Deciding one day that his privileged students at the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin College in Brunei simply did not want to be taught, Anthony Burgess abruptly abandoned the teaching profession - by lying face down on the classroom floor. It was, he said, "a willed collapse out of sheer boredom and frustration."
Two years later, in 1962, Burgess published his diabolic fable A Clockwork Orange - and set off on one of the most productive (and eccentric) careers in modern British literature.
From:http://grammar.about.com/od/writersonwriting/a/burgesslang07.htm
Posted for little other reason than that you might enjoy it. Burgess was one of my favorite writers for a while. Please enjoy one of his quotations:
“If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There's a tremendous corruptibility for the fiction writer because you're dealing mainly with sex and violence. These remain the basic themes, they're the basic themes of Shakespeare whether you like it or not.”
Hmmmm. I was thinking A Clockwork Orange (and by the way how do you do italics on this blog?) was a movie w/ Jack Nicholson. After Googling it I've discovered it is not. What am I thinking of? OH! "One Flew Over . . . . Anyway, Burgess must be a rather odd fellow (by MY standards). Is he confessing that he is corrupted? Interesting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.anthonyburgess.org/
ReplyDelete"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone."
Later Burgess told everyone that he was diagnosed as having a cerebral tumor and given twelve months to live. It has been suggested that the story was fabricated – there's no medical evidence for his too early death sentence. However, Burgess set off a rush of literary activity and lived another 33 years. He wrote feverishly, producing over fifty books and hundreds of journalistic pieces.
I didn't realize Burgess was the creator of "A Clockwork Orange" and now that I do, I will have to read more on him. I like how you describe the pace of Burgess's writing and especially like your quote Roy. I am very interested in seeing your work as well because for some reason, I think your style might reflect a little bit of flare that Burgess possessed. Can't wait to see!
ReplyDeleteLike Charlie, I am not surprised that Roy is attracted to Anthony Burgess (mostly for his rebellious, anti-establishment sensibility and intellectualism -- not his obsession with sex and violence). I must confess that A Clockwork Orange is the only thing I have read by him. Quite disturbing, and certainly points to his overall idea that sex and violence are all we write about (I disagree). The older I get, the less patience I have for that mindset. I also used to read the Beats in college and was enamored with them. Now I'm way over them. I especially became disgusted with the junkie William Burroughs who reminds me of Anthony Burgess. Besides all the ugliness in the world, they seem to forget that there is a great deal of beauty and goodness as well. . .
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