I was not totally convinced about this. It took a while to get into but was definitely different

Decent at the end but overall not much sizzle. Burgess runs hot and cold with me.

My first Burgess after reading "A Clockwork Orange" in high school. An easy read with an entertaining narrative and interesting story. I'll definitely have to read more of his stuff!

My first encounter with the works of Burgess came in the 1970s, starting with A Clockwork Orange, after which I read several of his novels in a frenzy. The others were: A Vision of Battlements; Enderby (it was a single novel, with just that simple title, and not the current omnibus); The Wanting Seed; Napoleon Symphony; and this one, One Hand Clapping. To sum him up in the most general way, Burgess is indeed something else. I found all of his novels at least memorably entertaining, and a couple were absolutely brilliant. And when you consider the range of his novels, and the scope of his subjects, you can't disagree with Gore Vidal's assessment, who believed Burgess was one of the three best novelists from England, "but [Burgess] was unlike the whole lot in the sense that one never knew what he would do next." Vidal added, "He resisted category." Ain't that the truth.

It was when I read this novel that I realized just how gifted a storyteller Burgess was, the way he made it sound so easy. He fully captured the uncomplicated first-person voice of the naive housewife Janet Shirley. Together, she and her husband Howard are a very dull couple in most ways, except that Howard, ordinary man that he is, has an extraordinary photographic memory. He decides to enter a game show with the aim of winning the top prize. Through Mrs. Shirley's eyes, the reader is treated to observations -- humorous for their naivete -- that hint that there is something squirming in Mr. Shirley's gifted brain, while the first observer herself remains completely unaware of the implications of his disturbing behavior. To her, they were quirky; to the reader, they were portentous. Burgess made his narrator so vivid, I easily believed that she could be oblivious to what was so plainly obvious to the reader. I saw the novel as comic brilliance, and I never stopped thinking about it down through the years. Whenever I think of a fine example of a first-person narrative, this is the novel that comes to mind. It was the trick Burgess pulled of sharing information with his reader that provided a long view and a bigger picture, while the simple-minded Janet missed it altogether. I had to read this again, so I bought it recently, one of those nifty trade paperbacks. It turned out to be as good as my not-so-photographic memory told me it was. In fact, I found it a better read the second time, because I knew what I was looking for. The narrative bears the distinct Burgess brand of originality, but in this case is also easily accessible and deceptively simple.

In one scene in the story, the prize money has climbed to the grand sum. During the live broadcast, at this critical juncture, Howard appears to have given an incorrect answer. But Howard, so confident in his abilities, recommends that a bit of research would prove his answer correct. Janet is watching from a seat in the live audience, and tells us, "Then there was a kind of chaos. You got the idea that people were wildly ringing people up on the phone, and that other people were wildly going through big books somewhere at the back of the studio, and meanwhile the organist, who I also met and I thought was not a very nice sort of man, was playing sort of spooky music on his electric organ to fill up the time."

This is a very good book, with a simple tone befitting its understated comic flair. If you're a Burgess fan and you've not read this one, you should treat yourself to this gem of a story. Aside from the darkly comic voice, the plot itself is too original to miss.
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3.5 stars

Very good read. Burgess doesn't disappoint.

A lot of the spirit of the Angry Young Men, even though it is a novel.

Entertaining

Very weird (Anthony Burgess of course) book that reminded me in some ways of Infinite Jest the way that most people interpreted real life events through the lens of television shows to make sense of them. That they were so disassociated with reality that it needed an artificial television narrative to make sense of it. In this world, there is a couple one of whom has the disassociated television series filter view of the world and the other who has a warped classical philosophical sort of nihilistic view of life. The story plays out from there. I found the ending a little disappointing. I realize he was building to a rollicking close out, but I wanted something more original and extreme.

Clever little book by a very clever chap that loves his cleverness. I was mostly engaged & entertained but I have quite a few buts & would rather discuss these 'buts' with you over a cup of tea.
I give this novella a 7 out of 10.

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