Anthony Burgess

English novelist and critic

• Born: February 25, 1917
• Birthplace: Manchester, Lancashire, England
• Died: November 25, 1993
• Place of death: London, England

Biography

Anthony Burgess, born John Anthony Burgess Wilson, was one of the most prolific and by many accounts one of the most important British novelists of the later twentieth century. There is no question of his productivity: in a publishing career of some thirty years that began when he was nearly forty years old, he had more than sixty books published, including novels, criticism, essays, translations, plays, screenplays, short stories, children’s books, and poems. He also wrote, late in his career, a two-volume autobiography. Moreover, under the name John Wilson he gained wide respect as a composer of music. This prodigality of production ironically worked to his disadvantage, some critics and reviewers finding it hard to associate great quality with great quantity. Yet the entertainment quotient of his fiction is high, as is his control of the technical bases of narrative writing. His themes are characteristically deep and significant.

Educated in local schools and at the University of Manchester, Burgess did not start out to be a writer. From Manchester he obtained a degree in musical composition in 1940, though he did also develop an avid interest in English language and literature as a student. Upon graduation he joined the army, serving during World War II first as a musician and then in intelligence in Gibraltar. Discharged in 1946, he held a number of jobs over the next seven years, including playing jazz piano and teaching in a grammar school. In 1954, he went to Malaya as an education commissioner in the British Colonial Service, and there he began writing and assembling the materials for his early trilogy The Long Day Wanes. In these three novels, Burgess uses the experiences of a young British teacher to illustrate the decline of British imperial prestige and the conflicts between European values and local traditions and practices.

One event in Malaya confirmed Burgess in his decision to write professionally. In 1959, following a lengthy illness, colonial physicians detected a brain tumor, remanding him to England for specialist treatment. There he was told he had one year to live. Deciding that he wanted to produce as much as he could in the time he had left, he began to write furiously. He finished five novels that year, and he left the hospital cured. He hardly slowed that furious pace during his lifetime.

Those five novels, all published astonishingly within a twenty-month period, marked the advent of a serious voice and an eye for piercing satiric detail. All relatively short, they resemble the early novels of Evelyn Waugh, rivaling Waugh in ease of characterization, sprightly dialogue, stylistic control, and appreciation of the absurd in modern life. Like early Waugh, they also combine skillful entertainment with serious implicit themes. Though all hold up well, The Right to an Answer and Devil of a State remain particularly attractive, and The Worm and the Ring anticipates the technical triumphs to come. Following these novels, Burgess began experimenting with the various kinds of fiction, producing futurist fantasy, science fiction, travel fiction, portrait-of-the-artist fiction, historical fiction, romantic fiction, and espionage fiction. The resulting group of novels established his critical reputation.

Burgess is best known for one of these experimental novels, A Clockwork Orange, which, though impressive, is hardly more distinguished or brilliant than his other works. Still, it combines topical problems with linguistic bravura, centering on juvenile gangs that speak an invented jargon called “Nadsat,” made up of elements of crude Russian and Cockney slang. Alex, the protagonist, revels in senseless violence, for which he is arrested and sentenced to forced behavior modification. Burgess raises questions about the ethics of such compulsory reformation. The novel’s disturbing visions of a violent future world and its profound themes regarding the nature of freedom made the novel an instant classic, both among critics in the literary mainstream and within the science-fiction field, where the novel had significant effects. When made into a film in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick, the novel secured Burgess’s fame.

Although they are less well known, many of the novels that followed are equally impressive in different ways. The Wanting Seed is a science-fiction novel with many similarities to A Clockwork Orange, dealing with radical potential solutions to the problems of overpopulation. Inside Mr. Enderby introduces a character Burgess develops in subsequent novels. Enderby, an aging poet of reclusive habits and venerable English eccentricities, is forced into direct contact with the harsh realities of modern life; his reactions constitute a hilarious critique of Western civilization. The books also analyze the plight of the artist in society. During this period, Burgess also published a number of works of criticism, especially of the work of James Joyce.

The filming of A Clockwork Orange in 1971 introduced Burgess to Hollywood as a screenwriter; subsequent publicity brought invitations to serve as writer-in-residence at many American and British universities. These experiences soon began to influence his fiction, which simultaneously became broader, more expansive, and more complex. The first of these novels is MF; in it, Burgess fuses his themes of the modern denigration of art and the artist, cultural incest, and racial consciousness as an enemy of cultural evolution. He demonstrates his belief that the United States is running the risk of losing real freedom by closing itself off from external influences and by abandoning a sense of values. Napoleon Symphony is Burgess’s most ambitious formal work, an attempt to construct a novel about the later life of Napoleon Bonaparte on the formal basis of the melodic structure of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Eroica symphony. The themes are those of Enderby and MF, but the formal experimentation is stunningly original. The novel 1985 represents Burgess’s direct response to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Of the same period is his imaginative biography Shakespeare, arguably the best single work on the playwright.

In the 1980’s, Burgess both built upon and extended his previous work, alternating between relatively slight, often delicate entertainments and weighty and expansive novels. Earthly Powers is a monumental undertaking; it traces the intertwined lives of two men—one an aging homosexual novelist, the other a Catholic monsignor who eventually becomes pope. The scope of this novel allows Burgess to develop his philosophical and theological themes in depth. The End of the World News is lighter and more facile; in it, Burgess plays dazzling verbal and formal games. Varied and intriguing, Burgess’s canon is one of the most impressive of twentieth century British literary figures. He died of cancer in 1993 at the age of seventy-six.

Author Works

Long Fiction:

Time for a Tiger, 1956

The Enemy in the Blanket, 1958

Beds in the East, 1959

The Doctor Is Sick, 1960

The Right to an Answer, 1960

Devil of a State, 1961

One Hand Clapping, 1961 (as JosephKell)

The Worm and the Ring, 1961

A Clockwork Orange, 1962 (reprinted with final chapter, 1986)

The Wanting Seed, 1962

Honey for the Bears, 1963

Inside Mr. Enderby, 1963 (as Joseph Kell)

The Eve of Saint Venus, 1964

Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare’s Love-Life, 1964

The Long Day Wanes, 1965 (includes Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket, and Beds in the East)

A Vision of Battlements, 1965

Tremor of Intent, 1966

Enderby Outside, 1968

Enderby, 1968 (includes Inside Mr. Enderby and Enderby Outside)

MF, 1971

The Clockwork Testament: Or, Enderby’s End, 1974

Napoleon Symphony, 1974

Beard’s Roman Woman, 1976

Moses: A Narrative, 1976

Abba, Abba, 1977

1985, 1978

Man of Nazareth, 1979

Earthly Powers, 1980

The End of the World News, 1983

Enderby’s Dark Lady, 1984

The Kingdom of the Wicked, 1985

The Pianoplayers, 1986

Any Old Iron, 1989

A Dead Man in Deptford, 1993

Byrne, 1995

Short Fiction:

The Devil’s Mode, 1989

Screenplay:

Jesus of Nazareth, 1977

Teleplay:

Moses the Lawgiver, 1976

Nonfiction:

English Literature: A Survey for Students, 1958 (as John Burgess Wilson)

The Novel Today, 1963

Language Made Plain, 1964

Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader, 1965 (pb. in U.S. as Re Joyce, 1965)

The Novel Now, 1967, revised 1971

Urgent Copy: Literary Studies, 1968

Shakespeare, 1970

Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce, 1972

Ernest Hemingway and HisWorld, 1978

On Going to Bed, 1982

This Man and Music, 1983

Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence, 1985

But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen? Homage to Qwert Yuiop and Other Writings, 1986 (also known as Homage to Qwert Yuiop, 1985)

Little Wilson and Big God, 1987 (partly reprinted as Childhood, 1996)

You’ve Had Your Time, 1990

A Mouthful of Air: Languages, Languages—Especially English, 1992

One Man’s Chorus The Uncollected Writings, 1998

Children’s/Young Adult Literature:

A Long Trip to Teatime, 1976

Translations:

The Man Who Robbed Poor-Boxes, 1965 (of Michel Servin’s play)

Cyrano de Bergerac, 1971 (of Edmond Rostand’s play)

Oedipus the King, 1972 (of Sophocles’ play)

Miscellaneous:

On Mozart: A Paean for Wolfgang, 1991

Bibliography

Aggeler, Geoffrey. Anthony Burgess: The Artist as Novelist. U of Alabama P, 1979. The best and most accurately detailed study of work published in the first twenty years of Burgess’s career. Includes analysis of A Clockwork Orange, Napoleon Symphony, Enderby Outside, Inside Mr. Enderby, Nothing Like the Sun, and other novels.

Aggeler, Geoffrey, ed. Critical Essays on Anthony Burgess. G. K. Hall, 1986. A collection of well-regarded criticism on Burgess, with particular attention given to his “linguistic pyrotechnics.” Aggeler’s introduction presents an overview of Burgess’s work and discussion of his novels, followed by a Paris Review interview with Burgess.

Biswell, Andrew. The Real Life of Anthony Burgess. Picador, 2005. Well-researched biography of Burgess explores his personal life, including his heavy drinking and sexual promiscuity. His most famous novel, A Clockwork Orange, is also discussed, along with Burgess’s common themes of corruption, sin, and human beings’ capacity for evil.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Anthony Burgess. Chelsea House, 1987. A compilation of fine critical essays, including an essay by the eminent critic of James Joyce, Robert Martin Adams, who considers Joyce’s influence on Burgess. In the introduction, Bloom presents his views on Burgess’s writing, citing Inside Mr. Enderby as one of the most underrated English novels of the late twentieth century.

Boytinck, Paul W. Anthony Burgess: An Annotated Bibliography and Reference Guide. Garland, 1985. A checklist of Burgess’s works up to 1984, including bibliographical background on Burgess and extracts from reviews, essays, and articles on his work. An excellent and informative resource for both the beginning reader and scholars of Burgess.

Coale, Samuel. Anthony Burgess. Frederick Ungar, 1981. Not detailed, but contains good material on the author’s themes and technical innovations.

Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, vol. 27, 1981. This special issue gathers together seven critical essays on Burgess, some of which are appreciative—“Burgess is clearly in command of his material,” in reference to Earthly Powers—and others which are less favorable—“Burgess’ plots have a tendency to twitch and gyrate.”

Keen, Suzanne. “Ironies and Inversions: The Art of Anthony Burgess.” Commonweal, vol. 121, no. 3, 1994, p. 9. An examination of the “Catholic quality” in Burgess’s fiction and nonfiction. Focuses primarily on Burgess’s novel A Dead Man in Deptford as well as on his autobiographies and literary criticism of James Joyce’s works.

Lewis, Roger. Anthony Burgess: A Biography. Faber & Faber, 2002. This sprawling examination of Burgess’s life, first published in the United States in 2004, is illuminating although sometimes chaotic. Instead of recounting the events of Burgess’s life as a chronological narrative, Lewis presents a more stylized, psychodynamic interpretation of Burgess’s personality and work.

Mathews, Richard. The Clockwork Orange Universe of Anthony Burgess. Borgo Press, 1978. An admiring monograph tracing the thematic and temporal concerns that led Burgess to write his futuristic novels, including A Clockwork Orange. Discusses ten novels that fit the metaphor of “clockwork universe.”

Morris, Robert K. Consolations of Ambiguity: An Essay on the Novels of Anthony Burgess. U of Missouri P, 1971. This early analysis of Burgess’s work discusses the thematic consistency of the Malayan trilogy, A Vision of Battlements, Nothing Like the Sun, A Clockwork Orange, and other novels.

Smith, K. H. “Will! or Shakespeare in Hollywood: Anthony Burgess’s Cinematic Presentation of Shakespearean Biography.” Remaking Shakespeare: Performance Across Media, Genres, and Cultures. Edited by Pascale Aebisher, Edward Esche, and Nigel Wheale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Collection of essays describing how William Shakespeare has been “remade” in twentieth century screenplays, soap operas, music, documentaries, and other media. Includes analysis of Burgess’s novel Nothing Like the Sun.

Stinson, John J. Anthony Burgess Revisited. Twayne, 1991. Provides valuable biographical information and critical analysis of the later works. Particular attention is given to Burgess’s increasing reputation as a public intellectual and the use of language, the importance of moral choice, and the conflict between the Pelagian and Augustinian philosophies in his works.