Wang Yongnian, the Chinese translator of "On the Road" (Jack Kerouac) (he is also the main translator of "The Collected Works of Borges") once commented on "On the Road":
"I think "On the Road" It is not a novel. It is very different from the novels I have translated before. It lacks the necessary structure, reads more messy, has no plot, and is more prosaic. This kind of spray writing is more like Dreiser, but Dreiser’s The work is a path of realism, "On the Road" does not have this kind of care in it, and it can be said to be a kind of "factism." It is a bit similar to the writing of special articles in Western newspapers, which faithfully records the writers’ knowledge and does not talk about writing. Techniques, so I don’t think it can be considered a novel."
If "On the Road" can't be considered a novel, then "Nude Lunch" can't be considered a novel.
William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac are buddies, representatives of the so-called "Beat Generation", and their influence on each other is of course needless to say, even the name of his novel "Naked Lunch" comes from Jack Kerouac’s proposal, Wang Yongnian’s evaluation of "On the Road" is also suitable for "Naked Lunch". If you have to add a word to describe "Naked Lunch" in this comment, you only need to add a "more" "Character. That is, compared with "On the Road", "Naked Lunch" has no necessary structure, reads more messy, has no plot, and is more prosaic. It can't be scattered, and it definitely makes most readers confused.
Although "On the Road" is a not-so-decent novel, there are always a few heroes who can be remembered. Although it is messy, there is always a clue that is not too clear and hazy. Although it’s nothing more than from the east to the west of the United States, from the west to the east, or from the United States to Mexico, and then from Mexico to the United States, there are no fights, drug abuse, and promiscuity. In any case, as long as they are "on the road", They have a certain meaning or symbol of the times, but what about in "Naked Lunch"? Nothing.
At the end of the preface of "Naked Lunch", there is this sentence:
"Children taking painkillers all over the world unite. What we have lost are drug dealers, and they are superfluous. Look clearly, see the path of drug use, and don't step on it rashly and make friends with mobs."
Such sentences are quite like Li Yu. The good words to persuade the world in the opening remarks of "The Butcher Shop", which gives people a false impression, "Naked Lunch" must be a confession of addicts, right? But you know right away that it is a confession, rather than a history of drug abuse, fornication, corruption, or crime. No matter what kind of history it is counted as a history, you will never see any of it. Regret, some are just cold, non-emotional records.
I believe that the drug-taking experience is unfamiliar to most readers, but for most adults, although they cannot taste all the possibilities, they will experience something more or less. The fornication scenes in "Nude Lunch" can be described as exhausting all kinds of sexual possibilities. Men and women, men, women, women, old and young, young and old, oral sex, anal sex, sexual abuse, NP, etc., you can think of The details of various erotic scenes are all presented. No wonder some people say that since "Naked Lunch" can be published in China, why is "Jin Ping Mei" still restricted? However, it is obviously unfair to say that "Naked Lunch" is a novel that uses "heavy tastes" to kitsch or mellow.
Although "Naked Lunch" can be called various "history", it is definitely not an honest dossier. When you finish reading a chapter patiently, you have a vague impression of several characters, using chaotic dialogues, When the scenes piece together the next development trend of the novel, this chapter is basically over.
In the next chapter, different characters and different scenes have been changed. You carefully look back to the previous chapter, but you can’t find the inevitable connection between them anyway. Not only that, you will have all In the chapters, I don't want to find the connection between the chapters, except for the occasional characters that have appeared. You can actually read any chapter of "Naked Lunch" as a short story. Indeed, different characters have occasionally appeared in different chapters, but you can't see any logical development relationship between the same characters in different chapters.
The chapters of The Naked Lunch are not so much novels as novels. They are the disturbing dreams that readers make under the lead of the author William Burroughs, and you know that almost all dreams are illogical and illogical. Strange, horror, broken, chaotic, and when you wake up, the dreams that once made you struggle in it have almost forgotten, although you want to think about them carefully and clarify them again.
Some people say that "Naked Lunch" exposes the decadent and declining life of capitalist society, but I think what he actually reveals is only the limits that people can reach and degenerate (without derogation). This degeneration is both physical. It is also spiritual, and sex and drugs are only media that lead to the road to degeneration. Without them, there will be other media.
Although "Naked Lunch" is different from any novel text that has appeared, I believe that William Burroughs is by no means deliberately doing some kind of text experiment. I believe that the reason why the text of "Naked Lunch" appears is just that it appears. Because William Burroughs himself said: "Most of the survivors can't remember the state of confusion at the time, and I seem to have made detailed notes about this disease and state of confusion."
And why is "Naked Lunch" written To be so "chaos", William Burroughs himself has explained it very clearly:
"You can cut into "Naked Lunch" at any intersection... What the writer can write is only what he was aware of when he was writing... …, I don’t want to deliberately fabricate "story", "plot", "continuity"..., while I succeed in directly recording certain areas of spiritual activity, there are also shortcomings... I am not a pastime for others People..."
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