![]() In his best books, he has clearly lost control of the material, and his unconscious is joy-riding the narrative bus. If Burgess has a fault, it's that his intellect sometimes over-controls the work. It’s gloomy, paranoid, deeply confused about race, sex, religion, culture in short, it might be the best British novel about the politics of the 1970s. “It’s a history of a future that never happened, and I’ve always been surprised it isn’t better known. The election of Maggie Thatcher, and her dismantling of the unions, rendered it an historical curiosity almost immediately, but what an enjoyable curiosity. Is fascinating, a book I greatly enjoyed as a young fellow. As with Norman Mailer, the shorter books he banged out are perhaps better than the longer ones he slaved over, but that's okay. Naturally, he's quick to sing Burgess's praises: "I like him because he is exuberant, pleased with himself, ambitious. , and has written plays for BBC radio and Druid Theatre. ![]() A former alt-pop star with Toasted Heretic, he's since won awards for serio-comic novels, such as Irish writer Julian Gough, now living in Berlin, knows about versatility and risk-taking. ![]() He wrote so much it's impossible to appreciate his full range – he excelled at so many things. Rebecca Gray, commissioning editor at Serpent's Tail, outlines the motivation behind these reissues and explains the enduring appeal of Burgess: "These out-of-print classics were probably the most eclectic group of books by one author I've ever come across, and it's just a fraction of his work. Somehow works as both espionage thriller and meditation on the nature of heaven and hell and ![]() Complete with new covers and introductory essays, they give a sample of the Mancunian's versatility and easy brilliance.ĭivides itself between essays on Orwell's UK publisher Serpent's Tail, for one, has recognised Burgess's multifaceted genius with recent reissues of his books This does a disservice to a half-century of superb work until his death in 1993, encompassing novels of every conceivable genre, poetry, criticism, screenwriting, even musical composition. Anthony Burgess is one of the most underrated writers in the English language. ![]()
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