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М.Ф.
Энтони Берджесс - известный английский писатель, автор бестселлеров `Заводной апельсин`, `Влюбленный Шекспир`, `Сумасшедшее семя`, `Однорукий аплодисмент`, `Доктор болен` и еще целого ряда книг, исследующих природу человека и пути развития современной цивилизации.
Роман-коллаж `М.Ф.` подобен лексическому ребусу. Его путеводная нить - миф об Эдипе. Юный Майлс Фабер, интеллектуальный первопроходец, блуждает в этимологических лабиринтах мировой культуры. В В стремлении к неограниченной свободе, ведомый Роком, Майлс оказывается на загадочном острове Кастите, на границе миров. Там творения гениального Сиба Легеру откроют ему тайну жизни и смерти...
Роман-коллаж `М.Ф.` подобен лексическому ребусу. Его путеводная нить - миф об Эдипе. Юный Майлс Фабер, интеллектуальный первопроходец, блуждает в этимологических лабиринтах мировой культуры. В В стремлении к неограниченной свободе, ведомый Роком, Майлс оказывается на загадочном острове Кастите, на границе миров. Там творения гениального Сиба Легеру откроют ему тайну жизни и смерти...
268 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
16 people are currently reading
696 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Burgess
358 books4,279 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).
He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .
Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).
He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
half-read
October 7, 2013Complete bollocks. Two enormous pendulous Burgessian bollocks dangling in a sac of inane self-indulgence and bland sub-Joycean codswallop. Immense bollocks. Sheer bollocky bollocks.
August 31, 2012
This book is brilliant. The plot is ridiculous melodrama in the best sense of the word. But, if you read this strictly for the plot you will miss out on the true genius of the time. It's the language. Like the Greeks, through Tennessee Williams, the plot is over the top and rather silly at times but the poetry of the words is sublime. Burgess loved language and I think he reached his pinnacle with M/F.
October 19, 2022
It did have a brilliant description of a sinking ship:
Everything happened then. The vessel failed to ride, cracked round to starboard, fell on her beamend, plunged down down down. Before the almost no-light fuffed out, every damn thing in the ship came rioting and galloping down the cabin’s port side, tins of beef stew, glugging open brandy, caulkers, wrenches, pans, plates, the charlie noble, claw rings, chinkles, chiveys, cheese, kye, dead men, a ditty box, a fanged dog, sextants, bullivant’s nippers, splines, whisker poles, whifflows and so on, or perhaps not, me being no seaman. But I remember the noise, human and chunky against the swirls of the sea-and-wind’s burly. Broached to, broadside on, or something. And absolute swinging drunk dead dark. There was still a candle inside my skull, of course, enough light to show an imagined smirking face, my own, saying: This is what you wish, no? The death of form and shipwreck of order?
I came to in sickish cold light – dawn and a convalescent sea. The unbelievable fever was burnt out, quite. I was flat on one of the settees, and it squelched like a bathsponge to the ship’s rhythm. I was all alone. Chandeleur must be on deck or overboard; Aspinwall, grim and triumphant, at the helm as ever. My stormgear was still on and I did not feel wet. I felt for the pain and found it buried in my hair, a nasty little gash. My probing stiff fingers were answered by stiff dry gory elflocks. The cabin was still a mess of smashed and battered whifflows, but the floor had been pumped to mere moistness. My belly, Jonadge’s belly, growled a crass demand: bub and grub. My head, I found on waking, did not hurt overmuch. I got up and saw Chandeleur’s mystical shirt, damp and unwearable till the sun should be stoked some hours, lying among the debris. I took in a new text like an oyster. Then I went out on deck, ready for a grim meeting.
Burgess does make a blunder here:
The Yiddish-speaker was, I saw now, Japanese, and his listener had a Malayalam look: no riddle there.
It should be Malayali.
This clever description of Manhattan mixed with reflections on American freedom that includes the right to rob:
I strolled towards 44th Street, admiring the upward thrust of the masonry which pushed back the night to the limit, the new broom of the Partington Building especially, with the stubbier Penhallow Center and Shillaber Tower flanking it. I admired also the vast induced consumer appetite of this civilization, expressed in its windows and skysigns. It was safer to be bombarded by pleas to eat, drive, play or wash hair with Goldbow than put Madison Avenue and its tributaries in the service of the ideology of the ruling power. A free society.
The freedom was perhaps expressed in the act of robbery being performed, somewhere near 39th Street, by three shag-haired youths on an old man who had a rabbi-beard. There was no violence, only the urgent frisking for notes and small change of boys desperate for a fix. No kicks from mugging, no leisure to hurt save where resistance was offered. The old man knelt, crying. Some few passers-by watched with little curiosity: this was daily soap-opera of the streets. On the wall behind someone had chalked SCREW MAILER; an indifferent workman up a ladder was chipping out a smashed window in tinkles.
Hooked, and then getting fixes fulltime job, therefore work impossible even if wormholed wasted carcase, capable of coming to full life only for robbery, handing fixbread over, filling spitter, seeking skinpatch as yet unholed, were acceptable to employer. No charitable grants, state or private, for buying fixes. Robbery only way, therefore cruel, even when prudent, to interfere. Their need greater than, however needy the victim. Succour to victim after departure of thieves who fell on him? Again imprudent. Belated appearance of police or fuzz, taking in, questioning, suspicious of youth making any kind of social gesture to aged. What you have seen is a show as on television. It is an aspect of the Electronic Village. Emotions not to be engaged. We must school ourselves to new modes of feeling, unfeeling rather. It is the only way to survive. Besides, I must hurry. I have to catch that helicopter to Kennedy. It is later than I realized. The Good Samaritan was able to be good because he had time as well as money. He was travelling neither by air, nor rail, nor freeway. Amen.
I am not sure I understood all of that. But interesting nonetheless.
Burgess is not interested in impressing the reader. The whole book is like a pompous taunt. I do not recall much of the plot except that the protagonist is engaged in a quest for an obscure poet. M/F was a book I read when I was more open minded.
Everything happened then. The vessel failed to ride, cracked round to starboard, fell on her beamend, plunged down down down. Before the almost no-light fuffed out, every damn thing in the ship came rioting and galloping down the cabin’s port side, tins of beef stew, glugging open brandy, caulkers, wrenches, pans, plates, the charlie noble, claw rings, chinkles, chiveys, cheese, kye, dead men, a ditty box, a fanged dog, sextants, bullivant’s nippers, splines, whisker poles, whifflows and so on, or perhaps not, me being no seaman. But I remember the noise, human and chunky against the swirls of the sea-and-wind’s burly. Broached to, broadside on, or something. And absolute swinging drunk dead dark. There was still a candle inside my skull, of course, enough light to show an imagined smirking face, my own, saying: This is what you wish, no? The death of form and shipwreck of order?
I came to in sickish cold light – dawn and a convalescent sea. The unbelievable fever was burnt out, quite. I was flat on one of the settees, and it squelched like a bathsponge to the ship’s rhythm. I was all alone. Chandeleur must be on deck or overboard; Aspinwall, grim and triumphant, at the helm as ever. My stormgear was still on and I did not feel wet. I felt for the pain and found it buried in my hair, a nasty little gash. My probing stiff fingers were answered by stiff dry gory elflocks. The cabin was still a mess of smashed and battered whifflows, but the floor had been pumped to mere moistness. My belly, Jonadge’s belly, growled a crass demand: bub and grub. My head, I found on waking, did not hurt overmuch. I got up and saw Chandeleur’s mystical shirt, damp and unwearable till the sun should be stoked some hours, lying among the debris. I took in a new text like an oyster. Then I went out on deck, ready for a grim meeting.
Burgess does make a blunder here:
The Yiddish-speaker was, I saw now, Japanese, and his listener had a Malayalam look: no riddle there.
It should be Malayali.
This clever description of Manhattan mixed with reflections on American freedom that includes the right to rob:
I strolled towards 44th Street, admiring the upward thrust of the masonry which pushed back the night to the limit, the new broom of the Partington Building especially, with the stubbier Penhallow Center and Shillaber Tower flanking it. I admired also the vast induced consumer appetite of this civilization, expressed in its windows and skysigns. It was safer to be bombarded by pleas to eat, drive, play or wash hair with Goldbow than put Madison Avenue and its tributaries in the service of the ideology of the ruling power. A free society.
The freedom was perhaps expressed in the act of robbery being performed, somewhere near 39th Street, by three shag-haired youths on an old man who had a rabbi-beard. There was no violence, only the urgent frisking for notes and small change of boys desperate for a fix. No kicks from mugging, no leisure to hurt save where resistance was offered. The old man knelt, crying. Some few passers-by watched with little curiosity: this was daily soap-opera of the streets. On the wall behind someone had chalked SCREW MAILER; an indifferent workman up a ladder was chipping out a smashed window in tinkles.
Hooked, and then getting fixes fulltime job, therefore work impossible even if wormholed wasted carcase, capable of coming to full life only for robbery, handing fixbread over, filling spitter, seeking skinpatch as yet unholed, were acceptable to employer. No charitable grants, state or private, for buying fixes. Robbery only way, therefore cruel, even when prudent, to interfere. Their need greater than, however needy the victim. Succour to victim after departure of thieves who fell on him? Again imprudent. Belated appearance of police or fuzz, taking in, questioning, suspicious of youth making any kind of social gesture to aged. What you have seen is a show as on television. It is an aspect of the Electronic Village. Emotions not to be engaged. We must school ourselves to new modes of feeling, unfeeling rather. It is the only way to survive. Besides, I must hurry. I have to catch that helicopter to Kennedy. It is later than I realized. The Good Samaritan was able to be good because he had time as well as money. He was travelling neither by air, nor rail, nor freeway. Amen.
I am not sure I understood all of that. But interesting nonetheless.
Burgess is not interested in impressing the reader. The whole book is like a pompous taunt. I do not recall much of the plot except that the protagonist is engaged in a quest for an obscure poet. M/F was a book I read when I was more open minded.
April 6, 2015
My issue with a lot of British writers like Martin Amis. Will Self, and now Anthony Burgess as a result of this book, is that they use their supreme fluency with their native language as an all-book long opportunity to taunt the reader. It doesn't always have to be that way; Clockwork Orange was a gem of linguistic inventiveness, Time's Arrow (by Amis) turned the linear plot development of a novel 180 degrees (like the movie Memento).
I'm not saying writers are duty-bound to deliver the meaning and understanding of their writing to us; I love the challenge of trying to decipher a writer's style (Faulkner comes to mind). But this? This I just found a rambling, baffling, incoherent read. Sure, it has an interesting premise (man travels to exotic island to discover his family past) and there are a lot of smartly concealed clues and cues that, if you pick up on will help along your understanding of the plot (i.e. the character's main name suggests incest, which is a major theme of the novel), but I ended up just reading on without caring, desperate to finish and move on to my next book.
Clockwork Orange this isn't, but how could be top that anyway?
I'm not saying writers are duty-bound to deliver the meaning and understanding of their writing to us; I love the challenge of trying to decipher a writer's style (Faulkner comes to mind). But this? This I just found a rambling, baffling, incoherent read. Sure, it has an interesting premise (man travels to exotic island to discover his family past) and there are a lot of smartly concealed clues and cues that, if you pick up on will help along your understanding of the plot (i.e. the character's main name suggests incest, which is a major theme of the novel), but I ended up just reading on without caring, desperate to finish and move on to my next book.
Clockwork Orange this isn't, but how could be top that anyway?
December 11, 2011
this bok is one of my most favorite books that i have ever read! it got me into reading all the time... it was the first anthony burgess book i ever read and it was absolutely wonderful.... it was poetic and i understood its poetic wasys and writings.... i liked how it was dark in some parts and i was somewhat.... attached to the book.... im currently reading "the end of the world news" by anthony burgess and its just as good so i give anthony as a writer a perfect 100%!!! GO ANTHONY ILY!!!!
February 11, 2017
M/F is outrageously funny and filled with Burgess's trademark linguistic inventiveness. It's about a man trying desperately not to commit incest with his grotesque sister while searching for the lost writings of one Sib Legeru.
It's not a perfect novel and the climax is a bit downtrodden by Burgess straight up telling you what he's doing with the odd narrative in true post-modern fashion, making the book feel a bit like an academic paper disguised as a novel, which it is. So much so that Burgess actually wrote an academic paper on his own book about what it demonstrates about myths involving incest in various cultures just in case you didn't get it when you read the novel. Does that make it not worth the read, absolutely not.
Again, Burgess shows his talent for incredibly fresh dialogue and vibrant characters. The themes of music and violence are just as prevalent and poignant here as it is in his other major works. However the chief joy of M/F is how playful Burgess's writing is. It's by no means his best work, but its somehow a nice blend of fun and challenge for a reader.
Not a hard recommend, but if you like Burgess, check it out.
It's not a perfect novel and the climax is a bit downtrodden by Burgess straight up telling you what he's doing with the odd narrative in true post-modern fashion, making the book feel a bit like an academic paper disguised as a novel, which it is. So much so that Burgess actually wrote an academic paper on his own book about what it demonstrates about myths involving incest in various cultures just in case you didn't get it when you read the novel. Does that make it not worth the read, absolutely not.
Again, Burgess shows his talent for incredibly fresh dialogue and vibrant characters. The themes of music and violence are just as prevalent and poignant here as it is in his other major works. However the chief joy of M/F is how playful Burgess's writing is. It's by no means his best work, but its somehow a nice blend of fun and challenge for a reader.
Not a hard recommend, but if you like Burgess, check it out.
December 4, 2021
I never know what to think of Anthony Burgess. I've read nearly everything he wrote. His fiction is very hit or miss and this was right in the middle. The language will keep you reaching for a dictionary, but the plot and narrative are very uneven.
January 25, 2008
what will a writer do for money? I submit for your examination MF by Mr. Burgess.
May 11, 2025
Anthony Burgess doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Surely he made an impact with Clockwork Orange - small dystopian novel that put his name on the map for the mainstream audience. Of course Kubrick helped to solidify his legacy - but what about the rest of the stuff? All those lesser know titles in his bibliography?
For the reason unknown they do not get a recognition they deserve and always got overlooked because of Alex and gang of his violent droogs. I guess Clockwork Orange was a Curse in disguise throwing a shade on his other books turning the author into some sort of writing equivalent of “one hit wonder”.
But Burgess definitely have some other bangers in his portfolio like “Wanting Seed” and “M/F”- which apparently stands for Miles Faber (at least so I believe).
M/F throws you in unfamiliar waters at very beginning. The premises moves like pendulum from realistic setting to something of a fever dream accompanied by beauty of Burgess language and craziness of his talent. But then it lands somewhere between Greek tragedy and mundane life of a spoiled brat - the protagonist of the story. Soon, page by page the story gets sharper angles and achieve levels of familiarity-I am not going to spoil it by mentioning it-but the book is essentially a very creative retelling of Oedipus Rex. Wild tragedy right out of the golden age of Antiquity. While the plot is nothing new (but hey -what IS?) Burgess takes his liberties so the novel doesn’t have a stale taste to it- and I believe he succeeds there despite whatever Goodreads rating says.
Nevertheless the book is not a masterpiece and it’s not even Burgess finest work - but it definitely deserves to be rediscovered. If you are like me -a huge fan of Burgess work - this shouldn’t be skipped.
Lil update: just found out that M/F also stands for Male/Female and Mother/Father.Even make more sense now.
For the reason unknown they do not get a recognition they deserve and always got overlooked because of Alex and gang of his violent droogs. I guess Clockwork Orange was a Curse in disguise throwing a shade on his other books turning the author into some sort of writing equivalent of “one hit wonder”.
But Burgess definitely have some other bangers in his portfolio like “Wanting Seed” and “M/F”- which apparently stands for Miles Faber (at least so I believe).
M/F throws you in unfamiliar waters at very beginning. The premises moves like pendulum from realistic setting to something of a fever dream accompanied by beauty of Burgess language and craziness of his talent. But then it lands somewhere between Greek tragedy and mundane life of a spoiled brat - the protagonist of the story. Soon, page by page the story gets sharper angles and achieve levels of familiarity-I am not going to spoil it by mentioning it-but the book is essentially a very creative retelling of Oedipus Rex. Wild tragedy right out of the golden age of Antiquity. While the plot is nothing new (but hey -what IS?) Burgess takes his liberties so the novel doesn’t have a stale taste to it- and I believe he succeeds there despite whatever Goodreads rating says.
Nevertheless the book is not a masterpiece and it’s not even Burgess finest work - but it definitely deserves to be rediscovered. If you are like me -a huge fan of Burgess work - this shouldn’t be skipped.
Lil update: just found out that M/F also stands for Male/Female and Mother/Father.Even make more sense now.
March 29, 2022
I approached this book with the best of intentions but must say I was, even so, a little disappointed with M/F. It is many years since I read A Clockwork Orange and was enthralled by it as a work. It is, in my opinion, totally deserving it’s exalted position as a literary masterpiece. The language employed in A Clockwork Orange was intentionally playful and experimental and while at times, the overtly violent content was hard going, I really did not struggle with it the way I have, just now, with M/F. I understand this novel, though relatively short, is also fairly dense in prose. The book is purposefully multi-layered and almost every line and aspect of the content is encoded with double entendre and pun. It would seem that one would need a guide book to really unravel the full extent of hidden meaning in this book. Burgess, of course, did provide such a guide book with his Oedipus Wrecks essay which I would be interested to read now. Admittedly, I read this book intermittently over several months, whilst busy with other projects, but the story, even so, felt disjointed and laboured. I had a lot of trouble following the basic plot and simply trying to keep up with who was who and what was going on at different points. No doubt there is much to be gained from immersing oneself in the complexities of such a work, but I do think it is a shame that should come at the expense of the comprehensibility of the story.
November 18, 2010
Had I followed my personal rule, I would have ditched this read around the halfway mark. For some reason, maybe it was the greatness of the writer, Burgess, or perhaps the promise of solving the riddles and clarity. Or could it have been unconsciously quite riveting?
At the end I realised how good my personal rule is; don't like it, don't read it. The experience of having finished this book gave me no more that I had halfway in. Even that wasn't worth the time. No beauty, no poetry, no ideas, no thrills. Only, towards the end, the book addresses the reader directly. I wasn't sure if this was the protagonist speaking in character, on behalf of the writer, or Burgess himself having his little joke. By then the whole thing seemed to be a joke at the reader's expense. So, I'll give it two stars just to be ironic.
At the end I realised how good my personal rule is; don't like it, don't read it. The experience of having finished this book gave me no more that I had halfway in. Even that wasn't worth the time. No beauty, no poetry, no ideas, no thrills. Only, towards the end, the book addresses the reader directly. I wasn't sure if this was the protagonist speaking in character, on behalf of the writer, or Burgess himself having his little joke. By then the whole thing seemed to be a joke at the reader's expense. So, I'll give it two stars just to be ironic.
February 2, 2023
Miles Faber rebels against the sensible ones around him and embarks on a pseudo pilgrimage to a fictitious Caribbean island in search of an obscure artist. When there, his adventure takes all sorts of surreal twists and turns, the major one being coming face to face with his doppelgänger who (although being physically identical to him) is his complete opposite when it comes to personality.
M/F is a humorous, fast-paced, bumbling escapade, full of oddballs and somewhat unbelievable happenings. There's also a load of double meanings hidden throughout the charismatic text, which if it wasn't for the foreword I don't think I would've "got" - but I don't think any of that palaver really matters.
M/F is a humorous, fast-paced, bumbling escapade, full of oddballs and somewhat unbelievable happenings. There's also a load of double meanings hidden throughout the charismatic text, which if it wasn't for the foreword I don't think I would've "got" - but I don't think any of that palaver really matters.
October 31, 2016
Finished this odd book in two days. A Google search led me to a quote that says it is Burgess's answer to Burroughs. I see that, but it's not the comparison I'd make.
Early in the book, I seem to remember mention of a bookshelf on which among others was Tom Robbins. This book reminded me a lot of him, a lot!
I think it's a book that needs to be re-read now that I've learned the revelations at the end.
Early in the book, I seem to remember mention of a bookshelf on which among others was Tom Robbins. This book reminded me a lot of him, a lot!
I think it's a book that needs to be re-read now that I've learned the revelations at the end.
February 25, 2019
Gave up. I found the story difficult to follow and after several chapters I didn't care about it at all. Possibly I'm too uneducated to understand what the author is going on about. Earthly Powers was challenging but amusing enough to keep my interest. This book I didn't see the point in.
August 22, 2022
One of the best Burgess novels, and that is saying a lot IMHO.
September 24, 2022
Thomas Pynchon wishes he wrote this
June 2, 2020
Don't normally write reviews but this deeply frustrating novel compelled me to do so. Contains some memorable witticisms and a handful of sentences which crackle with the energy of truly great writing, but they're engulfed in a flood of sub-Wildean bon mots and self-indulgent wordplay: the introduction explains that if you take the first letters of a nonsensical breakfast order recounted in a dream sequence, it spells out the word 'incest', which later emerges as a key motif. I mean, why bother?
Burgess was perhaps at his best as a critic, where his erudition and talent for acerbic quips was distilled to an art form. Here, these tendencies submerge the rather undiverting plot for long passages of text. Amid endless digressions and philosophical ruminations, two things strike the reader plainly. 1.) Every character in this book speaks in exactly the same way, a kind of smug, foppish Oxbridge badinage. 2.) I don't care about what happens to any of them. True, Burgess seems to provoke his reader's revulsion at times for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, when confronted with a whole cast of characters each more venal and obnoxious as the last, it is hard not to consider this lack of chiaroscuro to be a failing on the part of the author.
I have great respect for Burgess and have enjoyed his writing in the past, but this was a real slog. There is unquestionably something Joycean about the novel - the prodigious protagonist, the vacillating narrative and its multilinguality - yet while Joyce was a master of developing mise en scene, 'M/F' leads the reader halfway round the world in such a way that one is constantly flicking back to figure out where we are now, and who is he again, and remind me why I care? In later life, Burgess decried the fact that everyone knew him as the author of 'A Clockwork Orange', ignorant of the various other projects which he devoted himself to. On the strength of this pretentious plodding, such a fate may be a blessing to his reputation.
Burgess was perhaps at his best as a critic, where his erudition and talent for acerbic quips was distilled to an art form. Here, these tendencies submerge the rather undiverting plot for long passages of text. Amid endless digressions and philosophical ruminations, two things strike the reader plainly. 1.) Every character in this book speaks in exactly the same way, a kind of smug, foppish Oxbridge badinage. 2.) I don't care about what happens to any of them. True, Burgess seems to provoke his reader's revulsion at times for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, when confronted with a whole cast of characters each more venal and obnoxious as the last, it is hard not to consider this lack of chiaroscuro to be a failing on the part of the author.
I have great respect for Burgess and have enjoyed his writing in the past, but this was a real slog. There is unquestionably something Joycean about the novel - the prodigious protagonist, the vacillating narrative and its multilinguality - yet while Joyce was a master of developing mise en scene, 'M/F' leads the reader halfway round the world in such a way that one is constantly flicking back to figure out where we are now, and who is he again, and remind me why I care? In later life, Burgess decried the fact that everyone knew him as the author of 'A Clockwork Orange', ignorant of the various other projects which he devoted himself to. On the strength of this pretentious plodding, such a fate may be a blessing to his reputation.
October 27, 2019
A straightforward enough tale, albeit a bit abstruse in the telling.
A young lad, recently kicked out of uni, attempts to idle in the Carribean while waiting for his inheritance to kick in. There is some cover story about the works of a poet that merit investigation, but it fails to convince.
Unforunately, the young lad's secret sister is in the Carribean, and his betters decide the two of them should not be in the same vicinity lest incest occur, something that is apparently a bit of a family trait.
There is a lot of near-insufferable wordplay and riddling in the novel, as such puzzle-solving is the chief way in which the narrator responds to the world. Everything is a puzzle to be solved, every name has hidden meaning, every coincidence part of a hidden pattern. This works well as a character flaw, but Burgess really meant for the novel to be interpreted as a riddle, and wrote an entire essay on how to go about it. Points lost for that bit of over-engineering.
The usual all-knowing, all-powerful organization controlling every move makes an appearance, detracting a bit from the explanation that concludes the novel. Burgess gets some nice digs in at what he considers art favored by young people, but which is really post- or post-post-modern art: arbitrary combinations of unrelated objects whose juxtaposition may be novel or startling, but which is ultimately devoid of any meaning beyond mere surface spectacle. A repeated theme, in a way, from Clockwork Orange: young people are awful, but fortunately they grow out of it.
A young lad, recently kicked out of uni, attempts to idle in the Carribean while waiting for his inheritance to kick in. There is some cover story about the works of a poet that merit investigation, but it fails to convince.
Unforunately, the young lad's secret sister is in the Carribean, and his betters decide the two of them should not be in the same vicinity lest incest occur, something that is apparently a bit of a family trait.
There is a lot of near-insufferable wordplay and riddling in the novel, as such puzzle-solving is the chief way in which the narrator responds to the world. Everything is a puzzle to be solved, every name has hidden meaning, every coincidence part of a hidden pattern. This works well as a character flaw, but Burgess really meant for the novel to be interpreted as a riddle, and wrote an entire essay on how to go about it. Points lost for that bit of over-engineering.
The usual all-knowing, all-powerful organization controlling every move makes an appearance, detracting a bit from the explanation that concludes the novel. Burgess gets some nice digs in at what he considers art favored by young people, but which is really post- or post-post-modern art: arbitrary combinations of unrelated objects whose juxtaposition may be novel or startling, but which is ultimately devoid of any meaning beyond mere surface spectacle. A repeated theme, in a way, from Clockwork Orange: young people are awful, but fortunately they grow out of it.
March 21, 2025
Typical for Anthony Burgess, M/F is filled with linguistic tricks, puns, strange derivations, and hilarious constructions of literary and artistic histories. The central issue of M/F is ‘fate’ in the Greek tragedy sense: the protagonist and narrator, Miles Faber, is the product of incest and, according to his advisor, his fate may be to replicate the sin of his progenitors. He embarks on a quixotic trip to a Caribbean island, Castita (a name derived from the Latin word for ‘chastity’) to find a museum dedicated to an intriguing poet, Sib Legeru. His Journey is fraught with meetings with strange characters, including his own sister, a deadly philosopher, a ‘bird lady’ in a circus, and his doppelgänger, the bird lady’s son who’s a ‘worthless layabout’. This is a picaresque novel, ‘meta’ in the use of narrative technique, with enough strange elements to remind one (me, at least) of Raymond Queneau or Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net, or even the French film ‘Amelie’. A fun read.
June 3, 2024
After a rather rough start, this book settles down into a picaresque adventure, the kind you would expect from an 18th or 19th century novel. I mean, it has all the trappings of the freewheeling 1960s, all the black humor, surrealism, wordplay, but otherwise it’s a good old shaggy dog tale.
Except.
The main theme is incest. Which is rather creepy.
Oh, about the language: Burgess has such a command of English, uses obscure and esoteric words every page, sometimes every sentence. Ignore those! Just glide right over them. He’s also created his own language, which looks like it’s rough going, but actually is logical. Really, quite entertaining, with genuine laugh out loud moments, despite the incest. Is this James Joyce’s Ulysses, Tom Jones, Tristam Shandy? No. But he certainly tries.
Except.
The main theme is incest. Which is rather creepy.
Oh, about the language: Burgess has such a command of English, uses obscure and esoteric words every page, sometimes every sentence. Ignore those! Just glide right over them. He’s also created his own language, which looks like it’s rough going, but actually is logical. Really, quite entertaining, with genuine laugh out loud moments, despite the incest. Is this James Joyce’s Ulysses, Tom Jones, Tristam Shandy? No. But he certainly tries.
July 14, 2018
Абсолютно ниочем. Казалось бы, и юмор есть, и сюжет есть, и изюминка какая-никакая - но нет.
Не обращайте внимания на аннотацию - не ждите ни лексического ребуса, ни границы миров, ни вообще ничего. Просто не читайте это.
Потраченного времени не то что жаль, просто можно было прочитать что-то куда интереснее.
А возможно этот роман для высокоинтеллектуальной публики, а я для него слишком глуп.
Не обращайте внимания на аннотацию - не ждите ни лексического ребуса, ни границы миров, ни вообще ничего. Просто не читайте это.
Потраченного времени не то что жаль, просто можно было прочитать что-то куда интереснее.
А возможно этот роман для высокоинтеллектуальной публики, а я для него слишком глуп.
August 23, 2019
I probably watched the movie version of "A Clockwork Orange" for the first time in 1985 or '86 and it inspired me to read more by Burgess. I remember finding the dialogue in "Clockwork" almost impenetrable as a young teen, so I sought out some of his other books. I had a thing for weird, surreal stories, so this probably appealed to me at the time, though I don't remember much about it.
June 2, 2024
He is such a voice of England - wonderful language and humour which made me smile and laugh out loud - but without the depth of meaning, post modern comedy doesn’t hit the heights. I’m struck by this quote from Flannery O’Connor
A comic novel…and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death”
A comic novel…and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death”
June 4, 2017
A bit of a self indulgent work, by no means amongst his best. Lots of literary allusions and jokes at the expense of the culture of the day. Some of the themes that appear in later works are evident here though.
April 28, 2024
It cannot be denied that Burgess’s vocabulary is very impressive, he uses the English language like no other. However, M/F was a complete yawn fest! Try The Wanting Seed.
I have a few Burgess books left to read, I just hope they are not disappointing like this gunk.
I have a few Burgess books left to read, I just hope they are not disappointing like this gunk.
October 7, 2018
Inventive but showy and tedious. I couldn't get interested enough in either the characters or the story to finish the book. Disappointing, because I really enjoyed most of his other novels.
August 8, 2019
It's funny that A Clockwork Orange was literally written in a different language and this is still a harder book to follow
January 15, 2021
Wild, funny, sexy, silly, good times. A great example of Burgess’ caustic wit.
October 18, 2022
Pointless pulp tale made unreadable by a lot of pointless puzzles. Avoid M(other) F(ucker)
January 26, 2023
fucking christ that was bad. took me one whole month to get through it while the last 100 pages were read today.
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