One Hand Clapping

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"Sometimes when I'm at work and waiting for customers I think about the two of us living like kings and not bothering about the future. Because there may not be any future to bother about, you know. Not for anybody, one of these days. And it's a wicked world."
Average couple Janet and Howard's lives begin to unravel when Howard's photographic memory helps win him a gameshow fortune. Janet doesn't want their lives to change that much. She's quite happy working at the supermarket, cooking for her husband three times a day and watching quiz shows in the evening.
But once Howard unleashes his photographic brain on the world, the once modest used-car salesman can't seem to stop. And what he sees as the logical conclusion to his success isn't something Janet can agree to.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1961

About the author

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Librarian 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.

Community Reviews

Rating(4.2 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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100 reviews All reviews
April 26,2025
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“Otomatik Portakal”ın yazarı Anthony Burgess’ın biraz gözardı edilmiş romanı “Bir Elin Sesi Var” ilk defa 1961 yılında yayımlanmış. Burgess’ın “Otomatik Portakal” romanındaki gibi çok sade ve eğlenceli dili romanı bir çırpıda bitirmenize neden oluyor. TV’deki bir bilgi yarışmasında sadece fotoğrafik bir belleği olduğu için büyük para ödülünü kazanan işçi sınıfından bir genç ve onun güzel karısının değişen hayatını anlatan kitap yoğun bir pop kültür eleştirisi aynı zamanda. Çok büyük bir zenginlik elde eden çift, bu parayla nasıl yaşayacaklarını bulamadıkları gibi, dünyanın yoz yüzüyle de bir anda tanışıyorlar. Hiçbir şeyden zevk alamaz bir hale düşüyorlar...
April 26,2025
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I read this at some point after finishing school, feeling a continuing admiration for the author of A Clockwork Orange and wondering if his other titles were as good. The basic story of this one has stuck with me over the years, as have a few specific scenes. It deserves more attention than I think it got.
April 26,2025
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"I got the idea that wherever you went all that would matter would be the people, and they seem to be all pretty much the same. I suppose the only real reason for travelling is to learn that all people are the same. I tell you that now, so you don't need to waste your money on travelling."
April 26,2025
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Can’t help but compare this to many a Highsmith novel. Exasperating to watch the characters making one bad decision after another, but impossible to turn away from.
April 26,2025
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Wonderful book, like dark chocolate -- so sweet yet bitter at the same time.

Janet Shirley is so much fun as a narrator, she's the perfect foil for Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. At first she seems sweet, fun, down to earth and kind. Only little by little do you notice that she's not much interested in other people, only in her own pleasures. The nature of the pleasures is interesting, too. She's not a sadist like Alex, far from it. If she had her way she'd just be left to enjoy herself innocently in random sex, random spending, and random travel. She's only interested in having all the wonderful things people on TV have, and she doesn't care how she gets them. But violence and murder are only a means to an end, never an end in themselves.

Janet's husband Howard is a much less likable character. It's important to bear in mind that he's not entirely Burgess' stand-in. The cheap shots at modern culture, pop music and television probably reflect Burgess' views. But Burgess understands that Howard is just as dishonest about the past as popular culture is about the present. At one point Janet innocently remarks that Howard "is selling the past just like he sells one of his used cars" and that really sums it up.

But it's really Jan's book, and if you're like me you'll end up cheering for her in spite of yourself.
April 26,2025
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It was pretty average, though kind of dull for the first 2/3 of the book, then it got crazy. It's one of those books with a "twist", so if you're only half into it and not entirely convinced it's going to get better, stick with it!
April 26,2025
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It was certainly interesting to read a book by Burgess that took place during his time. This book mostly foreshadows human greed and lust. It wasn't as fast paced as The Wanting Seed or A Clockwork Orange, but it steadily kept me reading. I highly recommend it for anyone that enjoys looking into the dark side of "love", human emotion, greed, and capitalism overall.
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