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Indlæser... Tremor of Intent: A Novel (original 1966; udgave 2004)af Anthony Burgess
Work InformationMartyrernes blod af Anthony Burgess (1966)
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. One of several of Burgess’s Cold War preoccupied novels. It was written during the period he believed he was dying and cranked out 10 books as a life insurance policy for his wife. In it our spy is no 007 of the silver screen. He is haunted by experiences from WWII cleaning up after the Nazis. A spy by default because of a youthful interest in Russian, he believes he has come to terms with his position at the end of a long and infamous career. One last mission forces him to reconcile the past and to carve out a future. Dark and humorous at the same time, masterfully written as all of Burgess’s work is. ( ) A slick satire disguised as a spy novel, this is one of my favorite Burgess books. Who, other than Burgess, could have come up with the following: "This damnable sex, boys — ah, you do well to writhe in your beds at the very mention of the word. All the evil of our modern times springs from unholy lust, the act of the dog and the bitch on the bouncing bed, limbs going like traction engines, the divine gift of articulate speech diminished to squeals and groans and pantings. It is terrible, terrible, an abomination before God and His Holy Mother. Lust is the fount of all other of the deadly sins, leading to pride of the flesh, covetousness of the flesh, anger in the thwarting of desire, gluttony to feed the spent body to be at it again, envy of the sexual prowess and sexual success of others, sloth to admit enervating day-dreams of lust. Only in the married state, by God’s holy grace, is it sanctified, for then it becomes the means of begetting fresh souls for the peopling of the Kingdom of Heaven." Anthony Burgess is without a doubt one of the greatest writers I've read. First the commentary from the narrator is never without opinion but is spot on and never dull. The plot lines and conclusion of this novel make it hard to put down but the description and sheer amount of pre-writing thought that went into its construction make it more than just an entertaining read. It is provocative without ever being ridiculous.
The book's longest, best and most rewarding segment is a first-rate run of British suspense writing. Burgess ladles on rich characterization and the best kind of paranoia in this series of chapters aboard a cruise ship with only a handful of passengers and staff, a claustrophobic Agatha Christie environment where everyone is up to something and proper manners mask nefarious intent. Especially worthy of mention is a gruesome eating contest Hillier engages in with a fellow glutton. When Burgess sets himself a mark, he hits it, hard enough for the reader to feel and remember. Tremor's failure is in its larger effect, or lack of effect. Late in the book, Burgess the Joyce scholar finds diagetic excuses -- delirium, drug use -- to churn the text into passable but recognizably mid-Ulysses stylee cacophony, fragmenting phrases and words with punctuation, building elaborate homophonic pun games that are respectable accomplishments on their own terms but do the novel that contains them a distracting disservice.
From the author of A Clockwork Orange, a brilliantly funny spy novel. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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