bounce from Life During War Time to “Bug Powder Dust”

Life During War Time (2009) by Todd Solondz is the story of broken characters in search of forgiveness.  It is the sequel, a mere eleven years later, to Happiness  (1998) which was the story of these same characters (played by an entirely different set of actors) in search of happiness —elusive happiness often tied to or destroyed by their pursuit of perverse sexual orgasms.

In Happiness we meet the character Bill who is a pederast. After being exposed, Bill and his son Billy have one of the most uncomfortable conversations I’ve ever witnessed.  He asks his dad exactly what it was that he did to the other boys, Billy’s friends, and Billy wants to know if Bill will ever rape him, too.  When Bill says “no, I jerk off instead,” and Billy burst into tears, I’m not really sure if he’s crying because he’s disappointed or if he’s upset that his dad jerks off while thinking about him.  There are a lot of uncomfortably tense moments in Happiness (not quite so much in Life During War Time).  No books make an appearance in Happiness.  BUT, in Life During War Time there is a book.  Of all things, Naked Lunch by William Burroughs.

The book is on Billy’s childhood bedside.  He has gone away to college and his father is recently released from prison. Bill breaks into his ex-wife’s home and wanders around through the rooms.  Billy’s room has a lot of marijuana leaf posters and there on the night table is Naked Lunch. I wonder about that choice.  For it to be so visible in the shot seems to suggest something important about the character of Billy.  We know he has drug interest from the room decor.  But it would seem that he would be revolted by a novel that discusses acts of pedophilia.  Unless— Am I to think Billy is a fan of Burroughs because of the drugs? Or is he somehow a fan of someone in support of NAMBLA?  This is the only book of Billy’s we’re made aware of so it’s hard to know what it says about his character.  But I think the director is definitely saying something there.  If it were just a drug interest, it could have been Fear and Loathing by Hunter S. Thompson or Go Now by Richard Hell or maybe Genet or some other beat writers…but Burroughs seems a loaded gun in the context of this story.  It is interesting to consider how the book and film relate when reading this quote from 120 Banned Books by Nicholas J. Karolides on Naked Lunch:  ”Burroughs juxtaposes seemingly realistic scenes with brutal nightmarish acts that exhibit the degradation of his characters through the violent, bestial acts of others and of themselves.” (p.471).  Though this makes me think more of Happiness than it does Life During War Time.

Naked Lunch was first published in 1959 in France then later in America.  In America it was a  ”banned book” and was part of obscenity trials at the time.  It depicts orgies, drugs, decapitations, pedophilia, forced sexual encounters, and child murder.  It was made into a movie by David Cronenberg in 1991.  For years other filmmakers hoped to adapt the book into film but it’s disjointed narrative structure and vague plot made it difficult. Cronenberg went for a “metatextual” adaptation, basing the film on several Burroughs text as well as autobiographical information.

Numerous bands have made albums and songs which allude to Naked Lunch.  Bomb the Bass’s song “Bug Powder Dust” heavily references the novel.

For more on Life During War Time read Roger Ebert’s review ….to see the video by the Talking Heads (where Solondz took the title)  click here