Any other fans of top droog Burgess? There's a new series of critical editions of his work being released, at least one of which I know is absolutely brilliant (I worked on it so can attest to its entertainment value). I had absolutely no idea he was quite so prolific, and in so many different fields (including music composition). Quite a guy.
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Anthony Burgess
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Earthly Powers was indeed excellent.
I read A Clockwork Orange shortly after it was published, at about thirteen-years-old. Bizarrely, it was in the school library. I took it out the the same time as Lord of the Rings which I attempted to read first and gave up on after a couple of chapters — soooo booooring! ACO was quite another matter. Puberty was never the same afterwards. Later I read both the The Piano Players and The End of the World News which were good but don't resonate in the memory like the other titles. I also enjoyed his biography of Shakespeare, but I've no idea how it's regarded by literary historians.
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Our school library had Clan of the Cave Bear nonsense on the shelves (but marked as 16+ only, cos of Scenes of a Sexual Nature). They had no aisle or desk polis but, swear it was barely stamped out by any 16+, but was often found on a desk of a first/second year or read leaning against an aisle. Think Clockwork Orange was age limited too, for all the good it did against fast readers.Last edited by Lang Spoon; 01-05-2018, 21:51.
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Bizarrely, my local municipal library I’m very sure let me borrow anything from the bookshelves or record/tape collection once I was 13 and no longer just a Junior Library member. Taking out Burroughs biographies when I couldn’t get served in the dodgiest lax id pubs in Fife didn’t seem a thing. All manner of Stephen King. Guess that must be more controlled now, parental permission required, BBFC for words, lest angry Concerned Parents descend en masse to dusty book fort.
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They’d also order anything for you too. There’s a Riot Goin On on tape as well as the vinyl they already had (even though I must have been the only person who checked out the vinyl in more than a year), got me in Dark Knight Returns as well after a few months wait. Austerity has surely killed such profligate request card madness.
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Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View PostEarthly Powers was indeed excellent.
I read A Clockwork Orange shortly after it was published, at about thirteen-years-old. Bizarrely, it was in the school library. I took it out the the same time as Lord of the Rings which I attempted to read first and gave up on after a couple of chapters — soooo booooring! ACO was quite another matter. Puberty was never the same afterwards. Later I read both the The Piano Players and The End of the World News which were good but don't resonate in the memory like the other titles. I also enjoyed his biography of Shakespeare, but I've no idea how it's regarded by literary historians.
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I've got a biography of Burgess by Roger Lewis which is quite odd in that Lewis starts off as an acolyte of Burgess but as he works on the book comes to absolutely detest him. By the end pretty much just the mention of Burgess' name is enough to provoke torrents of abuse from him. It is probably no more reliable than a hagiography would have been, and isn't very highly regarded by biographic purists, but the effect is quite entertaining.
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This thread has prompted me to start reading Earthly Powers, a novel I’ve always meant to give a spin. Only every read ACO and a bit of Joyce fanboy criticism by Burgess before.
Forgotten it has one of the most memorable opening sentences in English Literature, and greatly enjoying it so far (about 20% in).Last edited by slackster; 19-05-2018, 09:30.
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