"Burgessian" Rome. Like the locations of many of his novels, Rome here takes on a texture that can only exist in Burgess. The plot concerns Mr. John Beard, a hack writer having a hell of a time (so to speak) in the Eternal City. Full of Nabokovian autoparody (a "better" writer visits Mr. Beard and pounds away at some of Burgess's own aesthetics) and some fairly relentless lascivity, "Beard's Roman Women" will be appreciated most by the Burgess-fanatics

This book is a partially autobiographical sketch of Anthony's experience as a widower, featuring his quirky and unbalancing sense of humor. Some may find parts a little too disturbing, but if you like his writing its worth the read.

Everything about this novel is superficial, and intentionally so. Ronald, the main character, speaks of his own utterances in Dante-esque terms.

Ronald closes the end of the novel speaking to Greg Greg. He says "TAXI, Stop you basturd. Christ, he has."

This novel is a summation of 1970's angst mired in the elusive and somewhat unrequired escapism so purported to be overly important in American culture.

Ronald wants so much from life that he is halted. He can't process the simple cold hard fact that life has brought him a cold hard unfeeling existence. He calls for a taxi (a vehicle to take him away) and he is in awe.

Ronald remains in denial and close to death at the novel's end.

D.H. LAWRENCE AND ITALY is composed of three stories: 'Twilight in Italy', 'Sea and Sardinia' and 'Etruscan Places'. The first two "books" seem to be based on journals he wrote while traveling with his German born lover then wife Frieda, whom he refers to as q-b for queen bee, through various villages on the mainland of Italy and the island of Sardinia. Lawrence does not record his experience of "famous" sights in these two books, in fact he says he is not interested in historical places, museums etc. but rather he wishes to see the people and the places in the out-of-the way areas of Italy. He and Frieda travel by bus, train, and boat--close to the ground.

Those who have read Lawrence's fiction will recognize his writing. He describes what he encounters with a visceral language--people, clothing, food, establishments. Some of the places are stunning and some so filthy you wonder how he could have stayed overnight. He visits lemon and olive groves and various high places along the coast and in the interior valleys. His writing is graphic--the reader will be as appalled and enchanted. He reflects Italy just before and after WWI.

In the third book, 'Etruscan Places', Lawrence describes his visits to various Etruscan sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. His writing is less descriptive than that of the first two books. He is concerned with nothing less than the meaing of life, and the conflict between religion and truth (he died a few short years later at age 44 so his reflections seem almost prescient). He muses that societies are organized around death or life. He speaks of the use of fertility symbols such as fish and lambs for Christians and dolphins and eggs for Etruscans; the significance of the color vermillion -- male body painting by warrior classes where red paint connotes power contrasted with the the red skin coloring of the Etruscan tomb portraits which seems to have connoted the blood of life. He says the Etuscans loved life and the Romans who subdued them loved power.

Lawrence's book provides good background for those who would know more about Italy. Many of the places he describes have changed since the 1920s--some for the better. The people have changed--their clothing, homes, etc. are less unique and colorful, but they are better fed, warmer in winter, and cleaner. Hopefully their lives are better, but I don't think Lawrence would agree.

If i were to read only two travel books then this would be the second one, although both my wife and an English friend read it in German translation and reported that it was terrible. Maybe it doesn't translate well. Lawrence, as young man, describes a thread running through his life as he starts the journey by heading south toward Italy on foot from Bavaria with Frida, a way of travel that many Germans still understand very well. Descriptions of people are attractive, like the one-legged Italian who tried to seduce the cold, northern women at a dance. I liked best his description of his own Alpüberquerung, his description therein of the hurried English hiker, the way that Italins have ruined the alpine valleys with industrialization. And I felt loss at his growing distance from Frida. The book made me want to see the lemon and olive trees above Lago di Garda and the villages high above the lake, but we haven't done that in spite of our nearness to the region. Gardasee is completely overrun by German tourists now, not just by those wearing heavy hiking boots.

Had the wonderful feeling of being lost in a magic world, while reading this book. Brought to the magic island of Sardinia, on an old train, on the mountains of the island. And then, when I had the chance to be there, it all became true. The same train, the same atmosphere... in a world that did not change...after all.

I read this book and thought it was pretty good but not as wonderful as everyone says. I don't have any complaints but it didn't seem extraordinary. Read it if you are interested in the subject (I am!) but it will not capture you if your interest is only mild.

My copy was even missing a page (page #57/58). Why knows why?

Mr. Burgess knows his Shakespeare and shares his wealth of knowledge in a very fascinating way. Almost every aspect of the Bard's life is analyzed and it creates a very entertaining story.

Not much is known about William Shakespeare himself. This often forces Burgess to make educated conjectures as to what the truth may have been. When Burgess puts forth his opinion he supports it with so much fact that you almost feel that if it wasn't the way Burgess said it was, it should have been.

All-in-all, if you are a Shakespeare man and want to know what inspired and influenced him, this book is for you. Burgess knows Shakespeare like no other person.

I have to admit that I was not such a big fan of Shakespeare, before reading Mr. Burgess book. I had only the information I got in school, where most of the things we learn are dry and not interesting at all. Well, this biography has nothing to do with it. Its full of history, literary analysis, facts about Shakespare's private life, England at that time, all written with a lot of common sense, a great and intelligent sense of humour. If you dont like Shakespeare or if you think he is not such a big deal, read this book, and I promise you, you will want to read again all his works and see them in a different light.

David Barber wrote Bach beethoven and the Boys some years ago. Since then he has added When the Fat Lady sings and even more recently If it Ain't BAroque.

While the first book metioned deals with Music History as a history of personae, here composers in the newer book he covers the same territory from another angle of view. This Music history is compiled from Genres. It was hardly evitable to tell some tales he had told again and all in all it is funny and instructive. Only for readers knowing the former two books some jokes were rubbed out already.

I was unfamiliar with Barber's works and from the title expected the book to accompany my Mus 312 class on Baroque Music History and focus completely on that. (whoops) The book's real goal is a comical approach to music history in its entirety. None the less, I still read the book and enjoyed it immensely. I wish I would have had this (and now Barber's other books which I also highly recommend) for my Mus 100 class (Introduction to Music Masterpieces). Barber's books take the information a textbook offer in an easygoing and funny way. Had my professor assigned all of Barber's Music History books together instead of a normal textbook for an Introduction to Music History, I would have left with the same knowledge a textbook offers but having enjoyed many more laughs along the way. Informative yet funny, how can you lose with that?

I started this book in my 20's. It did not do very much for me then. I liked the exotic location and indeed the characters who peopled it. I hasten to add that I had just finished the Enderby Trilogy and that is a hard act to follow, and I was expecting similar.

Some 20 years after, I have revisited the book. What you get are the sites, sounds, smells, ambience, attitude (loved the bit about the young Malaysians adopting 50's rock and roll attitude)and the entire human continent of Asia unfolding in one locality - sikhs, tamils, chinese, arabs, mestizos etc. You can feel the heat and humidity and anxiety.

This is book is cinema for the imagination. I just hope that the film rights have been sold to right people.

This trilogy is composed of books published over a 3 year period [1956-59], and are called Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and The Beds in the East. The Trilogy was re-issued later as The Long Day Wanes in 1981.

The central character is Victor Crabbe, an idealist liberal working first as a teacher, then as a headmaster, and finally in the Administration of the Education department in Malaya [now Malaysia]. Anthony Burgess (John Burgess Wilson) denied that Crabbe was based on himself, but there are some obvious similarities in the careers and in Burgess's own attitudes to his compatriots.

In the first book, Time for a Tiger, Crabbe has profound difficulties with his wife, Fenella, who like many expatriate wives in that time had a problem in coming to grips with life in a petty-minded and prejudiced environment. This is the last few years before Malaysia was granted independence, and so there is no more empire-building, only commercial exploitation. This theme is repeated throughout the 3 books. Crabbe has a permanent guilt about the death of his first wife in a car accident, for which he may or may not have been responsible, and this theme also recurs throughout the trilogy.

She leaves him at the end of "The Enemy in the Blanket" and so in the third book he is alone and struggling with internal politics in running his department - his overall concern is to do a good job and to leave the education department in good hands for the future, when the country attains its independence.

I think this book wil appeal more to people with a knowledge of life in colonial Malaysia. Crabbe has several irritating characteristics, and the references to music, and classical literature may irritate some readers unfamiliar with these subjects. Burgess was a frustrated composer, and this is evident in the writings of the Trilogy. Words in the major National languages, Malay, Tamil, and Cantonese are used quite freely throughout the text, and a glossary is provided; however the Malay is in the old spelling and not the modernised Bahasa Malaysia. Sometimes the plot and sub-plots seem weak and wander away from a logical conclusion. The theme of the book isof course somewhat dated, and the prose style does not have the charm and interest of say, Somerset Maugham, who was writing about a much earlier era in colonial history.

I like this book for personal reasons, I have travelled frequently and widely in Malaysia for over 30 years, and have family there. It is interesting to compare events from the time when the book was set, and now, and be thankful for the positive changes.

This book, an expansion of Burgess' earlier _Language Made Plain_, is a fabulous way to learn how language works -- how we make sounds, how words change through the years, how languages differ from each other. Burgess' book on language is in many ways a curious sort of literary autobiography, as so much of his writing has been wordplay of one sort or another. As always, his writing is lively and lucid.

Anthony Burgess was, excuse me, I just have to say it, a truly cunning linguist, and wrote many books about the English language, as well as the dialogue for 1 Million B.C. Grunts and snorts, but grunts and snorts researched in chronological retrospect; from his vast knowledge of present-day languages, he traced language backward to its beginning sounds, much like he took modern-day Liverpool slang and projected it into the future for the speech in A Clockwork Orange (his admittedly worst and regrettably best-known book). He read and reviewed dictionaries for the London Times, always finding a lively and humorous way to present his serious content. This same man, as a linguist, produced a lively analysis of language in A Mouthful of Air. For anyone who loves words and language and the way they roll off the tongue, Anthony Burgess is a must

one of Mr. Burgess's unsung masterpieces--perhaps largely due to my love for music. Readers of his "On Mozart" will recognize the idiosyncratic but astute explorations of music theory interjected in the story of a young girl who becomes the brashest "Madame" in France.

Main plot: Dad is a "pianoplayer." This means he improvises the accompaniment to 'twenties silent films on a running-down piano in the town moviehouse. Daughter is a fairly ordinary poverty-stricken girl discovering a fascination with sexuality. The novel is written in her voice, as something of a memoir, and Burgess pulls off the use of distinctively feminie charisma and logic.

The book should take no more than an afternoon or so to read, but the musical/prosaic/cinematic (etc.) pleasures to be gained from that afternoon left me reeling.

I decided to read Piano Players after I had read A Clockwork Orange, just to get another taste of Burgess's writing. As a "piano player" myself, I thought this book revealed the importance that music plays in everyone's life, and how it can direct one person to go one way (dying in anonymity) or the other (becoming famous for running a bordello).

Our book group comprised of many retired teachers read this book recently; some members balked at its difficulty, but those who persevered felt that reading the book was a very rich experience. How else could you really sense the danger, the intrigue, the raw energy, and the vitality of the times. Burgess brings the period alive brilliantly through his inventive language and ironic humor. The book gets easier as it goes along, so stick with it; you'll be rewarded.

While some have said this is a difficult book (and I must admit I felt that way at first) if you relax and stick with it you'll find that it will begin to flow very smoothly.
Burgess takes us into the mind of Marlowe; his images are vivid. There were many passages that I had to reread, not because they were difficult, but because they were so beautiful. Sir Walter Raleigh introducing Kit to tobacco is marvelous.
I have to agree with those who found that following the characters was a bit confusing. I had the good fortune to have read Charles Nichol's book 'The Reckoning" first, a true story about the death of Marlowe. That work is a great introduction to most of the players in Burgess's book.
Please, don't be intimidated by "Dead Man", it is a pleasing and enlightening work.

Marlowe is presented in full here. You can feel him touching the pages as you read them. You can taste the food he eats, drink what he drinks. This is a visceral book. Burgess was a linguist, so, of course, the dialect might prove a challenge to some, but, in the same way that the invented slang of Clockwork Orange made the experience of that book more vivid and real, the Elizabethanisms of Dead Man only give it more depth and color. The "Elizabethanisms" of this book are, in any case, less challenging than those served up in Burgess' earlier, more difficult but also astonishingly rewarding Shakespeare book "Nothing Like The Sun". Disregard those few on here who warn you off this book, particularly if you revel in language that comes rich and thick and genuine.

Claimed to be the best of all Greek tragedies, OEDIPUS REX (or OEDIPUS THE KING..."REX" means "KING") by Sophocles is that classic story of the man who was doomed to kill his own father and marry his own mother. Everyone seems to know the basic plot of the story, but how much do you REALLY know?

This new translation of OEDIPUS THE KING by Berg and Clay proves to be successful...everything is understandable and rather enjoyable to read too. It's hard to believe that you're actually reading a play.

I suggest that you DO NOT read the original version of the play by Sophocles first...you might be discouraged by the difficulty of the language he uses. Instead, start with Berg and Clay's translation...it's so much easier to read, and more importantly, enjoy.

I felt that the action and plot was well-woven out, and the story tied together nicely; however, there was one flaw. The ending was too abrupt. Of course, I'm not going to spoil the ending for you now (you'll have to read it yourself) but I WILL tell you that if you're one of those people who hate endings that just leave you hanging, you might not like OEDIPUS THE KING.

I had to read OEDIPUS THE KING as an Honors English assignment (and usually what kind of books we have to read for school are good?). Nevertheless, I found the play interesting, but because of the so-abrupt ending with questions still dangling on the end, I give the book 3 stars. (By the way, in no other Greek tragedy are so many questions asked, so be prepared to have your mind boggled by this book!...Have a spiffy day! -Nick Chu

The only budget series of audio books and recorded drama comes from Naxos. One of their more recent entries is a very modern version of Sophocles' in a translation by Duncan Steen. In fact, some might find it a little too modern with its use of idiomatic expressions such as "You can't pin that on me"--which might be taken as an ironic reference to the final horrible deed of the hero. But when the messenger the agonized Oedipus as calling himself a "mother f..." (although he stops at the "f") the effect is far too "modern" for comfort. You see, given a sound recording, we can only assume that the action is taking place in the nearly prehistoric past. I do not know the tone of Sophocles' Greek; but I do read that it is elegant and decorous. Therefore, I can only assume that this translator is doing his source a great injustice.

On the other hand, the dialogue MOVES. There is an excitement to this performance, although the Creon of Adam Kotz lacks some force. Michael Sheen is good in the title role, as is Nichola McAuliffe as Jocasta, Heathcote Williams as the Chorus Leader, and John Moffatt as Tiresias and the Narrator at the start of the recording. The Chorus itself is cut down to four voices, but they are handled nicely with stereo separation and are quite comprehensible. The music is meager but effectively used.

All in all, a very good if not perfect attempt at making one of the greatest Western plays accessible to a wide audience.

"Oedipus the King" or Oedipus Rex is the world's first great tragedy. Almost everyone knows the tale of the man who murdered his father and married his own mother. The only question is, which translation do you read? Bernard Knox makes an excellent case for his prose translation of Sophocles classic. This is a version designed for the a filmed version meant for the classroom; as such, it is remarkably smooth and easy to read. There is little poetry left in it; if that is what you seek, look elsewhere. This edition comes with a nice set of introductory essays on the background of the play, the theater, and Sophocles. All in all, a nice little edition.

David W. Barber is to music history what Victor Borge is to classical piano; both invigorate their subject with fresh humor and insight. This book is a wonderfully funny look at classical music, and it is all true! Read this book and you will know that classical music is not the stuffed shirt that many believe it to be. Barber's history is especially humorous for musicians and the musically savvy. One gets the impression that Barber has waded through many scholarly works to pull out these gems of information. It is easy to distinguish between the information and the embellishments, making this a perfect companion to any hard working music student. The illustrations by Dave Donald compliment the text perfectly and are also good likenesses of the composers. The text begins with a painless history of Gregorian Chant and proceedes through 20th Century music, discussing all of the big composers and the major movements in music history. I wholeheartedly recommend this! book to the musically educated and those who want to be.

This book is something more than just a fun read. True, David Barber has a wonderfully ludicrous, dare I say punny, sense of humor, but the vast majority of his material is ripped off - from music history books! Composers were strange, quirky people who often lived in strange, quirky times. So here we have a strange, quirky writer telling us all about them - what could be more fitting?

David W. Barber is an excellent writer and writes about music history in a way that makes it highly enjoyable. It consoles the mind to know that even though they wrote incredible music, all of the famous composers were most definitely human. Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys is a fabulous book and I would recommend it to anyone who has any interest in music