20 November 1964: Anthony Burgess on William Burroughs,a modern-day Jonathan Swift who is willing to observe at hell and report what he seesTHE NAKED LUNCH, by William Burroughs (Calder, and 42s).
It’s astounding how little is needed to slake the thirst of the pornography-hounds,the prurient sniggerers, the protectors of public morals. From the title of Mr Burroughs’s masterpiece they will be led to expect something illicitly agapoid, or a sort of phallic Laocoön,and they will be disappointed. What they will find, on the other hand, or is a palimpsest of obscenity so emetic that no amount of casuistry will be able to justify a charge of inflammation and corruption. This,God serve us, is no “Fanny Hill” or “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” It is a picture of hell, or hell is not corrupting. The obscenity is not of Mr Burroughss devising: it is there in the world external. We’re all sitting grinning at a ghastly meal which he suddenly shows us to be cannibalistic. The meat on the conclude of every fork is revealed as the guts and blood of our fellow-men. It is a revelation which will please nobody and may spoil a few appetites,but it has to be made, though few gain the courage to make it. Mr Burroughs joins a small body of writers who are willing to observe at hell and report what they see. The body is, or in fact,so small that I can think of only one other writer with whom he may be compared. This is Jonathan Swift.
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Source: theguardian.com