I really enjoyed this book, both for the quick and easy to read style of writing and because as a recovering addict the druggie aspects were more meaning full and easy to relate to then they may be for a non-addict. Autobiographical story of William S. Burroughs and his "queer", junkie, traveling life style. Can't wait to read Naked Lunch! ( )

Junky, Burroughs first novel, goes beyond the beat generation writing and concentrates on the subject he knows best, junk. His heroin addiction, experience with using and kicking the habit does not glorify drug use, but enhances its realness as a problem and that an addict is always looking for that perfect drug. The diction captures the language of its time and the beauty and tragedy of Burroughs thoughts. ( )

Quotation from page 7.

'Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, then the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experience a strong feeling of fear. I had a feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving, as I turned my head, so that I never quite saw it. I felt nauseous; I lay down and closed my eyes. A series of pictures passed, like watching a movie: A huge, neon-lighted cocktail bar that got larger and larger until streets, traffic, and street repairs were included in it; a waitress currying a skull on a tray; stars in the clear sky. The physical impact of the fear of death; the shutting off of breath; stopping of blood.' ( )

I finished Junky over the weekend. Simple writing... it picked up for me after he left New York and headed south. Being from the New Orleans area i especially liked this passage:

There are people in New Orleans who have never been outside the city limits. The New Orleans accent is exactly similar to the accent of Brooklyn. The French Quarter is always crowded. Tourists, servicemen, merchant seamen, gamblers, perverts, drifters, and lamsters from every State of the Union. People wander around, unrelated, purposeless, most of them looking vaguely sullen and hostile. This is a place where you enjoy yourself. Even the criminals have come here to cool off and relax.

The above passage still held true, pre-Katrina... don’t know about today.

Desperation... seemed to be the common thread throughout. Like the last line said in the prologue, Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life. Though I found it to be a somewhat enjoyable read, I’m glad the book was short. It was starting to be a drag.

I'm not much of a beat fan... ( )

Ah, good ol' Bull Lee. A classic case of the man's life and myth being far more interesting than his writerly output; except, of course, for Junkie, which is probably one of the most innovative books of the latter half of the 20th century.

Bill was never cool: cool is transient, hip is being there, and Bill had been hip from the day he was born.
Let's forget about him being a lifelong paedophile (after all, he himself was sexually abused when he was a child, so he was just squaring the circle, right?) let's judge him by his literary heretage.
After he had written "Junkie", he most probably realised that he would never be able to top it: so half-way through his next book "Queer" he goes all Dada on his readers and starts writing like a latter day Henry Miller who's overdosed on absinth. So his big hit is "Naked Lunch"; right time, right place; but if it wasn't for the aforementioned he would have disappeared without trace from the literary scene afore he even arrived on it; but the U.S. literati fell for his pitch hook, line and clinkers, and the preceding rubbish that he churned out over the years eventually earned him a place in the Hall of Fame.
"Naked Lunch" hasn't time-travelled all that well, nowadays it reads like a relic from the 1960s 'let it all hang out' bag. Whereas "Junkie" is still as fresh as a New York sewer rat on the prowl with a hard on fit to smash a China plate: amoral, apolitical nihilism in yer face - the narrator of "Junkie" pre-empts the post-scarcity, consumer capitalist society, where everything has a price tag and nothing has any lasting value: this is how it was, this is how it IS. ( )