The Life And Work Of Anthony Burgess

Essay, Research Paper

The Life and Work of Anthony Burgess

“Autobiography: Story of one’s life, written by oneself.”(Halsey 64).

Everyone knows what an autobiography is, but not so many people realize that

although not all authors write a book that can be called a factual autobiography,

many authors frequently allow personal, real life experiences to influence their

fictional writings. An excellent example of such an author is Anthony Burgess.

Anthony Burgess is recognized today as an English novelist, critic, essayist,

and composer (editor CLC 80). Burgess is such a literary genius, it was once

said of him that “… his agent, publisher, and his entry in “Who’s Who” could

not provide the exact number of books he wrote.” (Baldwin A8). Some of

Burgess’s works include The Long Day Wanes, The Doctor is Sick, and, perhaps

Burgess’s most famous book, Clockwork Orange. A Clockwork Orange is an

interesting novel that paints a picture of a gruesome violence in the not-so-

distant future. The story is based on, and told by the narrator, the fifteen-

year old Alex, but it shows many references to the life and experience of its

author. In a series of five books, Burgess also focused on his life experiences.

Enderby’s Dark Lady was the fifth in the series, and that will be the second

book focused on in this paper. Anthony Burgess’s work in A Clockwork Orange and

Enderby’s Dark Lady strongly reflects significant events or influences in his

own life.

Anthony Burgess was born John Burgess Wilson in Manchester, England in

early 1917. (Stinson 1). Both of Burgess’s parents were members of the theatric

arts: His father was a pianist, his mother was a musical actress. Burgess went

to a Catholic elementary school, and was one of the many victims of the “iron

discipline and largely rote memorization” (Stinson 2) typical in such schools of

the time. Burgess attended Xaverian College, and later moved on to the

inexpensive University of Manchester, where he hoped to pursue an education in

music. He was rejected form the music department because he had failed physics.

Instead, Burgess entered the English department (Stinson 6). In 1940, Burgess

graduated with his B.A., with honors, in literature and English language

(Stinson 7). Shortly after, Burgess enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps,

and spent most of his six years in the service in the entertainment section,

playing the piano and writing songs, or in the Army Educational Corps (Stinson

7). In 1946, Burgess was discharged with the rank of sergeant-major. Burgess

found himself employed in several different jobs, and living in several

different countries in the years that followed. In 1948 he became English

Master at a grammar school in Banbury, near Oxford. During his time in Banbury,

Burgess wrote occasionally, but saw writing as a time consuming process that

took away from his composing. It was around this time of transition that

Burgess received a letter form his publisher, Heinemann stating that his first

novel, A Vision of Battlements was to be published, and they were requesting

another. So began Burgess’s career of as a novelist (Stinson 9).

In 1956, Burgess was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His doctors gave him

one year to live. In a mad panic to leave some form of income behind for his

wife, Lynne Jones, Burgess set out to write ten novels in one year. Buy the end

of Burgess’s first year as a full-time writer, he had completed about five and

one half novels. A few weeks after the end of the first year, the doctors told

Burgess that they found no sign of the tumor, and he was going to live after all

(Baldwin A8). This was just the beginning of Burgess’s career as a writer.

Although some of Burgess’s works were not treated kindly by the critics, the

majority of his novels were generally well received by the public. In 1962,

Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange, the novel that many readers discovered

Burgess’s genius through. To date, this is still his most famous book (Baldwin

A8). In 1976, Burgess published Enderby’s Dark Lady under the name of Joseph

Kell. A satire in which Enderby, a director from the four previous novels in

this five novel series, searched for in England, and found in America, a place

to perform (Stinson 98).

A Clockwork Orange is a novel that deals with the violence of youth in

the future. The Narrator is a fifteen-year-old child of the streets that enjoys

beating the helpless, raping the defenseless, and robbing the penniless. About

half-way through the novel, Alex is caught by the authorities. They attempt to

reform him from his life of crime by using a controversial new technique that

forces Alex to become physically ill at even the thought of violence. In the

last chapter of the book, Alex is able to break free of the mental chains that

the reform had captured his soul in, and reinstate his exist

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