in that they manage to oppress the hell out of people despite having abolished concentration camps, mass arrests, and most forms of physical torture; under Dr. Benway's guidance, they have removed every trace of plant life from the cities, installed giant buzzers on apartment buildings that ring the quarter-hour loudly enough to throw people out of their beds in the middle of the night, and rewritten the laws to make it impossible to do anything — from leaving your house without your gigantic portfolio of ID papers to consuming alcohol in the presence of another person — without breaking some regulation and thus subjecting yourself to arrest and interrogation. | |
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Naked Lunch / int_eef85d73 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ef2fcbe1 | type |
Le Film Artistique | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ef2fcbe1 | comment |
Le Film Artistique: There's one that sounds like a Alejandro Jodorowsky movie, except for all the porn. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ef2fcbe1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_ef2fcbe1 | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch | hasFeature |
Naked Lunch / int_ef2fcbe1 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_f6cb4fdc | type |
Chez Restaurant | |
| Naked Lunch / int_f6cb4fdc | comment |
Chez Restaurant: Chez Robert, where "a huge icy gourmet broods over the greatest cuisine in the world." | |
| Naked Lunch / int_f6cb4fdc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_f6cb4fdc | featureConfidence |
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Naked Lunch / int_f6cb4fdc | |
| Naked Lunch / int_fed441ad | type |
All Gays are Promiscuous | |
| Naked Lunch / int_fed441ad | comment |
All Gays are Promiscuous: In fairness, it's the '50s. Gay culture didn't have the stability to really support monogamy when this was written. | |
| Naked Lunch / int_fed441ad | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Naked Lunch / int_fed441ad | featureConfidence |
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| Naked Lunch / int_name | type |
ItemName | |
| Naked Lunch / int_name | comment |
||
| Naked Lunch / int_name | featureApplicability |
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Naked Lunch / int_name | |
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Naked Lunch |
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