M/F (Penguin Modern Classics Fiction)
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Product Description
Kicked out of college and harassed by his lawyer, Miles Faber abandons New York and embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean to find the shrine of Sib Legeru, an obscure poet and painter. But in the streets of Castita's capital, where a wild religious festival is in full swing, a series of bizarre encounters - including his own repulsive doppelgänger (the son of a circus bird-woman) - and disturbing family revelations await Miles, who soon finds himself a willing victim of dynastic destiny.
A darkly surreal comedy of dazzling linguistic inventiveness, MF is an outrageous tale of blood, lust and the machinations of fate.
About the Author
Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917. His other works include A Clockwork Orange (also available as a Penguin Modern Classic), Inside Mr Enderby, Enderby Outside, Tremor of Intent, Nothing Like the Sun and Man of Nazareth. He died in 1993.
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First Sentence
- Totally naked, for God's sake ? Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
- Totally naked, for God's sake ? Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Read. This. Book.
Deeply compelling; richly ambiguous; full of clever devices and word plays that reveal themselves only partially, if at all. As with Burgess elsewhere, this stands out for its refusal to disclose which of the many voices is that of the author, which fable is intended as the moral, if a moral is intended at all. It would presumably be labelled postmodern for its mutiple narratives and self-reflexive tone, but the playfullness and complexity of Miles Faber's journey is never plied simply for the sake of it. The extraordinary language and style is anchored to the core of m/f in a way that cannot be said of other works, however brilliant. In ways an incestuous twin to A Clockwork Orange, I get the feeling that I will be mulling this over for quite some time.
Deeply compelling; richly ambiguous; full of clever devices and word plays that reveal themselves only partially, if at all. As with Burgess elsewhere, this stands out for its refusal to disclose which of the many voices is that of the author, which fable is intended as the moral, if a moral is intended at all. It would presumably be labelled postmodern for its mutiple narratives and self-reflexive tone, but the playfullness and complexity of Miles Faber's journey is never plied simply for the sake of it. The extraordinary language and style is anchored to the core of m/f in a way that cannot be said of other works, however brilliant. In ways an incestuous twin to A Clockwork Orange, I get the feeling that I will be mulling this over for quite some time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mr Burgess wrote MF after reading Levi-Strauss's "The Scope of Anthropology", in which is discussed the 'incest-riddle nexus' that is to be found in Oedipus as well as in the folklore of some Amerindian tribes. The plot of MF, then, is based on an Algonquin myth in which a boy discovers his sister being raped by his (to borrow from another myth entirely) doppelganger. The boy kills the double, who, unfortunately, is the son of a powerful witch. When the witch comes looking for her missing son, the boy, terrified, pretends to be him, which he can do since his appearance is exactly the same. The witch's suspicions that the boy is not her son can only be allayed by his marrying his sister (the same sister he caught the witch's son assaulting). But even this marriage does not completely dowse the witch's doubts, and so she sets her talking owls to ask the imposter-son riddles, which he successfully answers.
MF follows this myth quite closely, and since it is set in the real world makes for a somewhat unlikely plot, to say the least. The unreal nature of the story is heightened by it being a 1st person narrative told by perhaps Mr Burgess's most sesquipedalian (and that's saying something) character. With the dense and allusive writing and the Caribbean, in which the book is set, being an unrecognisable construction of the writer's imagination, we are reminded of a later Nabokov novel, such as "Ada". Though it is, however, a most Burgessian novel in its earthiness and its feel of an over-spiced meal of pickles and strong meats; a banquet comprising of nothing but delicacies and missing the usual bland fare of English home-cooking. For this reason the novel is best consumed in small doses - this is one of those books that, while being a great read, is very easy to put down, as you feel a need for a breath of fresh air between chapters.
Also present is Mr Burgess's conflicting attitudes to life. On the one hand there is a great guzzling gobbling-up of life and history and all of mankind's achievements in literature, philosophy, art and languages, and on the other hand there is his curmudgeonly bile-regurgitating of his petty hatred of the quotidian disappointments and down-to-earth-with-a-bump frustrations. (This negativity of his used to mar his work for me when I first started reading him as an open-eyed late teenager; now I'm a disillusioned 30-something I find it not wholly unwelcome.)
On the whole, then, MF is an imaginative, picaresque, Joycean word-fest of a novel, and if you like that sort of thing, is as good as anti-real literature gets.
MF follows this myth quite closely, and since it is set in the real world makes for a somewhat unlikely plot, to say the least. The unreal nature of the story is heightened by it being a 1st person narrative told by perhaps Mr Burgess's most sesquipedalian (and that's saying something) character. With the dense and allusive writing and the Caribbean, in which the book is set, being an unrecognisable construction of the writer's imagination, we are reminded of a later Nabokov novel, such as "Ada". Though it is, however, a most Burgessian novel in its earthiness and its feel of an over-spiced meal of pickles and strong meats; a banquet comprising of nothing but delicacies and missing the usual bland fare of English home-cooking. For this reason the novel is best consumed in small doses - this is one of those books that, while being a great read, is very easy to put down, as you feel a need for a breath of fresh air between chapters.
Also present is Mr Burgess's conflicting attitudes to life. On the one hand there is a great guzzling gobbling-up of life and history and all of mankind's achievements in literature, philosophy, art and languages, and on the other hand there is his curmudgeonly bile-regurgitating of his petty hatred of the quotidian disappointments and down-to-earth-with-a-bump frustrations. (This negativity of his used to mar his work for me when I first started reading him as an open-eyed late teenager; now I'm a disillusioned 30-something I find it not wholly unwelcome.)
On the whole, then, MF is an imaginative, picaresque, Joycean word-fest of a novel, and if you like that sort of thing, is as good as anti-real literature gets.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A really good book, I was drawn to it by the title of "modern classic", because I'm snobbish that way, and I wasn't disappointed. A very entertaining read which I actually prefered to A clockwork orange. Although some of the extraordinary machinations of fate contained within are rather Dickensian, to put it lighly, it is none the less a wonderful book. A widely unknown, but brilliant, classic. I recommend it to everyone.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
He just was
What can one say about this infuriating and almost unfathomable book? The plot concerns young, absurdly bright and orphaned Miles Faber, who, on being kicked out of college and... Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
Bizarre (with a small "b") adventure
Miles Faber rebels against the sensible ones around him and embarks on a kind of pilgrimage to a ficticious Caribbean island in search of an obscure artist. Read more
Published on 25 May 2008 by Black Glove
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