"Così va il mondo, non puoi far altro che accettarlo: gloglottii coitali e abbandono alla promiscuità, masticazione di tessuti corporei e militaresco inquadramento."

Il problema dei romanzi a tesi, è che se la tesi non ti convince proprio, beh, non puoi nemmeno consolarti con un bel romanzo. E' questo il caso di Il seme inquieto: un romanzo che, lo dico adesso e lo ribadirò più e più volte, fosse solo per dare la misura del mio sgomento, non sembra affatto scritto dalla stessa mano che ha concepito Arancia meccanica.
Eppure è lo stesso Burgess a rivendicare questo romanzo come un figlio del suo celebre capolavoro: lì il problema della delinquenza giovanile e la questione morale della scelta, nel bene e nel male; qui il problema del sovrappopolamento, della scarsità delle risorse alimentari e la questione morale della difesa della vita, a tutti i costi. E così costruisce un mondo distopico nel quale le autorità rispondono al problema del sovrappopolamento con l'esaltazione dell'omosessualità, il controllo delle nascite, l'uso pilotato dei conflitti bellici e persino il cannibalismo. Le premesse sono ottime: i risultati, piuttosto deludenti.
Innanzitutto non emerge chiaramente quella che vuole essere la tesi di fondo. E anche quel poco che Burgess lascia trapelare pare poco convincente e plausibile. Pericolosissima è soprattutto l'analogia tra l'omosessualità e il cannibalismo, analogia vista, oltretutto, nell'ottica di un imperante cristianesimo di ritorno.
Non convince granché nemmeno la caratterizzazione di questo mondo distopico: una trattazione confusa, sconnessa, a tratti superficiale, mentre altre volte Burgess indugia fin troppo in dettagli inutili in modo imbarazzante. La distopia da lui creata pare dunque un'accozzaglia di idee prese qua e là, un saccheggio, oserei dire, delle grandi distopie del novecento, da Orwell a Bradbury a Philip K. Dick.
I personaggi, ancora, paiono incomprensibili: tanto il punto di vista del protagonista quanto quello della moglie traditrice (perché mai Burgess abbia scelto una donna che tradisce il marito col cognato - e ne rimane pure incinta, in barba alle leggi sulla riproduzione - come simbolo della difesa della vita, è difficile da capire) non sono condivisibili, né tantomeno riescono a suscitare nel lettore un minimo di coinvolgimento.
Quale interpretazione, dunque? Poco appetibile è la tesi di fondo dell'autore, ed errata mi pare l'interpretazione, che altrove ho incontrato, della storia narrata come farsesca, volutamente surreale, parodica (di parodico, forse, c'è solo l'apparente lieto fine). Non basta nemmeno la chiave di lettura bellico-centrica dell'altrimenti ottima postfazione di Paul Fussel, contenuta in questa edizione, che pone l'accento sulla parte finale del romanzo, in cui l'arruolamento, su inganno, del protagonista, permette a Burgess delle lucidissime riflessioni sulla guerra, in particolare sulla sua esperienza della Grande guerra.
Nemmeno le colte citazioni letterarie (da Shakespeare a Petrarca!) riescono a salvare questo romanzo; e dolorosa mi pare l'occulta autocitazione di Arancia meccanica, che fa intravedere Alex e i suoi drughi intenti a picchiare uno sprovveduto barbone ubriaco.
Piuttosto che calarmi in interpretazioni forzate, o lasciarmi convincere dalle tesi dell'autore, dunque, preferisco credere che questo romanzo non sia stato scritto davvero da Burgess, e lasciare così perfettamente immacolato il ricordo prezioso della lettura del suo grande e insuperato Arancia meccanica.

Situationally, The Wanting Seed reminded me of one of Philip K. Dick's more goofball novels (without the goofball inventiveness of PKD's futuristic concepts). In the future, a profoundly overpopulated earth contains a placid, "liberal" (in this case, as defined by the Catholic Burgess, meaning Godless and permissive) society where homosexuality, medically induced infertility, and childlessness are encouraged (but not strictly enforced, this being a "liberal" society and all).

Tristram Foxe, a history teacher, and his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, have just lost their infant son. Beatrice-Joanna is also having an affair with Tristram's brother Derek, a government official who pretends to be gay in order to climb the ladder of success. But the overpopulation, combined with a worldwide blight, causes unrest, which in turn causes the government to begin enforcing its suggestions as laws. Just when Tristram finds out about his wife's and brother's affair, he gets caught up in a food-shortage riot outside his building and is arrested. While he is in prison, the government completes its shift from what Burgess calls the Pelagian Phase to an Intermediate Phase (on its way, eventually, to the Augustinian Phase), wherein the previously liberal government becomes a repressive dictatorship. The once-placid world gives way to police roundups, rampant cannibalism, a resurgence of Christianity, and war.

Billed as a satire, I found The Wanting Seed to be plenty absurd, but not particularly funny. Fifty years ago (the book was written in 1962), I have no doubt that much of the "humor" was intended to be derived from the unnatural homosexual behavior of a few of the principal characters and several of the incidental characters. (I don't put "unnatural" in scare quotes above because the idea here is that the homosexual behavior of these characters is truly unnatural. That is, they would be heterosexual if it were up to them, but because of society's strictures, they are essentially forced to ACT gay in that stereotypical, homophobic way, with lots of mincing around, simpering, etc.--in addition to having sex with members of the same sex. Of course, in Burgess's view, clearly, all homosexuality is unnatural, thus making the use of the word "unnatural" redundant in this context, as far as he's concerned.)

Setting aside the outdated view that one's sexual orientation is a choice (i.e., that gay people are gay because they decided to be, not because it's a part of their genetic makeup)--not to mention to absurdity of believing that any society could successfully repress an entire civilization's sexual orientation (good luck convincing a horny teenage boy that he can't have sex with girls [or with boys, if that's his preference] because it's good for society)--why must the new norm of homosexuality in the distant future require the perceived characteristics of gay men circa 1962? Did the ancient Spartans sashay around with limp wrists, saying things like "Oh my gawd, bitch, where did you get those shoes"? Unlikely. Burgess was a Catholic, so his limited vision is not entirely surprising, but it still reveals his serious misunderstanding of how sexual attraction to one's own gender works, not to mention his inability to conceive of a new way in which men of the future, who have sex with other men, might act. In the end, Burgess used homosexuality as nothing more than a useful shorthand for showing how a Godless society has ruined itself.

As such, The Wanting Seed is embarrassingly dated, not to mention fairly unbelievable. And this unbelievability extends to other parts of the novel as well. When the civilization devolves, quite quickly, from a sterile, basically vegetarian society to a cannibalistic one, no one (including the main character) seems to have an even initial reaction of disgust to breaking one of the fundamental taboos of Western culture. I am reminded of the sci-fi novel n  Lucifer's Hammern in which a band of survivors after a worldwide catastrophe engage in cannibalism as a way of acclimating themselves to it, in case it becomes an absolute necessity as the world crumbles around them. But no one's happy about it, and most of the members of the group are pretty much forced to partake, because the thought of doing it voluntarily is, at first, too repellant. Not so in The Wanting Seed, where everyone seems pretty much OK with it (even enthusiastic about it) from the start.

Speaking of cannibalism, I found it equally unlikely that Tristram, after having escaped prison and trying to track down his wife during a brief period of lawlessness, is taken in by a small town of cannibals and treated generously. When he first arrived, I naturally believed that they would try to lure him in with their smiles and then eat him. But no, they were happy to feed him and send him on his way, which leads me to wonder where, exactly, they're getting all this human meat they're eating. Would they rather eat their own friends, family, and neighbors than some drifter passing through? I'm no cannibal, so maybe I just don't get it, but that seems unlikely to me.

The one part I found entirely believable is the final section, in which the unsuspecting and gullible are conscripted into a newly organized army (as wars had been a thing of the distant past) and forced to fight one's own countrymen, unknowingly, as a way of generating vast amounts of human meat for the remaining population. A sinister concept that rings true in an era where wars are already waged for ignominious reasons. For this (and for Burgess's usual lexical dexterity) I give the book two stars instead of one.

3.5 stars. A bit too political for my taste and the plot is hard to follow at times. However, it is definitely worth reading because it is very well crafted.

Deliciously dark - if you enjoyed “Clockwork” you might still want to take this one with tonic.

The Wanting Seed is what you get if you blend Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room!, Orwell’s 1984, and Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

“If you expect the worst from a person, you can’t ever be disappointed. Only the disappointed resort to violence.”

“All dirty words are fundamentally religious they are all concerned with fertility and the process of fertility and the organs of fertility.”

“…but sanity’s a handicap and a liability if you’re living in a mad world.”

“History is a wheel. This sort of world can’t go on for ever, either.”
–Anthony Burgess

I thought this was a really great book. Right up there with Clockwork Orange. I had been sceptacle about diving into this one, because "The Doctor is Sick" didn't really hold my interest as well. This strikes me as a dystopian future type novel, but you never hear anything about it. It should be right up there with "Brave New World" and "1984". This book concentrates overpopulation rather than a all-seeing government. People barely get enough food and there is a strict limit on reproduction...until it all goes over the edge. The government isn't able to hold it together and mob rule takes over, along with cannibalistic tendencies and orgies for reproduction. The main character, Tristram, goes from a life as a professor of history, to prisoner, to being in the army and discovering why the government is starting wars with no enemies. Good stuff.

Prompted by a conversation with my high school child, I tried to re-read A Clockwork Orange. I foundered on Anthony Burgess' invented language 'Nadsat', and so downshifted to an earlier and less challenging dystopia, a novel I never heard of called The Wanting Seed. The premise is the threat of cataclysmic overpopulation;' there are not one but two solutions: 1) the selective killing of lower class folk by staged warfare, unbeknownst to the 'soldiers', and 2) the voluntary reduction of reproduction via financial and other social (dis)incentives, including the official promotion of homosexuality at the expense of heterosexuality. The interesting new idea is that of the cycling of the 2 methods: a 'conservative' society that practices 1) alternates with a 'liberal' society that practices 2), with a single cycle happening even within a single lifetime. The protagonist happens to be a historian who can explicate the cycles and societies that he lives (and suffers) through, in effect giving the reader a personal tour of Burgess' dystopia. I found these ideas engaging and interesting, but I was a bit disappointed with the writing, especially my inability to sympathize with the historian.

This is an amazing book set in the future. My favorite line is "It's sapien to be homo!" The world is overpopulated, infanticide is legal, if your child dies you get money from the government, homosexuality is encouraged. Anthony Burgess is a genius!

В една година с „Портокал с часовников механизъм“ (1962 г.) в Англия излиза още една книга на Антъни Бърджес. Антиутопия, в която обществото губи либералните си ценности, минава през канибализъм, хипарска любов и фиктивни военни конфликти, преди отново да се завърне в изходна точка. В романа „Непокорното семе“, който сега излиза за първи път на български, Бърджес коментира безумията във Виетнам, разисква възможно ли е да се излезе от омагьосания кръг, съществува ли свободна воля и на какъв бунт е способен човек, осъзнал незначителната си роля в един абсурден свят.

Книгата започва с Беатрис Джоана Фокс – жена на средна възраст, която изпраща мъртвия си син в Министерството на земеделието. Трупът му ще се превърне в поредната „порция фосфорен пентаоксид за Майката Земя“. Съболезнованията в този парадоксален свят са радостен повод за повечето семейства и се получават под формата на скромна сума от Министерството на безплодието. Беатрис обаче не е щастлива. Докато върви по улиците, облепени с лозунга „Сапиенс е да си хомо“, тя за първи път поставя под въпрос нормалността на държавата. Едва в три страници Бърджес успява да установи, че над бъдещето е надвиснал облак на фалшиво приповдигнато настроение. Закони забраняват религиите, както и отглеждането на повече от едно дете. Светът, изглежда, с глуповата усмивка върви към катастрофа.

Тристрам, съпругът на Беатрис, преподава история. Благодарение на лекциите му бързо става ясна основата на новата идеология. Един непрестанен социално-политически кръговрат, в който се редуват либерализъм, хаос, консерватизъм и отново либерализъм, като критичната точка винаги е разочарованието на правителството от неговите подчинени. Там се намира�� героите в началото на романа – малко преди нещата съвсем да отидат по дяволите (макар те в този момент да не вярват в нищо метафизично). Беатрис има връзка с брата на Тристрам, който уж „е хомо“, но всъщност е хетеросексуален и лъже, за да се изкачва по-бързо към високите постове.

Антиутопичният свят на „Непокорното семе“ не е детайлен, както е при Оруел и Хъксли. Главите са несериозно кратки, но без ироничната фрагментарност на Вонегът. Бърджес обръща по-голямо внимание на произволни епизоди или иронични закачки с миналото, отколкото на текстурата на средата. Запознат с недъзите на „Непокорното семе“, той не крие амбицията си в по-късен етап да напише произведение, което заложените идеи заслужават, но това така и не се случва. С темите на дистопичната модерност ще се справи по-добре Джеймс Балард през следващото десетилетие.

Една от по-интересните концепции в „Непокорното семе“ е противопоставянето между келтския монах Пелагий и Августин Блажени, около което Бърджес формира споменатата по-горе цикличност с три фази – либерализъм, хаос и консерватизъм. Според правилата на това бъдеще героите биват тласкани от процеси, които дали разбират, дали не, няма особено значение – така или иначе действието преминава от една фаза към друга:

Ще видиш. Първо ще настане епоха на свободната любов, а след това отново ще се наложат християнските ценности. Няма причина за притеснение.

„Непокорното семе“ остава книга, в която не изпъкват герои, идеите са интересни, но не са уплътнени с атмосфера и усещане за място. Благодарение на иновативния и колоритен език „Портокал с часовников механизъм“ е по-добрият роман от същата година, като след нея Бърджес заслужава да се чете заради живите си критически есета, особено заради книгата за Шекспир, издадена у нас като „Очи със слънце несравними“ („Изток-Запад“, 2019 г.), интересен нов поглед към „изобретателя на човешкия дух“. Освен като плодотворен писател, който достига темпото от три романа на година, Бърджес се подвизава и като композитор, което неудобно напомня, че клишето за съотношението между количество и качество все пак понякога е вярно.

Култура / Брой 5 (2978), Май 2021

The Wanting Seed is a great read. Part societal study and certainly a criticism of British society. Anthony Burgess ask what happens to British society if the population overwhelms food supplies. This has been called a comedy, but I am not sure I agree. It is certainly satire, but not so sure it is funny. He certainly lampoons the upper crust and social climbers along with British stoicism, yet it is wrapped in tragedy.

The Wanting Seed watches the death of government, but not of a people and how somehow they manage to carry on in their own way. How different levels of society first react and then respond to the failing food and their way of rationalization to differentiate themselves from the "others" and their lower ways. It is also a analogy of changing times England faced when the book was written and should be seen in this light. It is a statement of the ordinary average man in changing times where he no longer recognizes his place. Nothing is normal and the world he knows is gone upside down.

This is a great read and I have not done the book justice with this review. The Wanting Seed is well worth the time.

I so wanted to like this.

The dystopian world that Burgess has created hits all the right marks: it’s rooted in real life trends and thus is sickeningly believable, and it presents a progression of worldly affairs that is not too hard to imagine as a possible one.

“A rejection of so many things, it was blasphemy against life in the name of reason”

In some cases, the dystopia is actually way milder than the very real reality that we live in today. While in the novel the mega state (the globalist government), is the one who preaches, propagandises and polices the state-enforced homosex (encouraged with vast amounts of privileges, while heterosex is severely penalised and persecuted), whereas in reality it’s the state, the media, the banks, the corporations, big tech and big pharma, a plethora of NGOs, the school system, the entertainment industry, and every man and his dog, who encourage, promote and impose it on us en masse.

“The sound mind is an obstacle and a burden, if you live in an insane world”

And conformity is bountiful in the novel, as societies tend to be. We see the ultra-sexualised womaniser Derek, who acts as the biggest gay there is, just so he can fit well in the beast system and uses it for a rapid career progression, while he secretly shags his sexy brother’s wife. But as soon as the regime changes, he becomes the biggest heterosexual macho there is – whatever works best in the current political climate.

You can’t get more real than that and we see it nowadays too: the ex-communist nomenclature currently leads “pro-capitalist and free” Europe. Sickening. We see it with the laymen too: a universe of cucks and simps and conformists, men who say they are feminists, men who cut off their manhoods (figuratively speaking), so they can fit in and comply with the beast system that hates their guts, so they are not ostracised when they speak the truth, when they act boldly and bravely and manly, just because it’s easier to conform. You remember Carpenter’s masterpiece “They Live”, right? Screw that, it’s dystopian hell.

“Sin is in fact a synonym of selfishness”

But the novel’s dystopian world is at the same time too harsh at parts. The widespread cannibalism and pagan ritualism in the second half is a tad harder to believe, not at the speed with which the transition happens in the novel, at least. But then again, we clearly see the Overton Window of absurdity change ever so rapidly these days too, so who knows. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” said Voltaire back in the day and he was right.

One thing is a definite bulls-eye, however: Burgess’ commentary on the cyclical nature of politics and civilization is spot on.

“The best of both worlds; women always managed to get the best of both worlds”

But alas, albeit the excellent world-building, the story and characters themselves are lacklustre. The novel feels incomplete, like an unfinished work. Bland characters, poor and unconvincing character arcs, a borderline B-movie plot.

It’s a shame, because with the awesome and scary dystopian world that Burgess has created, this could have been a masterpiece.

Anthony Burgess’s future fictional dystopia The Wanting Seed was published in 1962, the same year as his famous A Clockwork Orange.

In his 1982 Foreword Burgess states: ‘The Wanting Seed tries to show … that the response to the prospect of overcrowding and starvation might well be a culture which favoured sterility by promoting homosexuality and rewarding self-castration. But, my instinct argued, nature might respond to human sterility with sterile patterns of its own, and the solution to the population problem could be more ruthless and more logical… I cannot foresee the highly schematic world of (the book) as ever coming to birth, but I think some aspects of it – the glorification of the homosexual, for instance – are already with us.’

No date is given for the world we enter. Certainly, overpopulation has become a global problem in this world of Burgess’s future. Harry Harrison’s novel Make room! Make room! on the same subject (and filmed as Soylent Green) was published in 1966. Interestingly, Burgess uses a similar phrase on p164: ‘ “No room, no room” fluted a thin donnish person…’

‘…planetary survival dependent on the balance of population and a scientifically calculated minimal food supply; tighten belts; win through; evil things they would be fighting; long live the King’ (p53).

It was ‘a near-vegetarian world, non-smoking, teetotal except for ale’ (p38). Later, there is a revolt against this restrictive life-style: ‘Man is a carnivore, just as man is a breeder. The two are cognate and the two have been suppressed’ (p165).

Religion is side-lined, taboo, even, the Pope’s ‘an old, old man on St Helena’ (p40): ‘We were right to throw God out and install Mr Livedog in his place. God’s a tragic conception’ (p42). They use odd phrases, such as Dognose for ‘God knows’… [This is a darkly comic novel, after all!]

Great Britain as we know it has altered radically: ‘Greater London had eaten further into Northern Province and Western Province; the new northern limit was a line running from Lowestoft to Birmingham… the old designations of Wales and Scotland no longer had any precise significance’ (p8). Their trains are nuclear-propelled (p95) – another reason to stop HS2?

The culinary arts are grim: ‘served him with a cutlet of reconstituted vegetable dehydrate cold… A nut was a ‘nutrition-unit, creation of the Ministry of Synthetic Food’ (p51). Tristram was trying to ‘eat a sort of paper cereal moistened with synthelac and… he found it very difficult to spoon down the wet fibrous horror: it was somehow like having to eat one’s words’ (p57). It isn’t just food that is compliant with the dictates of the authorities: ‘Bless their little cotton-subsitute socks, the darlings…’ (p153).

The main protagonists are Beatrice-Joanna, her husband Tristram Foxe and his brother Derek. Recently the State Health Service had sent her dead child to the agriculture department for decomposition – ‘useful to the State as phosphorous’ (p4).

Derek is Beatrice’s secret lover, even though he pretends to be homosexual. Homos get priority for all the prime jobs in the Establishment. Tristram is informed that his expected promotion has been blocked in favour of ‘a castrato, a pretty strong candidate’ (p32). ‘… being homo, do you see, wipes out all other sins…’ (p77).

‘For generations people had lain on their backs in the darkness of their bedrooms, their eyes on the blue watery square on the ceiling: mechanical stories about good people not having children and bad people having them, homos in love with each other, Origen-like heroes castrating themselves for the sake of global stability’ (p184).

And a new corps has been formed: Population Police; Peppol. Dressed in a black uniform, cap with shiny peak, badge and collar-dogs ashine with bursting bomb, which proved on closer inspection, to be a breaking egg’ (p60). And its first Metropolitan Commissioner is Derek – ‘brother, betrayer, lover’.

Assisting the Peppol were the auxiliaries, greys. There are certain telling scenes that send a chill, bearing in mind the prevalent gender activist issues: ‘ “Mind your own business. Woman,”’ (the grey) added with scorn… Very much a woman, mind her own business, socially and biologically, she shrugged…’ (p65).

Beatrice’s sister is married to Sonny, an outspoken God-fearing man living in the countryside, well away from the Peppol patrols. His wife says of him: ‘He may be sane, but sanity’s a handicap and a disability if you’re living in a mad world’ (p151).

By Part Four, things are not going well. ‘Electricity, like other public utilities seemed to have failed’ (p163). Maybe there is hope, however, as someone observes: ‘When the State withers, humanity flowers’ (p167).

Towards the end of the novel, Tristram is conscripted into the army. Annexe Island B6 was a ‘limited area anchored in the East Atlantic, intended originally to accommodate population overflow, now compactly holding a brigade’ (p227). Burgess’s time in the army seems reflected in many observations here. ‘Nobody sang, though. The fixed bayonets looked like a Birnam Wood of spikes’ (p251).

In conclusion, stating nothing that can’t be found in the book blurb: ‘We in Aylesbury are at least civilised cannibals. It makes all the difference if you get it out of a tin’ (172). Even if the tins are supplied by China…

In this world there is no social media and no smartphones; they use wrist micro-radios (p44). ‘The new books were full of sex and death, perhaps the only materials for a writer’ (p270). Indeed, there is sex and death in this book – but, despite all, there is hope also.

The book’s title is a play on The Wanton Seed, a refrain from the folk-song of that name; Burgess states that the ambiguity is appropriate.