Here we are, finally getting caught up on our banned books project – and I have a doozy this week.

I had not read any of William Burroughs work before this one – but I went through the obligatory Jack Kerouac reading period in high school and I suppose I expected that this fellow Beat writer would be similar.

While Kerouac and Burroughs were close – and even collaborated at times – Naked Lunch was an entirely different experience than, say, Kerouac’s On The Road or Dharma Bums – and not in a pleasant way.

(Honestly, I wouldn’t have the patience for Kerouac now either – but it wouldn’t trouble me like this has.)

Written as a product of Burroughs massive substance abuse and addiction, he forces the reader to walk with him through a nasty trip – or rather just to sit with him in his drug-addled mind I suppose.

Devoid of real plot or developed characters, this book IS absolutely filled with gore and rape and all manner of violence.

I’m not going to subject you all to a long summary; I’ll simply say – to me – it’s just gross.

Needless to say, I am glad to be shed of Burroughs and won’t be reading any of his other works. However, it is up to each person if they wish to do so. That is the point.

Now I am glad to be on to our next banned book, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.

(Also, this week I have some other book reports to share and posts planned. ❤ )

Wishing you all a great week and happy reading.

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence

Animal Farm – George Orwell

1984 – George Orwell

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

A Separate Peace – John Knowles

Lolita – Vladmir Nabokov

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

LOTR – The Fellowship of The Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

Beloved – Toni Morrison

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

The Call of the Wild – Jack London

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin

Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence

Ulysses – James Joyce

The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger

Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence

Naked Lunch – William Burroughs