Naked.. Aggression?

Haven't had too much time to read lately. As I mentioned, I'm working on a mixed list of Pulitzer Prize Winners and Nobel Literature Prize winners.. and then this list of New York Times "10 worst books" and "10 Best books". (I may make note that Malcolm X's Autobiography topped both lists.)

So I decided to start reading some William S. Burroughs. I finished up "Queer".. which was pretty amazing for it's pretty blunt portrayal of homosexuality and addiction. I have to say - it's probably the most straightforward, no words minced account of both. I really admire the way it was written - and when you finish reading it.. and see that it was written sometime in the 40's - you have to give the guy some credit. (Even if it wasn't published in it's entirety until like, 1980.) Even if it wasn't a thouroughly enjoyable novel (he makes you feel his addiction and withdrawl with such accuracy that you swear you've got the shakes) it was definately a good book. So, I decided to take on "Naked Lunch" - his most famous book, also centered on his personal struggle with addiction. (To everything. Litterally.)

This may be one of the only books (other than Little Women.. which is funny that they are in the same catagory) that I may not finish. Gruesome, rude, disgusting, displacing, uncomfortable.. I'm all for books that make you think. That make you uncomfortable. It means that the writer has put you outside of what you traditionally find acceptable, you're stretching your boundaries like a literary aneuryism. It's not pleasant, but its neccessary. "Naked Lunch" goes so far beyond that. It's a nightmare of perversity (somewhere along the lines of the Marquis de Sade - but worse, if you can believe it.) and inhuman, and inhumane passages lie one after another

Perhaps what's worse.. is that some of it's good. That some of the ideas and feelings are palpable they are so well presented. He succeeds in saying everything that everyone else will not - but sometimes people don't say things for good reason. But overall - it's just repetative, like some drug riddled nightmare that you just can't wake up from, with each and every page. I keep expecting the story to change, that it will move forward and progress - but it just gets progressively worse and more depraved and heartwrenching.

Which is.. perhaps.. the most apt portrayal of addiction that there is.