Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

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In May 1991, rather than attempting a straight adaptation, Canadian director David Cronenberg took a few elements from the book and combined them with elements of Burroughs' life, creating a hybrid film about the writing of the book rather than the book itself. Peter Weller starred as William Lee, the pseudonym Burroughs used when he wrote Junkie. Burroughs continues to be named as an influence by contemporary writers of fiction. Both the New Wave and, especially, the cyberpunk schools of science fiction are indebted to him. Admirers from the late 1970s – early 1980s milieu of this subgenre include William Gibson and John Shirley, to name only two. First published in 1982, the British slipstream fiction magazine Interzone (which later evolved into a more traditional science fiction magazine) paid tribute to him with its choice of name. He is also cited as a major influence by musicians Roger Waters, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Genesis P-Orridge, Ian Curtis, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Todd Tamanend Clark, John Zorn, Tom Waits, Gary Numan and Kurt Cobain. [111] Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations. Burroughs also attended classes at the Mexico City College in 1950, studying Spanish, as well as Mesoamerican manuscripts ( codices) and the Mayan language with R. H. Barlow. Jones, Josh (September 14, 2012). "William S. Burroughs Shows You How to Make "Shotgun Art" ". Open Culture . Retrieved March 9, 2021. There is no exact process. If you want to do shotgun art, you take a piece of plywood, put a can of spray paint in front of it, and shoot it with a shotgun or high powered rifle.

Hemmer, Kurt (2009). " "The natives are getting uppity": Tangier and Naked Lunch". In Harris, Oliver; MacFadyen, Ian (eds.). Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp.65–72. ISBN 978-0-8093-2915-1. Upon publication, Grove Press added to the book supplementary material regarding the censorship battle as well as an article written by Burroughs on the topic of drug addiction. In 2001, a "restored text" edition of Naked Lunch was published with some new and previously suppressed material added. The " Beat Hotel" was a typical European-style boarding house hotel, with common toilets on every floor, and a small place for personal cooking in the room. Life there was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who lived in the attic room. This shabby, inexpensive hotel was populated by Gregory Corso, Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky for several months after Naked Lunch first appeared. Maslin, Janet (18 December 1991). "Film Critics Honor 'Silence of Lambs' ". The New York Times . Retrieved 9 April 2017. This was no idle passing interest – Burroughs also actively practiced magic in his everyday life: seeking out mystical visions through practices like scrying, [79] [80] [47] taking measures to protect himself from possession, [81] [82] [34] [35] and attempting to lay curses on those who had crossed him. [53] [54] [83] Burroughs spoke openly about his magical practices, and his engagement with the occult is attested from a multitude of interviews, [m] [n] [85] as well as personal accounts from those who knew him. [53] [54] [34]Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays, edited by Oliver Harris and Ian MacFadyen (Carbondale, Il: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009). Ranaldo, Lee (2012). "Interview with William S. Burroughs". In Colin Fallows & Synne Genzmer (Eds.), Cut-ups, cut-ins, cut-outs, p. 48. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien. ISBN 3869843152. All of our upcoming public events and our St Pancras building tours are going ahead. Read our latest blog post about planned events for more information.

When I was four years old I saw a vision in Forest Park, St. Louis ... I was lagging behind and I saw a little green reindeer about the size of a cat ... Later, when I studied anthropology at Harvard, I learned that this was a totem animal vision and knew that I could never kill a reindeer." — William S. Burroughs [13]Johnson, Rob (2009). "William S. Burroughs as "Good Ol' Boy": Naked Lunch in East Texas". In Harris, Oliver; MacFadyen, Ian (eds.). Naked Lunch @ 50: Anniversary Essays. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. p.46. ISBN 978-0-8093-2915-1. When Gysin, apparently in trance, told Burroughs 'The Ugly Spirit shot Joan because' he thought he finally had the answer ... the unforgiveable slip that had caused the death of his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer ... had come about because he was literally possessed by an evil spirit ... William instinctively knew the only solution available to him ... If the Word was indeed the basic mechanism of control – the 'virus' by which The Ugly Spirit, or its agency Control, exerted its malevolent influence – then surely a real understanding of the Word, what words are and what can be done with them – was essential. All these explorations and obsessions were not merely diversions, experiments for artistic or literary amusement ... but part of a deadly struggle with unseen, invisible – perhaps evil – psycho-spiritual enemies." — Stevens, Matthew Levi [31] a b " NAKED LUNCH (18)". First Independent Films. British Board of Film Classification. 27 January 1992 . Retrieved 31 August 2013.

The only newspaper columnist Burroughs admired was Westbrook Pegler, a right-wing opinion shaper for the William Randolph Hearst newspaper chain. [8] :170 Burroughs believed in frontier individualism, which he championed as "our glorious frontier heritage on minding your own business." Burroughs came to equate liberalism with bureaucratic tyranny, viewing government authority as a collective of meddlesome forces legislating the curtailment of personal freedom. According to his biographer Ted Morgan, his philosophy for living one's life was to adhere to a laissez-faire path, one without encumbrances – in essence a credo shared with the capitalist business world. [8] :55 His abhorrence of the government did not prevent Burroughs from using its programs to his own advantage. In 1949 he enrolled in Mexico City College under the GI Bill, which paid for part of his tuition and books and provided him with a seventy-five-dollar-per-month stipend. He maintained, "I always say, keep your snout in the public trough." [8] :173 Harris, Oliver (2003). William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-2484-9. Melnyk, George (2007). Great Canadian Film Directors. University of Alberta. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-88864-479-4. Since 1997, several posthumous collections of Burroughs' work have been published. A few months after his death, a collection of writings spanning his entire career, Word Virus, was published (according to the book's introduction, Burroughs himself approved its contents prior to his death). Aside from numerous previously released pieces, Word Virus also included what was promoted as one of the few surviving fragments of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, a novel by Burroughs and Kerouac. The complete Kerouac/Burroughs manuscript And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks was published for the first time in November 2008. [106] Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.Burroughs' time at the Beat Hotel was dominated by occult experiments – " mirror-gazing, scrying, trance and telepathy, all fuelled by a wide variety of mind-altering drugs". [45] Later, Burroughs would describe "visions" obtained by staring into the mirror for hours at a time – his hands transformed into tentacles, [h] or his whole image transforming into some strange entity, [i] or visions of far-off places, [47] or of other people rapidly undergoing metamorphosis. [j] It was from this febrile atmosphere that the famous cut-up technique emerged. The shooting of Joan Lee is based on the 1951 death of Joan Vollmer, Burroughs' common-law wife. [12] Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of "William Tell" at a party in Mexico City. He would later flee to the United States. Burroughs was convicted in absentia of homicide and sentenced to two years, which were suspended. Burroughs stated in the introduction to his book Queer that Joan's death was the starting point of his literary career, saying: "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan's death". [14] As a boy, Burroughs lived on Pershing Avenue (now Pershing Place) in St.Louis' Central West End. He attended John Burroughs School in St.Louis where his first published essay, "Personal Magnetism" – which revolved around telepathic mind-control – was printed in the John Burroughs Review in 1929. [15] He then attended the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, which was stressful for him. The school was a boarding school for the wealthy, "where the spindly sons of the rich could be transformed into manly specimens". [8] :44 Burroughs kept journals documenting an erotic attachment to another boy. According to his own account, he destroyed these later, ashamed of their content. [16] He kept his sexual orientation concealed from his family well into adulthood. A common story says [17] that he was expelled from Los Alamos after taking chloral hydrate in Santa Fe with a fellow student. Yet, according to his own account, he left voluntarily: "During the Easter vacation of my second year I persuaded my family to let me stay in St. Louis." [16] William S. Burroughs' childhood home on Pershing Place in St. Louis Harvard University [ edit ] The book was originally published with the title The Naked Lunch in Paris in July 1959 by Olympia Press. Because of US obscenity laws, [8] a complete American edition (by Grove Press) did not follow until 1962. It was titled Naked Lunch and was substantially different from the Olympia Press edition because it was based on an earlier 1958 manuscript in Allen Ginsberg's possession. [9] The definite article "the" in the title was never intended by the author, but added by the editors of the Olympia Press 1959 edition. [10] Nonetheless The Naked Lunch remained the title used for the 1968 and 1974 Corgi Books editions, and the novel is often known by the alternative name, especially in the UK where these editions circulated. Burroughs had a longstanding preoccupation with magic and the occult, dating from his earliest childhood, and was insistent throughout his life that we live in a "magical universe". [76] As he himself explained: