The best books about journalism and alternative culture

Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War, on the side of the anti-Franco Republicans, between December 1936 and June 1937. He fought for the Marxist POUM militia in Barcelona and at other flashpoints in Catalonia. As time went on, however, he became disenchanted by the fractures between the different parties on the Republican side—and, in particular, the rise of the Soviet-sponsored Communist line. By the end of the work, though still committed to socialism and the overthrow of Franco’s Nationalists, he is profoundly uneasy about the brand of Communism holding sway—an unease which found subsequent voice in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

First published in 1959, Naked Lunch was shocking then, and it still retains its power today. Both in content and structure, Naked Lunch is powerful and wholly original.  In effect, it becomes more than a work of fiction, it becomes an experience. Burroughs invented a technique called the “cut-up method,” where he cut up his coherent storyline into paragraphs, scenes, and even sentences, then reordered them both randomly and editorially. The disorder thematically represents the chaos of existence and the universe, and it also disrupts the reader. Like the book or not, it shakes you into realizing that there are possibilities beyond the conventional.

Burrough’s language is honed to a razor’s edge, and I find that many of the sentences in Naked Lunch burn like fire. The meaning of the title as Burroughs explains it is to bare the naked truth of reality on the end of a fork. From the content to the form and style, he lives up to that intention. Historically, it’s also worth admiring his complete disregard for mainstream sensibility. Burroughs doesn’t bend to censorship to make the book more palatable for sales or for critical reviews. Naked Lunch is a groundbreaking achievement.

Burgess blew me away with how he used the number of chapters to tell a story in and of itself. 

There are 21 chapters in Clockwork, and Burgess revealed in interviews that that number is quite purposeful; the book is about a boy maturing into a man, and Burgess used 21 chapters since that is the age at which people are legally considered adults in his homeland of England. 

This book taught me that restricting myself on purpose (the way Burgess limited himself to exactly 21 chapters) would enhance my creativity, not hinder it. I also liked how he created his own slang for his characters and used it without explanation in the book, allowing his readers to suss it out from context. I liked that confidence.