It’s time to move on.  My tour of dystopic future Londons started back on Halloween. I’ll apologize now. I said it was going to be a “short tour,” but as you can see it lasted over four months. That’s an average of one book per month.  I think I may have gone a little obsesso.
Anyway, […]

All this gay talk started with a discussion of The Wanting Seed, but there’s much more to this book than a discussion of sexual orientation. What about war and political philosophy?
Having majored in philosophy in college, this book appeals to me because Anthony Burgess doesn’t seem to make any judgment about the things that are […]

The same year he published A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess published another dystopic novel called The Wanting Seed. I loved the language of the more popular novel, but I read this other one over ten years ago, and I’m still talking about it because it was supremely awesome.
So here’s the premise. It’s London in the […]

I remember how my junialeeg grandmother was so disgusted by any “misuse” of the English language. She had perfect penmanship and wrote grammar lessons into her correspondence whenever we misused a word in our letters to her. She thought there was a correct way of saying every word and that we should never stray.
Meanwhile, I […]

Stanley Kubrick helped to immortalize A Clockwork Orange by turning it into a movie. His image of Alex and his droogs in white suits with top hats and canes, bizarre, bulging codpieces and menacing eye makeup is burned into the minds of cult fans everywhere.
The story is disturbing and thought-provoking, a commentary on human nature, […]

Before I got all sidetracked, we were in London, and it’s calling me back now. I’m planning an actual, real life trip to England in the spring, just bought my plane ticket and everything.
So, since I’ll actually be there in the not too distant future, I thought it was time to let Anthony Burgess take […]

I love to look up phrases we use in our everyday language to figure out where they started. A lot of our idioms come from literature and story-telling traditions. There’s the popular phrase, “Catch 22,” that came from the book of the same name. And I always thought, “Don’t look a gift horse in the […]

I watched a family of tiny cockroaches come out of the woodwork in my bathroom last night. They were thankful for the moisture in the baseboard next to the shower as they danced and delighted in the feast.
I used those same words, “out of the woodwork,” as the phone kept ringing this week, with friends […]

A few years ago I was looking for a new doctor so I could get a prescription of Nasonex, you know, for my nasal allergy symptoms? I picked a doctor based on the fact that she was in my neighborhood and worked with my insurance company, which is probably not the best way to pick […]

What would you hope for? A universally content society? Total equality? The perfect drug? That’s what Aldous Huxley gives us in the future London of Brave New World.
Of course, the author was famous for experimental drug use. On the other hand, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking, wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone […]