Anthony Burgess

I thought once, 'I really ought to read a Burgess other than Clockwork', so I went to the library & grabbed the first I saw. I started reading it, it was about some post-apocolyptic society where orphans lived in a giant landfill. It was wretched. I looked at the cover, and it turned out to be by some other Burgess. Thank heavens!

I read "But Do Blondes prefer Gentlemen?" and dug it, but I want to find some other fiction by him. Yet I am nervous about their lack of a gimmick (nadsat).

Has anyone heard any of AB's OWN MUSIC: he wrote "symphonies" which were surely rubbidge.

WOW! The poetry of the original comes through splendidly.

If you ever wondered why Cyrano would not give up his "white plume", you must see it.

OK, so I'm going to start Earthly Powers.

My favorite novel of the last few months.

It's good. Think there were some stinkers leading up to it. After that you should read the first volume of the autobiography.

Which is called Little Wilson and Big God and has all the interesting stuff about his family, his first wife and learning foreign languages in the military. Whereas the second volume You've Had Your Time is mostly "and then I wrote" and cranky old man argues with young whippersnappers.

I have a copy of M/F that I never got round to reading but I did read a Frank Kermode article about it once. Apparently the title has some Oedipal significance.

He had one of the great comb-overs when he was on tv in the 80s (I think he was a regular in a book quiz with Robert Robinson at one point - comb-over master class.

Ha!

I started Nothing Like the Sun yesterday.

I believe that is one of Harold Bloom's favorites.

Yep.

i remember "a dead man in deptford" being amaaaazing-- but than i did read it at sixteen, when it was for a while the most hotly-passed-around novel among my friends. spying! sex! latin! atheism! lush and unsteady language! what more could a gang of teenage girls want, eh.

I've still only read A Clockwork Orange. I should try to rectify that. Went to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester last weekend, they had a bunch of interesting bits, including a load of his typewriters and pianos.

interesting piece on the original manuscript of 'clockwork orange': http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/11/a-clockwork-orange-original-manuscript/

Essentially, Burgess is a brilliant, backward-looking scold, who despises much of the modern world, so we both have much in common. I greatly enjoyed the first book of his Enderby quadrology; the joke does tail off a fair bit as the series continues.

Having just finished reading the (insanely inconsistent and slapdash but still highly readable) The Wanting Seed, and googling Burgess images, I finally - finally - realised where I'd seen Trump's hairstylings before:

http://www.socialbookshelves.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/burgessPA460.jpg

bit of a lou reed meets boris johnson vibe

Good catch, Ward