William Burroughs: Junky (1953) and Naked Lunch (1959)
Agenda for analysis:
Narration: 1st person point of view (usually omniscient)
Involved narrator
Narrative irony
Reliability,
exaggeration/hyperbole
Stylistics/Diction: Cut Up
Slang, argot
Repetition
Sardonic tone
Thematics:
Junk/Scoring
Marks/Narcs/Hustling
Themes Addiction
Power
Sex (Queer)
Crime
Identity (fluid)
Community (unstable)
Genre: Autobiography, confession
Novel
Manifesto/document
Contexts: Experimental literature/Avantgarde
Bohemianism
Intertextuality/Parody
Cult status/imitation
Ideas for essays:
William Burroughs: Junky (1953) and Naked Lunch (1959)
Consider the use of first person narration in Burroughs’ books. Is he writing autobiographically, or even confessionally? Discuss how this fits in with the use of ‘routines’ in Naked Lunch where Burroughs seems to be role playing and creating alter egos that often morph into new strange characters that barely seem human.
Characterize Burroughs’ prose style.
[Laconic, terse, dead-pan, affectless, alternately sober and hyperbolic, fabulating, fantastic, Cut Up]
What is the overall effect on the reader of this mixture of styles and techniques?
Consider Burroughs’ use of setting: US locales versus exotic elsewheres, interzones, etc.
Consider Burroughs’ selection of scenes and the arrangement of them in sequences, or rather non-sequentially. What is the effect of muddling temporal and causal logic?
Burroughs’ central themes could be said to be addiction in all its forms, and the use and abuse of power in all its forms. Discuss the thematic complexes of addiction and power in one or several of his prose texts.