YOU'VE HAD YOUR TIME- Being the Second Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess - Anthony Burgess

I was lucky enough to walk into Arty Bee's Second Hand Book Store in Wellington last week and found this 1st edition sitting waiting for me, excellent.

This second volume carries straight on from part one. He has been mistakenly diagnosed with a brain tumour and begins writing flat out to make some money for his wife. She, unfortunately is drinking herself to death something at which she manages to succeed 8 years later.

After the death of Lynne he marries his second wife Liana with whom he had a illegitimate child he did not know about from an earlier fling.

We have explained the circumstances of how his novels were written and his stage and musical work compiled.

This is all fascinating especially how he compiled his novels. Everyone of them are written on several levels - I believe to "get all" of what he was trying say you would have to have been as clever as he was.

Again there are great anecdotes regarding people he meets as his celebrity grows.

At a dinner with Groucho Marx:

......It was on this occasion that a lady was mentioned who had ten children because she loved her husband. "I love my cigar," Groucho said " but I take it out sometimes"

Burgess was elitist in his writing and his music, I don't think this is a bad thing because he was a genius but there is a sense of grievance in a lot of this writing when he doesn't get the recognition that he believes he deserves.

This is most apparent when he relates how novelist Shirley Cronan receives a million dollar advance for a novel, which is many hundreds of times more than anything he received in his life time.

There is also bitterness when Stanley Kubrick garners all the praise for " A Clockwork Orange". Burgess is forgotten as the author - and Kubrick does little to dispel peoples perception that the entire concept was his creation.

This volume still has major soul baring but nothing on the scale of volume one. This is explained by his second marriage making him happy, so we have none of the infidelities and behaviour that were quite striking in part one.

Again, highly recommended , get both volumes together and read as one would be my suggestion and then you could happily start again and be just as happy.

THE KINGDOM OF THE WICKED - Anthony Burgess

I admit I have a total weakness for anything Anthony Burgess has written, so all you will get here is praise for this novel.

Set in the first years of Christianity we have the story according to Burgess of the trials and tribulations of the Apostles counterpointed with the cruelties and depravities of Imperial Rome.

Paul is the central figure in the story but it switches over to events involving Caligula and Nero( a couple of very stable individuals!)

As well as a great story this is really well researched and there is a history lesson as well.

There is a definition of God in the first pages where the narration begins -
......perhaps his God was a metaphor of the only thing that will save the world - the exercise of decency, tolerance and humorous scepticism.

That would be the best definition/ explanation that I have ever heard.

As always with Burgess this is 'bloody good', its such a shame the majority of people only associate him with " A Clockwork Orange"

LITTLE WILSON AND BIG GOD: Being The First Part Of The Confessions Of ANTHONY BURGESS

This is bloody good.

Its the first part of Anthony Burgess's autobiography set from his birth in 1917 until he believed he was dieing of a brain tumour in 1959. And as he says " I wasn't the spy Burgess."

"Confessions" in the sub-title is also apt, nothing is held back. Perhaps it was his Catholicism that made him so open, but what ever it was this is a fascinating read.

This Catholicism plays a large part in his life and it is always in the background and constantly referred to. This not to say he was a good Catholic, but like us all born one, once in never out.

He was brought up by a drunken father and an unloving stepmother after his natural mother died during the 1918 influenza epidemic. It was not a childhood of poverty however, he always had access to books, film and freedom as he was left alone for long periods.

As with all Burgess's books I needed a dictionary close at hand due to the fact I do not have his vocabulary but this is never a inconvenience due to the quality of the writing.

There is great humour throughout , especially when describing the ineptitude displayed by his officers during his service in the Second World War.

A great example of this being a 'memo' placed on a depot notice board instructing - "all illiterates to report for education classes at 8.00 pm."

Burgess's army stories show that Evelyn Waugh was not exaggerating with his tales of the fools in the officer class in the Sword of Honour trilogy.

The war reminiscence's are very insightful, telling how men sat around for years without any involvement in the war. Some were lucky enough to have nothing to do with it. the biggest danger they faced was boredom.

Another little gem for someone as shallow as myself is that according to Burgess, Welsh women are the sex machines of the UK. Useful information like this can be stored for a rainy day if the desire to pack up and head for the valleys ever comes over me.

Burgess followed his own beliefs here and married a Welsh woman whom he stayed married to and loved for 30 years until she succumbed to cirrhosis due to her alcoholism.

Both parts of the marriage were afraid of neither a drink or an affair. The marriage was open and many opportunities were taken by both.

On landing in Singapore en route to take up a teaching position in Malaya, Lynne, his wife was laid up in bed with exhaustion. So Jack,as he was then (John Burgess Wilson) goes for a wander out of the hotel and picks up a prostitute in Bugis Street.

Now as shallow as I am, this was a bit tacky and sad. But confessions its called and confessions we get.

It was in Malaya that he began writing, and I am very grateful that he did, because he is the greatest 20th century novelist. He inches out Evelyn Waugh because he took a few more risks and kept working. Burgess and Waugh both liked a drink but I think Waugh gave up writing prematurely and of course died young.

The only problem with this book is that it ends and I now have to go out and find part two.