Anthony Burgess

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guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 July 2008 15.39 BST

1917-1993

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it."

Birthplace

Manchester, England

Education

Manchester University, England

Other jobs

Served in World War II, then became an education officer in the far east before beginning to write.

Did you know?

He took up writing to provide security for his widow-to-be when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness - and went on to produce an embarrassment of novels, criticism, symphonies and scripts.

Critical verdict

Burgess saw writing very much as a trade, accepting Samuel Johnson's dictum that only a fool ever wrote, except for money; he considered that his reputation for readability over brilliance stemmed from his prolific dabbling, encompassing reviewing, criticism, history, poetry, librettos and symphonies as well as novels (his oeuvre includes a coffee-table history of sleep, And So To Bed). As he said, "The trouble began with Forster. After him it was considered ungentlemanly to write more than five or six novels." He will always be most famous for a Kubrick-coloured perception of A Clockwork Orange's ultraviolence, though William Burroughs, another linguistic experimenter, said of the novel: "I do not know of any other writer who has done as much with language as Mr Burgess has done here.

Recommended works

Earthly Powers brought him closest to critical approbation (it was shortlisted for the Booker in 1980); it is the first of the "twentieth-century-through-one-pair-of-eyes" epics and features possibly the best opening sentence ever written (no, look for yourself). 1985 is both a convincing dystopia and original reading of Orwell, while The End of the World News combines apocalypse, Trotsky and Freud.

Influences

Joyce's verbal play was a major inspiration (though where a Joyce character will eat his meal "with relish", a Burgess hero munches more labouredly, "with relish and with relish"), as was George Orwell's social forcefulness.

Now read on

If you like Burgess's fiction, explore his criticism (Re Joyce) and work on language (A Mouthful of Air).

Adaptations

Kubrick's Clockwork Orange (1971) is still banned in Britain for the antipathy it stirred up towards director and writer after copycat "ultraviolence" (and is worth a sortie to Paris, where it's on a continuous run for the benefit of deprived daytripping Brits). Malcolm McDowell in pre-Star Trek villain days gives the performance of a lifetime, and though Kubrick fudges the novel's ending, he captures the spirit and soundtrack of Burgess's ideas.

Recommended biography

He published two volumes of autobiography before his death: Big God and Little Wilson and You've Had Your Time. Roger Lewis's vitriolic life, which paints Burgess as an impotent liar with a terrible haircut, must be the most negative biography ever written (the kindest thing it calls him is a "self-deluding prick").