08-28-2008, 11:27 AM
The movie tried to make it into a linear narrative which killed the whole thing. Burroughs was experimenting with some very disjointed concepts. One of his art concepts was to write multiple story lines, shred them into text chunks and throw them into the air. Then he would reassemble it as it fell. It was like John Cage but for literature. I don't think Naked Lunch was written that way, but you can definitely see the influence of such methods. It's a challenging read that way, but therein lies it's magic. Such is Burroughs. Frankly, the movie version made too much sense to capture the book.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse