Any Old Iron (original 1989; udgave 1992)

If you are familiar with A Clockwork Orange please put that out of your head when you read Any Old Iron. This is a completely different style of book (and somewhat easier to read; less cringe-worthy). Having said all that, you will need to hang onto your seats because in Any Old Iron Burgess will take you on a fifty year journey through history at breakneck speed. Along this journey you will travel with two families, one Welsh-Russian (told in third person), the other Jewish (told in vague and ghostly first person). You will careen through World War I, the founding of Israel, the sinking of the Titanic, and World War II, just to name a few historic events. All the while you are submersed in the Welsh, Russian, and Jewish cultures of these two larger than life families.
The title comes from word play as King Arthur's sword also factors into the plot (as an aside, there is an old British music hall song of the same name of which I admit, I was less familiar).
Maybe I am making a generalization, but the thing about multi-generational sagas than span fifty years is that you tend to get attached to certain characters as you watch them age. I know I did.
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Burgess is one of our most underrated novelists and this is a million miles away from his best known work, A Clockwork Orange. Spanning some of the great events of the 20th Century, this book follows the fortunes of a family of Welsh-Russians, the Jones, as they become bound up with the ancient sword of King Arthur, Excalibur, Welsh Nationalism and Anglo-Russian relations. There is also the small matter of the birth of the state of Israel and the Jewish family who's fortunes become entangled with the Joneses.
If all this sounds slightly fantastic, it is a credit to Burgess' talent that he makes the whole thing immensely readable and enjoyable. Burgess takes the position that the world went to Hell in a handcart after the second world war and makes that point over and over again through the travails of the Jones family as they are buffeted by the events of the First and Second World Wars and their aftermath.
A note to Dan Brown: this is how you weave a pseudo-historical mystery into your narrative and invest it with meaning and symbolism. Recommended. ( )

This book seems to be an homage to D.H. Lawrence's sons and Lovers, in my opinion. The story's engaging, and the prose sings along. I have read this book twice, and it is a lot more fun than "A Clockwork Orange". If you are going to have a colourful family past, Welsh-Russian could be wonderfully weird. read it twice.
Exit, jigging to the tune of the same name.... ( )