Student Zone

"the exterminator does a good job"
In this chapter you see the Sailor come into play in the novel a second time. The first time he is in the Plaza trying to get some junk to sell from "Fats." In "the black meat" the Sailor meets a shoe shine boy, he asks "We friends, yes?" The sailor also says "With veins like that, Kid , I'd have myself a time." So the boy who appears at the Sailors door in "the exterminator does a good job" is almost positively the same boy. The boy arrives at the Sailors house and immediatley you see that he is high because he thinks his hand goes through the door when he touches it. Once the boy is let inside you get a vivid image of the place the Sailor lives. "Heavy, colorless smell of death filled the empty room." There are old dishes and mold and filth everywhere.

The Sailor and the boy are in his house and the Sailor pruposes a deal to the kid. His trade is very vague and unclear, but at the same time very sexual. The boy is confused and says "Mister I don't know what you are talking about." and then the Sailor asks "You accept?" the boy replies ""Yeah like..." He glanced at the package. "Whatever...I accept."" This boy could be bargaining anything for the package but he doesn't care he just wants it that bad.

The Sailor immediatley makes a reference to the "Exterminator", which is probably a dealer. You know he is the dealer because of all the clever refernces made. One is the coke bugs that the Sailor says the Exterminator just sprayed for. Another is when the Exterminator himself (I think it is Burroughs, because of the way he describes real bugs dying, and since Bill was an exterminator in junky, I think that makes some kind of drugged up sense, or maybe not.) is talking he tells how the yellow pyrethrum powder kills of the bugs, but he is really referencing to addicts.

I really like this chapter because It actually made sense to me after I reread it a couple times. It was interesting to see the characters come into play again. A good question for Naked Lunch that doesnt only apply to this chapter is why does Burroughs capitalize the strangest words throughout his text? Some of these words show relevance, but others just seem like standard words to me.

Interzone University is a very intriguing campus. There are abstracting objects, various creatures roaming about and images of disdain, “eyes protruding like strangled tongues throbbing red with hate” (17). Students are smoking marijuana and shooting heroine instead of studying. A professor appears on his bike and gives a lecture followed up by a Q&A session. His lecture is pretty twisted, but he is almost like a sergeant boosting his troop’s morale, “keeping you weapons well lubricated and ready of any action flank or rear guard.” This is almost a sexual connotation or a sexual innuendo about Burrough’s own homosexuality as an inside joke. The professor eventually relates himself as the Mariner from Coleridge’s The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. Even though he “may be rambling, irrelevant, even crude and rampant senile,” he feels that he can send his message to his students.
In the shift, topsy-turvy confusion of the narration in Naked Lunch, I’m trying to sense Bill Lee’s complete thought. “You can find out more about someone by talking them listening.” This quote pretty much explains the whole novel. I feel like everyone is talking, but no one is listening. This complex and warped explanation still leaves me in the confused pit stop. I feel that this section really tries to help the reader understand because Burroughs is almost using some rationality. He wants to help the reader follow the story. Why does Burroughs reassure his readers with this example to show that there is some state of rationality? Does he want to lead the reader on to continue the piece to see where it leads to another episode in his bizarre narrative?

BURBLE FINK STRIKES AGAIN!!!

OK, let me wade through your dense question, here.

First of all, as far as Burroughs' "universe" goes, I don't see how it's any different than accepting the universe of, say Sandman, or a movie, or any other author. Maybe I'm missing the point.

Second of all, yes NLunch has become a "meme," but on that level it circulates with any other meme, whether interesting or simply braindead iteration (e.g. "Whazzzzzzup????!!!"

Third, I don't understand your final question.

Overall, I think Burble Fink reinforces the reason why I stress close reading! Stick to the actual text!

Though I of course love the Burble-eruptions!

If "word begat image" and if "image is virus" then what is the correlation between Burroughs' extended metaphor that comprises the body of Naked Lunch and the nature of the phage itself. Cotangentially, can we talk about Naked Lunch outside of the self-describing sphere that Burroughs uses to describe Interzone, Annexia, and Freezone. And what I mean by this is that any attempt to analyze or describe, any attempt to take apart or focus upon any of Burroughs' topics always falls within Burroughs' own self describing universe.

Is Naked Lunch designed to be a virus of thought? Think about what we know of the 'meme'. And if you don't know what a meme is in more detail here is a good start http://fusionanomaly.net/meme.html

Systems of thought: Do you have them? or, Have they got you?

Remember: Burroughs doesn't even remember writing Naked Lunch. Why should he be able to tell anyone what it is about if he doesn't know what he was writing?

When Burroughs tells us of a place called intercampus zone I think that the professor and he had a lot in common. This a place where, “Donkeys, camels, llamas, rickshaws, carts of merchandise pushed by straining boys, eyes protruding like strangled tongues-throbbing red with animal hate.” Separate the teacher from his class. For me the entire book was a random, (yet creatively arranged) set of stories, numerous tales and explanations that included no one and everyone. Students there sit on, “.. rusty park benches, limestone blocks, outhouse seats, packing crates, oil drums…” and wear every type of clothing under the sun. This wide range of people is very similar to our discussion in class about the addiction is of little importance when the reactions are all similar. The people in the Interzone may look different but they are all there for the same reason, to wallow in their destiny, (at least in B0urroughs mind). Even the students in the story are delinquents and the professor did not fall too far from the tree. “…As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by one of my multiple personalities….”. This is where the professor mirrors Burroughs nonsense of sense. Throughout this book we go form story to story and at times it is very hard to follow. Students in the class although high at the time, are brought from study to sidetrack in the matter of seconds. The professor also constantly tells the students that details are of little importance and leaves them with a little advice. He says, “You can find out more about someone by talking rather than listening.” He realized this during a study where a patient had ESP and the talker was swaying the listener.
You are also reminded of the circus gig when the professor tells the students that his example is one of a “pea under the shell..Now you see it now you don’t.” How funny is it that this is at times how I feel about this book. One minute I am walking with Burroughs and the next we step into Hassan’s Rumpus Room and a Mugwump whom I have never met before offers me honey from a goblet and I have never felt more out of place in my life.
One question I have during the section of the Campus of Interzone was the professor pours a bucket of pearls in a trough. I know this must be more than what I am reading a little help anyone?
Also what is the constant reference to limestone?

William Burroughs gave “Naked Lunch” a very vivid sense of imagination. Here real life ties into fantasy. Often it is hard tell the two apart, which is what makes this book so very hard to understand and follow. There seems to be a story, the distinction, however, wasn’t clear to me. The character seems to be constantly escaping reality as well as any emotional tie to human beings. His interest is very limited and detachment quite obvious. He studies his acquaintances in an observational kind of way and seems to use them to fulfill his own unrealistic lifestyle. It’s as if they are just ghosts floating around in his fantasy world. Dr.Benway is a perfect example of that. He undertakes Bill and his reality, and lets him explore the lives of mental patients. That, to me was, was a very gruesome part of the book to try to get through. The event of the mental patient riots were very graphically written, painful to read through. Genitals are being cut off and collected, while the schizophrenics swing from chandeliers, as well as other events that shouldn’t be mentioned. But all in all Dr.Benway seems to play a significant role in Bill’s unreal life. What an engaging character he was. Keep in mind that none of the things that happened actually happened. Junk and being on it seem to be the only reasons the book was written. It’s out of this world. Running typewriters, centipedes and bug powder. He was an exterminator after all. Maybe that’s what it was like, staring at critters everyday. Maybe after a while everything turns into an insect, or appears to do so.
I honestly do not understand the significance of the story; I don’t even understand why we had to read so much of this book. I did not enjoy it. Mostly I was disturbed. The story never ceased to vanish in and out. Maybe if I was older I would appreciate this piece of literature. Maybe if I had been a junky myself. I probably took everything too literally, and it isn’t meant to.
Bill’s constantly on the move. Where is he going? Is he even moving, or is he dreaming of moving? It’s as if he’s on a mission to some other reality. I don’t know. To be completely honest, the further I got into the book, the more of a challenge it became for me to not simply let the papers fly in the wind. That would look really cool.
Perhaps, I’ll read it again sometime, when I’m older. Maybe it will mean more to me then.

Like most of Naked Lunch there is more than one thing going on at once in the section “the exterminator does a good job.” So much is happening, in fact, that you have to read each paragraph twice to make sure you aren’t missing anything.

A majority…okay, fine, all of Naked Lunch deals with drug addiction, hallucinations and the inner thoughts of junkies, but this section is by far the most clear when it comes to an interaction between two junkies. The voice in this chapter seems to be more clearheaded, more steady, and above all, more honest and almost straightforward.

Two things are quite evident from reading:

1) The Sailor is giving the boy heroin. “Pure, one hundred percent H…and it’s all yours.”

and

2) There are several sexual connotations going on in this section. It seems that the boy is so inebriated that he doesn’t quite realize (or care, for that matter) that he is trading himself for heroin. The boy stares greedily at the package of heroin and says, “Whatever…I accept,” when the Sailor sexually says, staring at a very different package, “I have something you want….you have something I want….you accept?”

It is evident from the start that the boy is in an altered state of mind, from the “iridescent whorls of slime” exuding from the oak door, to the fact that he can’t even recognize something as basic as the kitchen sink (“…a metal trough…ran into a sort of aquarium or tank half filled with translucent green fluid...”). His senses are so heightened that he appears to be able to physically feel and see certain sensory details, such as scents and air. “Currents of movement from the two bodies stirred stagnant odor pools: boy-smell, pool chlorine, dried semen.”

What is unclear is whether what is happening is, in fact, occurring or whether or not the boy is hallucinating it. That is up to the reader to decide, since the narrator is playfully vague, allowing the boy to undulate in and out of complete consciousness and reality.

While Burroughs uses enough imagery to suggest that something extremely sexual is occurring between the two characters with his consistent use of the word “package” as well as his use of imagery that depicts sexual behavior. “The sailor…pulled out a pink scrotal egg with one closed, pulsing eye…caressed the egg…” Burroughs also throws in that the boy clicks “back into junk focus.” leaving the reader guessing whether or not this is actually happening (though evidence leans toward yes, it seems as if it really is.)

In addition to this external struggle heroin deal and the internal struggle of reality versus hallucination, two other very important things are going on.

As the title of this except says, “the exterminator does a good job,” there is, of course, the voice of The Exterminator-- a third god-like character, added into the story line. (Whether the Exterminator is another alter-personality of The Sailor or an actual person, I can’t quite decide…)

It is obvious that the Exterminator isn’t actually a killer of live bugs, as The Sailor makes clear by saying, “The Exterminator fumigated for coke bugs….” Coke bugs are hallucinations of real bugs crawling under a user’s skin, a common side effect of cocaine and heroin. So the Exterminator seems to be an assurance to a Junky, a way of convincing oneself that they don’t have bugs under their skin or anywhere else because HE has already taken care of it. The Sailor seems to have said this to calm the boy and himself before they get their fix.

Toward the end of this section, the Exterminator seems to carry on a different meaning, to carry on a deeper occupation. The Exterminator if the destroyer of any sort of element that could ruin a junky’s high (“...find the live ones and exterminate…even one could effect our food tray…) The Exterminator’s duty seems to be a killer of paranoia and the causes of it (all causes besides the obvious, which is heroin use) so he is actually a destroyer of things such as hallucinatory bugs or something larger, like narks, which he admits in his final statement. “I know some agent is out there in the darkness looking for me…Because all agents defect and all Resisters sell out…”*

Then again, I could be completely wrong…..

Summary of “islam incorporated and the parties of interzone”:
In this chapter, we learn of A.J.’s (apocryphal?) antics as well as the political parties of primary persuasion in the land referred to as “interzone.” Burroughs doesn’t really give us any idea as to why this chapter is named so until over half way through it, other than to mention that A.J., “The notorious Merchant of Sex,” is the principle financier of Islam, Inc. He recounts several stories where A.J. has severely disrupted some ordinarily docile gathering by either slipping aphrodisiacs to the guests (knowingly and unknowingly) or just generally being an asshole.
The second part of this chapter deals with the actual parties themselves. In Interzone, there are four parties mentioned: the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Factualists, and the Divisionists. Bill doesn’t really go into how they encompass the government, but does give “factual” quips about each party. The Liquefactionists are made up of dupes (duplicates?) that succumb to perversions of many kinds, especially sadomasochism and whose eventual goal is to meld everyone into one person (He doesn't expect us to take that literally, does he?). The Senders are a party concerned with blind faith instead of fact, using telepathic “senders” or even “biocontrol apparatuses” to control the minds of others. The Divisionists are made up by people that have literally divided themselves in an effort to create duplicates of themselves in a laboratory setting. Apparently there are some Divisionists with several thousand duplicates of themselves. Burroughs portrays the Factualists as the most fundamentally level-headed party; opposing all others, and giving sound reasoning for doing so.

Commentary:
I think that, in trying to understand this novel, Burroughs had a concept of these parties of Interzone well before he started writing about Dr. Benway in the early part of the book. However, as much as it may fit in near the beginning, it is not too uncommon for authors to use the technique of withholding vital information until well into the story. Therefore, I think that it was Burroughs’ intention to leave this information out until near the end of the novel. So, if the question is whether this section was written earlier and edited to fit in where it does, I believe not. I do think that it is much more difficult to answer the question with this particular section because 1) it recounts events that happened long ago (as with A.J.) and 2) it gives background information, which, by nature, doesn’t follow along chronologically. Also, it seems to me that while A.J. exists throughout Bill’s time in Interzone, the stories of his foolishness seem to be more of a mythic nature and not of Bill’s personal experience, thus making it more difficult to pin down chronologically.

Question:
A.J. exists in Bill Lee’s artificial world of Interzone, but do you think he is also another representation of a real person in William Burroughs’ life?