Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (Book Analysis)

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (Book Analysis) PDF Author: Bright Summaries
Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
ISBN: 2808015933
Category : Study Aids
Languages : en
Pages : 22

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Book Description
Unlock the more straightforward side of Naked Lunch with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, a seminal work of literature associated with the Beat Generation. It tells the story of a drug addict’s bizarre experiences in a dreamlike landscape, which is populated by grotesque creatures known as Mugwumps, and where taboo acts such as rape and murder are committed constantly with no consequences. Naked Lunch is one of the best-known works by William S. Burroughs, largely due to its reputation as one of the most ‘obscene’ pieces of literature ever published. Burroughs was even taken to court over it, but his eventual victory in that trial actually played a key role in the overturning of American obscenity laws. Find out everything you need to know about Naked Lunch in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

Interzone

Interzone PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140094512
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
In 1954 William Burroughs settled in Tangiers, finding a sanctuary of sorts in its shadowy streets, blind alleys, and lowlife decadence. It was this city that served as a catalyst for Burroughs as a writer, the backdrop for one of the most radical transformations of style in literary history. Burroughs's life during this period is limned in a startling collection of short stories, autobiographical sketches, letters, and diary entries, all of which showcase his trademark mordant humor, while delineating the addictions to drugs and sex that are the central metaphors of his work. But it is the extraordinary "WORD," a long, sexually wild and deliberately offensive tirade, that blends confession, routine, and fantasy and marks the true turning point of Burroughs as a writer-the breakthrough of his own characteristic voice that will find its full realization in Naked Lunch. James Grauerholz's incisive introduction sets the scene for this series of pieces, guiding the reader through Burroughs's literary evolution from the precise, laconic, and deadpan writer of Junky and Queer to the radical, uncompromising seer of Naked Lunch. Interzone is an indispensable addition to the canon of his works.

Understanding William S. Burroughs

Understanding William S. Burroughs PDF Author: Gerald Alva (Al) Miller
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643360337
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Through critical readings Gerald Alva Miller, Jr., examines the life of William S. Burroughs and the evolution of his various radical styles not just in writing but also in audio, film, and painting. Although Burroughs remains tied to the Beat Generation, his works prove more revolutionary. Miller argues that Burroughs, more than any other author, ushered in the era of both postmodern fiction and poststructural philosophy. Through this study Miller situates Burroughs within the larger countercultural movements that began in the 1950s, when his novels became influential because of their examination of various control systems (from sex and drugs to global or even intergalactic conspiracies). Understanding William S. Burroughs begins by considering his early, straightforward narratives. Despite being more stylistically conventional, they broke new ground with their depictions of junkies, gay people, and others marginalized by society. The publication of Naked Lunch shattered all literary paradigms in terms of form and content. Naked Lunch and the cut-up novels, recordings, films, and art that followed constitute one of the twentieth century's most sustained and methodical aesthetic experiments, placing Burroughs alongside Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, and Thomas Pynchon in terms of both innovation and influence. Burroughs eventually turned his attention toward imagining methods of using the control "machinery" against itself. Often considered his masterpiece, the Red Night Trilogy of the 1980s ranges across time and space, and life and death, in its quest to discover the ultimate form of freedom. His antiestablishment stance and virulent attacks on various types of oppression have caused Burroughs to remain a highly influential figure to each new generation of authors, artists, musicians, and philosophers. The hippies, punks, and cyberpunks were all heavily indebted to the man whom many people called el hombre invisible, and his works prove more relevant than ever in the twenty-first century.

Designing Sound

Designing Sound PDF Author: Andy Farnell
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262014416
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
A practitioner's guide to the basic principles of creating sound effects using easily accessed free software. Designing Sound teaches students and professional sound designers to understand and create sound effects starting from nothing. Its thesis is that any sound can be generated from first principles, guided by analysis and synthesis. The text takes a practitioner's perspective, exploring the basic principles of making ordinary, everyday sounds using an easily accessed free software. Readers use the Pure Data (Pd) language to construct sound objects, which are more flexible and useful than recordings. Sound is considered as a process, rather than as data—an approach sometimes known as “procedural audio.” Procedural sound is a living sound effect that can run as computer code and be changed in real time according to unpredictable events. Applications include video games, film, animation, and media in which sound is part of an interactive process. The book takes a practical, systematic approach to the subject, teaching by example and providing background information that offers a firm theoretical context for its pragmatic stance. [Many of the examples follow a pattern, beginning with a discussion of the nature and physics of a sound, proceeding through the development of models and the implementation of examples, to the final step of producing a Pure Data program for the desired sound. Different synthesis methods are discussed, analyzed, and refined throughout.] After mastering the techniques presented in Designing Sound, students will be able to build their own sound objects for use in interactive applications and other projects

The Soft Machine

The Soft Machine PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802197213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
In Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs revealed his genius. In The Soft Machine he begins an adventure that will take us even further into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a book only he could create.

Queer

Queer PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141975660
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs' only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee's hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene. As Lee breaks down, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges; a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the Ugly American at his ugliest. A haunting tale of possession and exorcism, Queer is also a novel with a history of secrets, as this new edition reveals.

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll PDF Author: Casey Rae
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477322590
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
William S. Burroughs's fiction and essays are legendary, but his influence on music's counterculture has been less well documented—until now. Examining how one of America's most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll reveals the transformations in music history that can be traced to Burroughs. A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs's parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame, the stories of Burroughs's backstage impact will transform the way you see America's cultural revolution—and the way you hear its music.

The Finger

The Finger PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241339081
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
'He felt a sudden deep pity for the finger joint that lay there on the dresser, a few drops of blood gathering around the white bone.' A deliberately severed finger, a junky's Christmas miracle and a Tangier con-artist, among others, feature in these hallucinogenic sketches and stories from the infamous Beat legend. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

Cities of the Red Night

Cities of the Red Night PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466856602
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The first novel of the Red Night trilogy: “The most complete and most devastatingly sardonic statement of William Burroughs’s apocalyptic vision” (Newsday). Drawing freely from science fiction, hardboiled mystery, drug culture, and grotesque horror, William Burroughs trailblazed his own literary form, made famous with such classic novels as Naked Lunch. Considered by many to be his masterpiece, Cities of the Red Night is the first novel of his final trilogy, followed by The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands. Ranging across time and space, the kaleidoscopic narrative drops readers into a richly imagined alternate history. Our point of entry is the visionary pirate colony of Captain James Mission, who forged a society free of prejudice and oppression. From the 18th century we shuttle into the future, where a detective is on the hunt for a missing boy. Meanwhile, young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, and the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with a radioactive virus.

Last Words

Last Words PDF Author: William S. Burroughs
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 080219723X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns -- literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity, his love for his cats -- permeate the book. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most personal work Burroughs has ever written, a final reckoning with his life and regrets, and his reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary. It is a poignant portrait of the man, his life, and his creative process -- one that never quit, not even in the shadow of death.

William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century

William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century PDF Author: Joan Hawkins
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253041368
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
This definitive book on Burroughs’ decades-long cut-up project and its relevance to the American twentieth century, including previously unpublished works. William S. Burroughs’s Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Ticket That Exploded) remains the best-known of his textual cut-up creations, but he committed more than a decade of his life to searching out multimedia for use in works of collage. By cutting up, folding in, and splicing together newspapers, magazines, letters, book reviews, classical literature, audio recordings, photographs, and films, Burroughs created an eclectic and wide-ranging countercultural archive. This collection includes previously unpublished work by Burroughs such as cut-ups of work written by his son, cut-ups of critical responses to his own work, collages on the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, excerpts from his dream journals, and some of the few diary entries that Burroughs wrote about his wife, Joan. William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century also features original essays, interviews, and discussions by established Burroughs scholars, respected artists, and people who encountered Burroughs. The essays consider Burroughs from a range of perspectives—literary studies, media studies, popular culture, gender studies, post-colonialism, history, and geography. “A landmark in scholarship.” —Choice