Complete Enderby: Inside Mr. Enderby, Enderby Outside, the Clockwork Testament, and Enderby's...

by Anthony Burgess

Book Overview

Enderby is a poet, social critic and Catholic. He may be found hiding in the lavatory where much of his best work is composed, or perhaps in Rome, brainwashed into respectability by a glamorous wife,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786702486
• ISBN13: 9780786702480
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 630 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Enderburgess

The first thing to say about these books is that they're very funny. - They're very funny! - I spent several nights during the reading of them chuckling myself to sleep over the Enderbian maladventures I had ingested during my day's reading. They're also an uproarious satire of (and I'm sure to be leaving several things/groups/people out): Postwar England Poetry Awards Women's Magazines Magazines of any sort Rome Papism Avaricious-Papist-Magazine editing women Poets who sell out Modern avant-garde film Psychiatry (Big one here) Psychiatrists (Even Bigger) Pop Music Pop Music Stars Selenologists Randy women Selenologists Beat poets The film industry in general America The American Bicentennial Creative writing students Women Creative Writing students Black (Or, er, Afro-American) Creative Writing students Talk shows Subways New York City American women -"These American women were very straightforward people, quick to disclose their madness." P.534 American men - "The men were a bit slower." P.534 Spiritualist sessions Hiberno-American Anti-Anglo sentiments Theatre people The American spelling of "Theater" Anyone who dares to mess with Shakespeare Well, that will do for starters. What makes all this satire, um, digestible, so to speak, is there is really no vitriol in it (or, well, not very much) and, further, what makes it actually palatable is that one is so busy pitying poor Enderby, in the first two books at least, that the verbal cuts, often hidden among Enderbian musings, hit us so often at unawares. Also, the old-fashioned poet trying to heed his Muse and not sully himself with the modern world catches it the most. There is, though, a problem that another reviewer has pointed out - The problem of identifying with either Enderby or Burgess - or perhaps Enderburgess. The first two books, Inside Mr. Enderby and Enderby Outside, are much superior, in my mind, to the last two books. Here, Enderby is a character separate from Burgess. Yes, it's still partly autobiographical, but not SO autobiographical that one feels one is reading about Burgess himself, which is the sense that overwhelmed at least this reader while poring over (still chuckling, mind you) The Clockwork Testament and Enderby's Dark Lady. Finally, there is something more to all this than just laughs (though these certainly help things along). Enderburgess truly believes in the sacredness of poetry and the poet's mission. He heartily defends them against the slings and arrows of the modern world, much to his sadness and discomfiture, it must be said. The girl who comes to Enderby at the end of Enderby Outside, and serves, more or less, as his Muse incarnate, intones: "When Shelley said what he said about poets being the unacknowledged legislators of the world, he wasn't really using fancy language. It's only by the exact use of words that people can begin to understand themselves." P.358 This is the Enderburgessian motto, the recurrent theme throughout the book. I

Excellently written, really funny.

Agreed with the above reviews; Burgess seems to have been typecast as the guy that wrote Clockwork Orange and wasn't that a violent movie?... Before reading the Complete Enderby, A Clockwork Orange was the only Burgess book I'd read and I remembered it as written in a dense, sort of russian/english patois that it was sometimes hard to follow. I didn't think that Anthony Burgess would/could be 'a fun read' I was very pleasantly surprised to find the Enderby novels very accessible, very entertaining, very funny. Linguistic pyrotechnics, complete plot control but with a willingness to go completely off topic if he feels like it, a love for the quirkiness of character, respect for poetry and poets but not blind respect; so he'll look at some of the aspects of poets and poetry-writing with an eye to making fun. There's also some biting societal commentary that, considering 1965 as copyright for the first one, doesn't feel too dated. I'd maybe describe this as Cormac McCarthy writing A Confederacy of Dunces. This would probably annoy Mr. Burgess, but I think that fans of either would enjoy these books. Having all four novels in one omnibus edition is a luxury I would strongly recommend. You're not forced to read them straight through but you have the option.

Enderby, Burgess at his best

"Inside Mr. Enderby," is wonderful and off beat. "Enderby Outside," follows the off kilter story of Enderby and the absurdity that is his life. "The Clockwork Testament," as the title would suggest, has shadings of Burgess' very well known book, "Clockwork Orange." The "Testament," is surreal and twisted while funny at the same time. The final story, "Enderby's Dark Lady," is wonderful and surprising to the reader with value not only for fans of the dyspeptic poet but lovers of Shakespeare as well. While slightly dated, these stories have a bite to them that speaks volumes of truth for anyone who has been an academic, a professional writer or just a little bit out of touch with the world around them. Enderby is often misunderstood and though he makes his living in a "communication" field, he has a lot of trouble getting his point across to others.Not only are these books funny, but as is often the case with Burgess, the satire is thinly veiled and pointing at both society and himself.

Burgess' Best

In these novels, Anthony Burgess has done more to de-mystify the creative process (and those who persue it) than any other modern writer. His protagonist, F. X. Enderby, professional English poet, is as flawed as any character ever created. From his almost constant malapropisms down to his bodily emissions, he is every person with true human frailties. He stumbles his way through everyday conversations (often both misunderstanding and misunderstood) while at the same time offending almost everyone he comes into contact with. He is incapable of handling life in the "real" world and is shamelessly exploited by those who do.In spite of his human failings, Enderby produces things of great beauty. The delicately worded, well balanced verses offer a wonderful counterpoint to Enderby's social ineptitudes and lack of common sense.There is also a fairly strong political angle in the books which readers in today's society should heed. Censorship, that demon of modern P.C. sensibility, is discussed here intelligently and honestly. Bear in mind, these books are fairly old and some of the racial and sexual comments made in them will reflect this. However, I think you will find a certain balance in their use; everyone gets it in the end. Including Enderby.

Awaiting rediscovery.

Burgess is probably the most underrated writer in English in the last half of the twentieth century. This collection of somewhat autobiographical novels about F.X. Enderby is on the surface an inventive jaunt about the globe and on little slips of paper, collecting half-noticed experience and half-lines of eventual poetry. Nabokov said that his work was (is?) most appreciated when the reader assumed the point-of-view not of the protagonist, but of the author or fashioner. Burgess is tricky on this point and seems to have played with the difficulty in this distinction throughout his career, making the character who is the narrator assume some part of the creation of the finished work and putting some part of himself in the animated speaker. I hope that in the near future this and other of Burgess' works (I'm reading Earthly Powers now) find a new audience because there is a great deal to enjoy and to absorb. He wrote a great deal and much of it is very great