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Enderby #4
Enderby's Dark Lady
F.X. Enderby travels to Indiana in order to impress the Hoosiers with his musical script on the career of Shakespeare and falls in love with a nightclub singer
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
3 people are currently reading
198 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Burgess
357 books4,265 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 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 6, 2020
2.5*, my lowest for A.B....
The least enjoyable of the 4 books in the series, not without its intermittent merits (the wordplay, its brevity), but with a ludicrous plot and literally bookended by two amateurish works penned by Enderby himself (i) a tedious Elizabethan farce* (i think...it was hard to pay too close attention, tbh), which is somehow the impetus for his getting hired by the musical theatre troup in Indiana to compose a libretto on Shakespeare; and (ii)a kludgy, snail's-paced sci-fi story about a 6th millenium tourist in Queen Elizabeth's court, looking for Will in the world. Enderby should definitely stick to poetry.
*published...in Canada, of course—c'mon, now everybody, sing, "blame Canada!"
The least enjoyable of the 4 books in the series, not without its intermittent merits (the wordplay, its brevity), but with a ludicrous plot and literally bookended by two amateurish works penned by Enderby himself (i) a tedious Elizabethan farce* (i think...it was hard to pay too close attention, tbh), which is somehow the impetus for his getting hired by the musical theatre troup in Indiana to compose a libretto on Shakespeare; and (ii)a kludgy, snail's-paced sci-fi story about a 6th millenium tourist in Queen Elizabeth's court, looking for Will in the world. Enderby should definitely stick to poetry.
*published...in Canada, of course—c'mon, now everybody, sing, "blame Canada!"
November 24, 2017
Enderby ends in an endocrinal novella bookended by two Shakespearean short stories. Taking on that satirical fail-safe, privately funded Indianapolis theatre productions, Burgess wrings the last driblet of mirth from his lumbering alter-ego, taking on the philistinic yanks who fail to bring The Bard to the masses in a musically respectful manner. As in the previous novels, once Enderby’s lusts take over, the whole book tends to collapse into an intolerable squirming cringefest, and Burgess’s depiction of a sassy black actress is as subtle as you might expect from a writer with the textual graces of a JCB hauler. Inside Mr. Enderby, the first part at least, is the finest of the amusing and outrageous quartet, and the only one I would recommend.
January 7, 2018
9.3
I haven't read any of the other books in the Enderby series but I am now convinced they are essential literature, for this fourth installation is one of the greatest novels of all time.
We follow the poet Enderby as he struggles in an Indiana adaptation of the life of William Shakespeare and his infamous 'dark lady', who may or may not be a negress. Throughout the book's span, Enderby is progressively mutated into a modern day shakespeare, and he falls in love with the titular dark lady, a one April Elgar (May Johnson). The book is effectively sandwiched by short stories, the protagonist of which is Shakespeare himself in the first, and the time-traveling Paley under the guise of a Norwich gentleman. Both stories add immense depth to the Shakespearean persona, and they serve to mirror him with Enderby, the poet.
Burgess is a masterful writer and constantly defies the logic of literature by speaking is phonetic and alternating narrators at will. A glorious novel. Highly recommended.
I haven't read any of the other books in the Enderby series but I am now convinced they are essential literature, for this fourth installation is one of the greatest novels of all time.
We follow the poet Enderby as he struggles in an Indiana adaptation of the life of William Shakespeare and his infamous 'dark lady', who may or may not be a negress. Throughout the book's span, Enderby is progressively mutated into a modern day shakespeare, and he falls in love with the titular dark lady, a one April Elgar (May Johnson). The book is effectively sandwiched by short stories, the protagonist of which is Shakespeare himself in the first, and the time-traveling Paley under the guise of a Norwich gentleman. Both stories add immense depth to the Shakespearean persona, and they serve to mirror him with Enderby, the poet.
Burgess is a masterful writer and constantly defies the logic of literature by speaking is phonetic and alternating narrators at will. A glorious novel. Highly recommended.
April 29, 2009
Probably in over my head when I read this at 17.
November 16, 2022
Like its predecessor, The Clockwork Testament, this final instalment of the Enderby sequence evokes a distinct whiff of the hastily written and the underdrafted and I again found myself unable to shake the image of him punching away in the back of the campervan as his wife manouvred the roads of Europe (correct me please, fact-checkers?)
In its favour, this one at least begins with a solidish idea as its foundation (though not one that stands up to too much scrutiny. The poet Enderby as parallel/incarnate/ghost-botherer to the playwrite Shakespeare? Why?)
Sadly the I'm-not-racist-but-my-floating-narrator/alterego-is posturing toyed with in The Clockwork Testament arrives in full bloom here and it is, as we say now, problematic. Just plain offensive at times.
Curiously, the Dark Lady of the title (yes, he did that. He used the phrase 'dark lady' to mean black woman) April Elgar is far and away the best, most interesting, most nuanced and fully realised character in this story, and she gets the best lines. I'd say it's a shame that she is sidelined except that - notwithstanding a few scenes of thinly-veiled wish-fullfillment on Burgess's part - I love how little she is even interested in Enderby's story. There are moments, I think, where this book approaches an astute and complex portrait of mid-20th century racism - conscious and unconscious - but they are all too fleeting. Enderby himself furiously defends Elgar from racist and misogynist taunting but his own (and I don't think it's a stretch to suggest Burgess's) obsession with her Black Beauty reads far more like fetishism than love and ultimately stems from the same wellspring.
This is rich, well-observed stuff but it doesn't ammount to much in the end, partly because Burgess has saddled himself with a pointless and not very funny Shakespeare romp but mostly because he can't seem to shake the image of himself as an arch satirist. There is an issue of positioning here. In '...Dark Lady', most of the alleged satire consists of easy potshots at caricature 'dumb Americans' and it's clear nobody taught Burgess the golden rule: punch up, Anthony. Never punch down.
It's an intriguing yet frustrating read but it is also quite short so yes: go ahead and read it.
In its favour, this one at least begins with a solidish idea as its foundation (though not one that stands up to too much scrutiny. The poet Enderby as parallel/incarnate/ghost-botherer to the playwrite Shakespeare? Why?)
Sadly the I'm-not-racist-but-my-floating-narrator/alterego-is posturing toyed with in The Clockwork Testament arrives in full bloom here and it is, as we say now, problematic. Just plain offensive at times.
Curiously, the Dark Lady of the title (yes, he did that. He used the phrase 'dark lady' to mean black woman) April Elgar is far and away the best, most interesting, most nuanced and fully realised character in this story, and she gets the best lines. I'd say it's a shame that she is sidelined except that - notwithstanding a few scenes of thinly-veiled wish-fullfillment on Burgess's part - I love how little she is even interested in Enderby's story. There are moments, I think, where this book approaches an astute and complex portrait of mid-20th century racism - conscious and unconscious - but they are all too fleeting. Enderby himself furiously defends Elgar from racist and misogynist taunting but his own (and I don't think it's a stretch to suggest Burgess's) obsession with her Black Beauty reads far more like fetishism than love and ultimately stems from the same wellspring.
This is rich, well-observed stuff but it doesn't ammount to much in the end, partly because Burgess has saddled himself with a pointless and not very funny Shakespeare romp but mostly because he can't seem to shake the image of himself as an arch satirist. There is an issue of positioning here. In '...Dark Lady', most of the alleged satire consists of easy potshots at caricature 'dumb Americans' and it's clear nobody taught Burgess the golden rule: punch up, Anthony. Never punch down.
It's an intriguing yet frustrating read but it is also quite short so yes: go ahead and read it.
January 7, 2024
In his biography of Burgess, Roger Lewis performs an instructive comparison between the prose of Kingsley Amis and that of Anthony Burgess by way of a review Burgess wrote of Amis' 'The Old Devils'. Amis is sharp and funny. Burgess leaden and humourless. I wanted to put this down to Burgess' prolific work rate (it could easily have been one of many reviews he was writing that day not to mention numerous creative efforts he would also have been embarked on, let's say conservatively, at least a novel and a string quartet) but those adjectives apply equally to this novel. Burgess brought Enderby back to life to supposedly write an amusing book about the protagonist's involvement in a musical about Shakespeare. The whole, from the opening chapter involving a painful shuffle through reimagined parts of the life of Shakespeare and Jonson (the subsequent revelation that this is a story written by Enderby redeems it not a jot) to the flaccid conclusion is unspeakably dreadful.
July 20, 2022
The final outing for our favourite flatulent poet, which follows straight after The Clockwork Testament, Burgess glossing over the inconvenient fact that he killed off Enderby with a heart attack in that previous tale. For a man who has expired, Enderby is in remarkably good form, labouring in the cultural backwaters of Indiana on a stage musical of Shakespeare's life and falling for the actress who is to play the Bard's Dark Lady. I shall miss Enderby - an absurd creation who is absurdly likeable and whose irascible intolerance deserves to live long. I do wonder what Enderby would make of our 21st century dumbing down.
June 3, 2020
Unecessary.
From the first Enderby's installment to the third, things slope slightly down, like a good joke that gets worn out.
But this fourth and last installment was absolutely unecessary; Enderby was already dead in New York and this alternative-reality fantasy does not add much.
It feels too much like an academic exercise on shakesperian expertise to be palatable.
Let Enderby rest.
From the first Enderby's installment to the third, things slope slightly down, like a good joke that gets worn out.
But this fourth and last installment was absolutely unecessary; Enderby was already dead in New York and this alternative-reality fantasy does not add much.
It feels too much like an academic exercise on shakesperian expertise to be palatable.
Let Enderby rest.
September 11, 2022
Endearing, Enderby - endentured and enigmatic.
A cantankerous and curmudgeonly character. Drinker of strong tea and chronic swallower of antacids. A dyspeptic and disonant diarist.
A patriotic and parochial purveyor of posies.
A cunning linguist and a cussid lyricist at one and the same time. A flatulent and fervent defender of the faith.
A belligerent, beguiling bane to the banal!
A cantankerous and curmudgeonly character. Drinker of strong tea and chronic swallower of antacids. A dyspeptic and disonant diarist.
A patriotic and parochial purveyor of posies.
A cunning linguist and a cussid lyricist at one and the same time. A flatulent and fervent defender of the faith.
A belligerent, beguiling bane to the banal!
January 21, 2020
Pretty inessential revival of the previously dead Enderby, bookended by interminable short stories about Shakespeare. One amusing set piece (Enderby in church) puts this above The Clockwork Testament, but only just.
May 6, 2023
A cock-and-bull story about a British playwright called in American to write a musical about Shakespeare. It deals with the freedom of creating, the writer's power on his characters, even on a historical character. It's really funny with an unexpected twist at the end.
August 9, 2021
Burgess plays fast and loose with past, present and future. All the worlds a stage for Enderby who ends up treading the boards in a Shakespeare musical.
Read
May 30, 2023This final volume in the Enderby Saga feels more like a one-off than more from the main story. I say that but then the more I think about it, there is no “main story”. All the novels feel like one-offs I am now thinking. Anyway, Anthony Burgess tells us in the introduction that he had thought he was done with Enderby but was pulled back in when he had an idea. In A Clockwork Testament, Enderby has been pulled to the US in order to help adapt an old long poem into a film script. Burgess says that when he thought about that idea, it basically came down to putting him in New York working on the film script, or to be putting on a play in Indiana. He went with New York, but then realized, putting a randomly British reprobate in Indiana is too good to give up. So Enderby is just alive, even though he wasn’t.
We begin the novel with the description of the plot of a play wherein William Shakespeare has just died and Ben Jonson is there celebrating his death. It turns out that among other things, Shakespeare was at work on a gunpowder play to put forth the idea of overthrowing the British crown. Shakespeare didn’t do this of course and instead wrote MacBeth the same year of the Gunpowder Plot suggesting he thought a thing or two about overthrowing the crown. So we pull back from this to realize Enderby has written this play, which he thinks is a kind of masterpiece, and he’s staging it in Indiana, where among other things, theater is not super well supported.
We begin the novel with the description of the plot of a play wherein William Shakespeare has just died and Ben Jonson is there celebrating his death. It turns out that among other things, Shakespeare was at work on a gunpowder play to put forth the idea of overthrowing the British crown. Shakespeare didn’t do this of course and instead wrote MacBeth the same year of the Gunpowder Plot suggesting he thought a thing or two about overthrowing the crown. So we pull back from this to realize Enderby has written this play, which he thinks is a kind of masterpiece, and he’s staging it in Indiana, where among other things, theater is not super well supported.
May 11, 2016
‘Enderby’s Dark Lady’ is the unnecessary sequel that most great series generate. Perhaps it is best compared to the Christmas special of a discontinued sitcom, reuniting old characters for a final sentimental jaunt.
Having killed Mr Enderby off in a perfectly satisfactory manner in the previous book, Burgess obviously wanted to return to his beloved creation, who had effectively become Burgess himself. He could easily have made the new book an episode from Enderby’s life between ‘Enderby Outside’ and ‘A Clockwork Testament’, but being Anthony Burgess he chose instead to inexplicably resurrect his hero and grant him a new life.
The book is predictably clever and funny, perhaps a little too predictably for those who have read the earlier books, but I would certainly not be without it – its most distinctive aspect is the creation of a strong female character, which was not in Burgess’s usual repertoire…
Having killed Mr Enderby off in a perfectly satisfactory manner in the previous book, Burgess obviously wanted to return to his beloved creation, who had effectively become Burgess himself. He could easily have made the new book an episode from Enderby’s life between ‘Enderby Outside’ and ‘A Clockwork Testament’, but being Anthony Burgess he chose instead to inexplicably resurrect his hero and grant him a new life.
The book is predictably clever and funny, perhaps a little too predictably for those who have read the earlier books, but I would certainly not be without it – its most distinctive aspect is the creation of a strong female character, which was not in Burgess’s usual repertoire…
September 27, 2012
Burgess is always great fun to read and this is no exception. He doesn't give in to the oh-so-common temptation of allowing farce to mutate into cliché. Key to this is the rich character of Enderby: you don't realize how rich until you try to describe him and discover that anything you can say about him (bombastic, insightful, self-deluded, perceptive, a horrible poet, a brilliant wordsmith, a field upon which the apparently opposing forces of education and wisdom do constant battle) is thoroughly inadequate.
My only quibble is with the last chapter, and if you read the book you'll understand why I'd single out a specific section of the book. It's a very unstraightforward end to an otherwise straightforward book and, while I admire the gamble, I don't think it was a wise one. An MBA might say that the ROI was inadequate. Not that you should listen to an MBA.
My only quibble is with the last chapter, and if you read the book you'll understand why I'd single out a specific section of the book. It's a very unstraightforward end to an otherwise straightforward book and, while I admire the gamble, I don't think it was a wise one. An MBA might say that the ROI was inadequate. Not that you should listen to an MBA.
April 19, 2015
Not worthy of the rest of the series. A jumbled hodgepodge of ideas strayed from Nothing Like the Sun for starters, an obvious while sometime fun and entertaining romp of Enderby as riduculed author of a ridiculously botched play about Shakespeare, and the ending an incomprehensible new twist on the time travel theme bookending the trilogy . This one should probably have stayed in the waste basket.
March 5, 2016
This short quirky novel by Anthony Burgess is good fun to read. In it Burgess resurrects his fat, lovable, poet antihero Enderby (killed off in A Clockwork Testament) who now finds himself employed by a theatre company in Indiana as a librettist for a musical about the life of Shakespeare. The director is famous for his nude Macbeth, the composer has an eye on the charts, the male lead is a Hollywood queen, but the 'dark lady' is a beautiful cabaret singer for whom Shakespeare himself might have fallen.
February 4, 2021
Found this about 20 years ago in a used bookstore in Pittsburgh. I didn't know much about Anthony Burgess at the time beyond A Clockwork Orange, but something compelled me to buy it. I'm glad I did. Enderby is a recurring character in Burgess's novels, a poet on the far side of middle age who in this story is contracted by a theater company in a tiny Indiana town to write the libretto for a Shakespeare musical and ends up falling in love with a nightclub singer.
September 1, 2013
While he was in the middle of a novel on the early years of Christianity, Anthony Burgess was constantly interrupted by visions of a fat man on a lavatory, furiously writing poetry. This is the last, and best story about him. If you loved Clockwork Orange, you'll be vastly puzzled by this. Indescribably brilliant. Contains the immortal lyric, 'To be, or not to be, in love with you...'
October 13, 2013
I actually thought this was the best of the Enderby books, somewhat to my surprise. Burgess had killed off Enderby in the third book, then decided to resurrect him in this fourth one. The plot revolves around Shakespeare, always a fruitful subject for Burgess. He seems to show off less in this book, and just tell a story. Wonderful stuff.
November 19, 2016
I found this to be the weakest of the series, but then, Shakespeare always seemed a bit too soap opera, public fiction for my taste. It was still enormously funny towards the end, and if you enjoy Burgess it's worth a look. However, it's not among his best works.
April 24, 2014
I don't really think this one should have been written.
May 15, 2014
Excellent conclusion to the Enderby series.
The start was a little slow, would be the only criticism. Overall possibly the most entertaining of the series.
The start was a little slow, would be the only criticism. Overall possibly the most entertaining of the series.
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