- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (4 Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571204929
- ISBN-13: 978-0571204922
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 276,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Independent, 30 November 2002
A hugely entertaining comic fiction that explores all the agonies of authorship.."
Review
'A great genius may appear in almost any disguise; even in the disguise of a successful novelist'. Chesterton
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Roger Lewis's mean-spirited and astonishingly egotistical biography is a travesty. It largely refuses to acknowledge Anthony Burgess's protean talent and wide-ranging artistic achievements. Lewis attempts to nail Burgess as an artistic charlatan masquerading as a great writer, and in the process reveals rather too much about his own personal prejudices and, one strongly suspects on the evidence here, writerly envy. It is, indeed, a somewhat dispiriting experience to read a book written with such admirable stylistic fluency and skill, that is at the same time so lacking in charm and objective generosity towards its subject.
Even the most partisan admirers of Burgess would, I'm sure, recognise the problematic nature of describing his legacy (see, for example, Lorna Sage's excellent obituary piece in her volume of selected journalism, Good As Her Word). Although he rests rather awkwardly in the neatly tended garden of post-war British novelists, it is precisely Burgess's European sensibility, his cross-cultural breadth and linguistic ambition, which makes him so fascinating a literary outsider. And his wearing of masks, both literary and personal, is all part of the creative inventiveness to be celebrated.
Tellingly, several of the relatively minor writers who Lewis cites in support of his critical-personal attacks (John Wain, John Bayley etc) are themselves products of the narrow Oxbridge academic world that Burgess disdained. And this biographer seems ever anxious to position himself socially alongside Burgess and his admired friend, Richard Ellmann, exceptional men both. One of the numerous subtle manifestations of this authorial status anxiety is the full page prominence afforded in the book to a photograph of a Telex message from Burgess to Lewis, confirming a theatre rendevous in Oxford. In this one telling image, Lewis, seemingly unable to decentre himself from his own work, manages both to namedrop his enviable sounding address, and to signal that a world famous author is contacting him to socialise. Meanwhile, the level of personal abuse aimed at Burgess just seems nasty and irrelevant to the story. As I reread Lewis's book, I was reminded of the compelling anecdotal evidence of Burgess's outstanding generosity and kindness as a journalistic book reviewer and as a teacher. I would recommend Andrew Biswell's biography as a serious and more scholarly alternative account of Burgess.
Even the most partisan admirers of Burgess would, I'm sure, recognise the problematic nature of describing his legacy (see, for example, Lorna Sage's excellent obituary piece in her volume of selected journalism, Good As Her Word). Although he rests rather awkwardly in the neatly tended garden of post-war British novelists, it is precisely Burgess's European sensibility, his cross-cultural breadth and linguistic ambition, which makes him so fascinating a literary outsider. And his wearing of masks, both literary and personal, is all part of the creative inventiveness to be celebrated.
Tellingly, several of the relatively minor writers who Lewis cites in support of his critical-personal attacks (John Wain, John Bayley etc) are themselves products of the narrow Oxbridge academic world that Burgess disdained. And this biographer seems ever anxious to position himself socially alongside Burgess and his admired friend, Richard Ellmann, exceptional men both. One of the numerous subtle manifestations of this authorial status anxiety is the full page prominence afforded in the book to a photograph of a Telex message from Burgess to Lewis, confirming a theatre rendevous in Oxford. In this one telling image, Lewis, seemingly unable to decentre himself from his own work, manages both to namedrop his enviable sounding address, and to signal that a world famous author is contacting him to socialise. Meanwhile, the level of personal abuse aimed at Burgess just seems nasty and irrelevant to the story. As I reread Lewis's book, I was reminded of the compelling anecdotal evidence of Burgess's outstanding generosity and kindness as a journalistic book reviewer and as a teacher. I would recommend Andrew Biswell's biography as a serious and more scholarly alternative account of Burgess.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It is difficult to be enthusiastic about a book full of so much negativity, and footnotes.
Not only are we given relentless detail about what a dreadful man Burgess was, his manifold hang-ups, and personal obnoxiousness, but this biography's author also seems determined to vent his spleen in the reader's general direction.
In what is pretty dense prose in places, the colossal amount of footnotes does nothing to help the reader make sense of the chronology of Burgess' life.
What does emerge is the portrait of a complex human being, which is tantalisingly interesting, but with such sniping from the author at his subject, instead of insight, it seems hardly worth the bother of getting to the end.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book, which I found entertaining, is not meant to be a balanced appraisal of Anthony Burgess. It is instead deliberately egotistical, vindictive, overwritten, pompous, lacking warmth and strewn with arcane pointless footnotes. I think Lewis fibs quite a lot.
I think the author's intention was to create a portrait of Burgess that echoed Burgess's character as he understood it. I can understand why some fans of Burgess do not like this approach, and would suggest that this book be read in conjunction with a more conventional biography. Thats's what I'm going to do anyway!
I think it obviously Lewis has tremendous respect for Burgess's productivity, his technical brilliance and his knowledge, but feels that something - the something that true genius has - was missing, and Lewis shows how this happened. The Burgess he presents is sad, lonely and disconnected from the world. Burgess used his talent to distance himnself from the world and not to engage with it. That's the impression I got anyway. I also felt that Lewis despite the style felt immensely sorry for Burgess, but rather that write something that was anaemic and conventional, discharged both barrels, this in order to get something about Burgess in the world that would be noticed. I think in some apparently perverse way it's a tribute to the man.
The book will enable me to get more out of rereading Clockwork Orange, A Dead Man in Deptford , Abba Abba......
I think the author's intention was to create a portrait of Burgess that echoed Burgess's character as he understood it. I can understand why some fans of Burgess do not like this approach, and would suggest that this book be read in conjunction with a more conventional biography. Thats's what I'm going to do anyway!
I think it obviously Lewis has tremendous respect for Burgess's productivity, his technical brilliance and his knowledge, but feels that something - the something that true genius has - was missing, and Lewis shows how this happened. The Burgess he presents is sad, lonely and disconnected from the world. Burgess used his talent to distance himnself from the world and not to engage with it. That's the impression I got anyway. I also felt that Lewis despite the style felt immensely sorry for Burgess, but rather that write something that was anaemic and conventional, discharged both barrels, this in order to get something about Burgess in the world that would be noticed. I think in some apparently perverse way it's a tribute to the man.
The book will enable me to get more out of rereading Clockwork Orange, A Dead Man in Deptford , Abba Abba......
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
whaddya want?
if you want lickspittle hagiography, or the boring old chronological bio, keep your wallet in your pocket. Read more
Published on 15 April 2010 by S. J. Masty
Worst biography ever
What's the point of writing a biography on a (great) writer you neither like nor understand? I can only suppose there must be some Freudian explanation, i.e. Read more
Published on 14 April 2010 by BarondeCharlus
Mordant anti-hagiography
There are so many negative reviews of this book here that I feel compelled (always a danger, that) to throw my own opinion in to the mix. Read more
Published on 30 Mar 2010 by Sir Ninian
lewis's worst book
roger lewis's attempt to discredit burgess and his works makes for enervating reading. the tone is pitched at around schoolyard insult level for the most part but still manages to... Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2009 by Mr. Anthony J. Hume
I Can See Why this Book is Contentious, but Wonderful
I loved this book, but I can see in it what those reviewers who reviewed negatively can see. Burgess is a cult author - try finding anything of his (apart from A Clockwork Orange)... Read more
Published on 9 July 2007 by Clifford
Why one literary critic shouldn't write a biography of another?
You may find this book very disturbing.
Not because of its subject matter, although few would dispute the claim that Burgess himself tried to be disturbing as often as... Read more
Not because of its subject matter, although few would dispute the claim that Burgess himself tried to be disturbing as often as... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2007 by ericross
Onanistic rubbish
I think this autobiography finds itself wrongly labelled as biography. If you want to know what Roger Lewis (who? Exactly! Read more
Published on 3 April 2006 by A. J. Cowburn
'When a biographer hates his subject can he be trusted?''
John Wilson, aka Anthony Burgess, died in November 1993 the author of 32 novels, various televison/film scripts, translations from various languages of plays, opera libretti, etc,... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2003 by Peter Leonard
Hero no longer
I can't decide whether I'm happy to have read this biography. I used to admire Burgess and his work, and in the first one hundred pages I was rather indignant at the merciless... Read more
Published on 3 Sep 2003 by C. M. Struik
A parody of a biography, rather than a biography
Not quite a biography, not a lit crit study either, this extensive demolition job is designed to show that Burgess was "a parody of a great writer, rather than a great writer". Read more
Published on 7 April 2003 by "widsithww"
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