Naked Lunch

 I didn’t finish this one. I just couldn’t.

It isn’t because Naked Lunch
is all that shocking, although he tries to be and I can imagine that in the time it came out originally it would have caused quite the ruckus, but for me that wasn’t it.

I abandoned this book because I lack the imagination of a drug addict. I read his words, his ‘adventures’ and all I can think is that he tried to portray the sickest scenes and then go one step beyond. Many have to do with gay sex and sex with corpses. That seemed to be a quite scandalous topic when he wrote the book. Men having sex with each other isn’t as shocking as it once was and the succession of sex scenes quickly lost their glamour. It’s not even good sex, it’s sex that wants the reader to react disgusted.

I’m about a third through and in the meantime I’ve gone on to other novels, better novels I’d say, for me at least. I’m not a puritan and I can handle a lot of bull shit and so-called shocking material but in Naked Lunch overkill is the key word and maybe these are true recollections of an junk user, I don’t know. I’m just glad I listened and stayed off drugs because that’s one fucked up way to spend your time.