The Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs, Grove/Atlantic) – **** – Vignettes of obsession and compulsion characterize the book, oscillating between moments of hysteria and sobriety. This description aptly captures the essence of the work. Burroughs’ cut-up method has transformed the book into a horrific experience, altering not only its structure but also engendering a nomadism of psychogeographic generality.
The book aligns seamlessly with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of a nomadic war machine. Like D&G’s war machine, the book’s subjectivity strategically de-positions itself, becoming itinerant and devoid of a fixed position in geographic space. It counters both the ossification of the state apparatus apparent to the novel’s supposed structure and the displinarity of the state apparatus in relation to the subjectivity explored by the book.
The subjectivity at the heart of the narrative delves into the lumpenized condition of drug addiction and its subjugation of the legality of life. Burroughs posits that life exists beyond the confines of the State, and it is not a degenerate life but a productive one that horrifically disrupts the disciplinarity of static subjects. Through the main character’s nomadism, Burroughs paints a world that blurs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction—a deterritorialization of modalities of life.
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OMNITUDO 