I came across a reference to this book while thumbing through a biography on Anthony Burgess about five years ago. And maybe he would have been, had he but lifted his nose out of his typewriter.
Burgess should have been publicly shamed for writing such vomit. ” Nor was Brent: “A sloppily-written, half-assed, woefully-conceived agenda piece. This Book has nothing, i repeat, NOTHING to do with 1984. Daniel was not pleased: “Geesus Christ!! Was that a richful Fucking waster. Scholars seeking to fact-hoover might wish to read the first half and skip the head-scratching politics of the second. And as with most Burgess works, the end product is bursting with erudition and entertainment regardless. As with most Burgess satire, his stance as an old Thatcherite curmudgeon tends to diminish the social comment, and nix the serious intentions. The second half is a ludicrous and offensive comic send-up: Burgess repositions the novel from a right-wing perspective, spoofing the vituperative trade union movement of late 1970s Britain (UK is now TUCland), a world where mindless work and strikes are the oppressor, and art and education are the providence of the outcast proles, some of whom speak perfect Latin. The first half contains provocative essays and self-interviews, waxing Burgessly on the parallels between 1948 London (the original title for the novel was 1948) and the famous ur-totalitarian state familiar to most literate mammals, making the case for the humour in Orwell’s vision. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus the King, and Carmen for the stage scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen invented the prehistoric language spoken in Quest for Fire and composed the Sinfoni Melayu, the Symphony (No. He published studies of Joyce, Hemingway, Shakespeare and Lawrence, produced the treatises on linguistics Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air, and was a prolific journalist, writing in several languages. His fiction includes the Malayan trilogy (The Long Day Wanes) on the dying days of Britain's empire in the East the Enderby quartet of novels about a poet and his muse Nothing Like the Sun, a recreation of Shakespeare's love-life A Clockwork Orange, an exploration of the nature of evil and Earthly Powers, a panoramic saga of the 20th century. Born in Manchester, he lived for long periods in Southeast Asia, the USA and Mediterranean Europe as well as in England. He was also a librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, travel writer, broadcaster, translator, linguist and educationalist. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.Īnthony Burgess was a British novelist, critic and composer.