How strange that in an essay on Anthony Burgess and James Joyce there’s no mention of one of the fact that Burgess’s bibliography includes a volume entitled *A Shorter Finnegans Wake*.
Perhaps it’s the equivalent of Charles and Mary Lamb’s *Tales from Shakespeare,* which Graham Greene has Bendix sniff a bit at in *The End of the Affair* (did anybody really read it?).
But, then, Burgess is a bit like Anthony Trollope: he wrote so much that it’s not easy to keep track of it all. Thus, while there are the titles everyone knows with Burgess, such as *A Clockwork Orange,* *Earthly Powers* (which is even more enjoyable if you think of Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd as you read it — Lanny witnesses his share of great events and tries very hard to bring about Peace, Love and Understanding) and *The Napoleon Symphony* (an eroical composition indeed), there are the ones you discover on your own and wish were better known. Among these I’d put:
*The Long Day Wanes* (sometimes known as *The Malayan Trilogy,* comprising *Time for a Tiger,* *The Enemy in the Blanket* and *Beds in the East*);
*The Wanting Seed* (because it’s sapiens to be homo!); and
// How strange that in an essay on Anthony Burgess and James Joyce there’s no mention of one of the fact that Burgess’s bibliography includes a volume entitled *A Shorter Finnegans Wake*. //
I don’t think that was the point of the piece, or of the Star-Crossed series in general (a series I always look forward to).
I haven’t read much Anthony Burgess, so I’m not familiar with all of your references. I have read his stuff on Joyce, though.
It may not be the point of the author, or the point of the series, but it’s a point of (or with) me: think of it as Barton Keyes’s “Little Man” worrying over an insurance claim in “Double Indemnity” or one of Grace Paley’s *Little Disturbances of Man.* When a connection exists, I jump on it — and I wonder why someone else doesn’t.
Case in point:
Peter Stansky and William Abrahams wrote a book called *Journey to the Frontier* about two young poets who died in the Spanish Civil War: John Cornford, who died as a soldier, and Julian Bell, who died as an ambulance driver. Cornford as a teenager collected his own poems under the title of *A Slab of Tripe* and provided an epigram from Roy Campbell.
Stansky and Abrahams didn’t credit the source of the epigram, so I went in search of further information. To my surprise, I found that Campbell also served in the Spanish Civil War — but on the opposite side from the Loyalist Cornford! Not only that, but he went on to write an absolutely horrible poem called “Flowering Rifle: A Poem from the Battlefield of Spain” in which he essentially behaves like Ezra Pound at his worst, railing against everything he didn’t like.
Believe me, it’s a long list.
Maybe it’s only one of life’s little ironies (move over, Keyes and Paley — Thomas Hardy’s coming!), but it’s an irony worth mentioning. With Burgess and Joyce, something similar occurs.
For me, at any rate. But then I’m someone who when I heard of a philosophy student’s complaint that it was unfair to hear Plato’s complaints about Homer in *The Republic* when we didn’t know what Homer had to say about Plato went from the obvious (“even if there was a real Homer, he wasn’t Plato’s contemporary: he wouldn’t know his work) to imagining what Homer would have said:
“Plato…Plato…nice boy…writes well…has to learn to stop putting his own words into Socrates’s mouth…”
John Cornford’s father, by the way, translated *The Republic.* His name was Francis. His wife’s name was Frances. They were both friends of Rupert Brooke, and their eldest son’s full name was actually “Rupert John Cornford,” though no one ever called him “Rupert.”
“My mouths exploiting, that’s enough of this noise…”
I guess if you want to focus on what is missing, as opposed to what is there. It reminds me of whenever I would do Top 10 lists (of books/actors/whatever), and people inevitably would say I had “forgotten” to include something. No, I didn’t. It’s my list, not yours.
I got a little bit lost in your references there, although I did my best to follow.
I enjoyed the piece very much and enjoyed his thoughts on Joyce’s celebratory and human outlook, and also his thoughts at the end about the choice, the choice being ours … and now I am going back to Twitter to chat with my friend who is having a great time reading Portrait for the first time and keeps making comments about it. It’s thrilling to hear someone’s impressions of reading the book for the first time.
Thanks, Sheila, for your kind comments about my Joyce & Burgess piece. And Charles, I understand your concern about my failure to discuss A Shorter Finnegans Wake, ReJoyce, etc. It wasn’t that I was unaware of the connections but that there were far too many of them to manage in such a short column. I originally wrote an entire section discussing the enormous number of articles, books, and references to Joyce that Burgess produced over the years, but ended up cutting it because the column was already about 3 times as long as it was supposed to be. I also cut sections on the Enderby novels, the Malaysia novels, the biography-of-poets novels (Marlowe, Shakespeare, Keats), and some of my special Burgess favorites like The Pianoplayers and The End of the World News. It’s always nice to find someone else who enjoys Burgess as much as I do.
For you, many thanks on a considerate reply which was probably a good deal kinder than I deserved. Sometimes I am dimmer than Dim.
Thus, for me, well, not the Ludovico Technique, and maybe not something humorous and lingering involving boiling oil or molten lead, either, but certainly not too far removed from sackcloth and ashes.
How strange that in an essay on Anthony Burgess and James Joyce there’s no mention of one of the fact that Burgess’s bibliography includes a volume entitled *A Shorter Finnegans Wake*.
Perhaps it’s the equivalent of Charles and Mary Lamb’s *Tales from Shakespeare,* which Graham Greene has Bendix sniff a bit at in *The End of the Affair* (did anybody really read it?).
But, then, Burgess is a bit like Anthony Trollope: he wrote so much that it’s not easy to keep track of it all. Thus, while there are the titles everyone knows with Burgess, such as *A Clockwork Orange,* *Earthly Powers* (which is even more enjoyable if you think of Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd as you read it — Lanny witnesses his share of great events and tries very hard to bring about Peace, Love and Understanding) and *The Napoleon Symphony* (an eroical composition indeed), there are the ones you discover on your own and wish were better known. Among these I’d put:
*The Long Day Wanes* (sometimes known as *The Malayan Trilogy,* comprising *Time for a Tiger,* *The Enemy in the Blanket* and *Beds in the East*);
*The Wanting Seed* (because it’s sapiens to be homo!); and
*The Pianoplayers*
And that’s without even thinking of Enderby!
// How strange that in an essay on Anthony Burgess and James Joyce there’s no mention of one of the fact that Burgess’s bibliography includes a volume entitled *A Shorter Finnegans Wake*. //
I don’t think that was the point of the piece, or of the Star-Crossed series in general (a series I always look forward to).
I haven’t read much Anthony Burgess, so I’m not familiar with all of your references. I have read his stuff on Joyce, though.
Sheila:
It may not be the point of the author, or the point of the series, but it’s a point of (or with) me: think of it as Barton Keyes’s “Little Man” worrying over an insurance claim in “Double Indemnity” or one of Grace Paley’s *Little Disturbances of Man.* When a connection exists, I jump on it — and I wonder why someone else doesn’t.
Case in point:
Peter Stansky and William Abrahams wrote a book called *Journey to the Frontier* about two young poets who died in the Spanish Civil War: John Cornford, who died as a soldier, and Julian Bell, who died as an ambulance driver. Cornford as a teenager collected his own poems under the title of *A Slab of Tripe* and provided an epigram from Roy Campbell.
Stansky and Abrahams didn’t credit the source of the epigram, so I went in search of further information. To my surprise, I found that Campbell also served in the Spanish Civil War — but on the opposite side from the Loyalist Cornford! Not only that, but he went on to write an absolutely horrible poem called “Flowering Rifle: A Poem from the Battlefield of Spain” in which he essentially behaves like Ezra Pound at his worst, railing against everything he didn’t like.
Believe me, it’s a long list.
Maybe it’s only one of life’s little ironies (move over, Keyes and Paley — Thomas Hardy’s coming!), but it’s an irony worth mentioning. With Burgess and Joyce, something similar occurs.
For me, at any rate. But then I’m someone who when I heard of a philosophy student’s complaint that it was unfair to hear Plato’s complaints about Homer in *The Republic* when we didn’t know what Homer had to say about Plato went from the obvious (“even if there was a real Homer, he wasn’t Plato’s contemporary: he wouldn’t know his work) to imagining what Homer would have said:
“Plato…Plato…nice boy…writes well…has to learn to stop putting his own words into Socrates’s mouth…”
John Cornford’s father, by the way, translated *The Republic.* His name was Francis. His wife’s name was Frances. They were both friends of Rupert Brooke, and their eldest son’s full name was actually “Rupert John Cornford,” though no one ever called him “Rupert.”
“My mouths exploiting, that’s enough of this noise…”
I guess if you want to focus on what is missing, as opposed to what is there. It reminds me of whenever I would do Top 10 lists (of books/actors/whatever), and people inevitably would say I had “forgotten” to include something. No, I didn’t. It’s my list, not yours.
I got a little bit lost in your references there, although I did my best to follow.
I enjoyed the piece very much and enjoyed his thoughts on Joyce’s celebratory and human outlook, and also his thoughts at the end about the choice, the choice being ours … and now I am going back to Twitter to chat with my friend who is having a great time reading Portrait for the first time and keeps making comments about it. It’s thrilling to hear someone’s impressions of reading the book for the first time.
The only thing I have to add, really, is this clip of Steve Martin’s skit The Death of Socrates. I could recite this, probably still can.
Hi Sheila and Charles!
Thanks, Sheila, for your kind comments about my Joyce & Burgess piece. And Charles, I understand your concern about my failure to discuss A Shorter Finnegans Wake, ReJoyce, etc. It wasn’t that I was unaware of the connections but that there were far too many of them to manage in such a short column. I originally wrote an entire section discussing the enormous number of articles, books, and references to Joyce that Burgess produced over the years, but ended up cutting it because the column was already about 3 times as long as it was supposed to be. I also cut sections on the Enderby novels, the Malaysia novels, the biography-of-poets novels (Marlowe, Shakespeare, Keats), and some of my special Burgess favorites like The Pianoplayers and The End of the World News. It’s always nice to find someone else who enjoys Burgess as much as I do.
K. Frazier – How cool that you would show up here! Loved your piece, and your analysis of Joyce’s humanity and humor is spot-on.
K. Frazier — “What’s it going to be then, eh?”
For you, many thanks on a considerate reply which was probably a good deal kinder than I deserved. Sometimes I am dimmer than Dim.
Thus, for me, well, not the Ludovico Technique, and maybe not something humorous and lingering involving boiling oil or molten lead, either, but certainly not too far removed from sackcloth and ashes.
You are horrorshow to the nth degree.