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1985

anthony burgess

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This two-part response to 1984 minutely analyzes the original novel, and, after Burgess decides that 1984 will not resemble Orwell's fantasy, creates a comic counter-novel of future Britain

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1978

This edition

Format
272 pages, Hardcover
Published
January 1, 1978 by Little Brown \u0026 Co
ISBN
9780316116510
ASIN
0316116513
Language
English

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About the author

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anthony burgess

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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.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
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snowflower234
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Anthony Burgess takes on Orwell with a follow-up that is both more and less successful than the original. He begins the work with an exegesis of 1984 that’s a genuinely interesting read, though his theories on the cyclical nature of history are old hat to anyone who’s read The Wanting Seed. But after staking out his position on Orwell, Burgess proceeds to try his hand at anti-idyllic society. Here he has an edge on his predecessor inasmuch as his political constructs are a little more down-to-earth and a great deal less sentimental. Replacing outright totalitarianism with dysfunctional syndicalism starts out as a good idea. The problem is that in fairly short order things turn … well … silly. Though Burgess’s world is more believable in some respects, it’s also much less impressive. The author brings his usual gift for language to the task, but I can’t help but wish he’d accomplished something a bit more substantial.
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Sanji-delas
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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DNF. I enjoyed that first half of the book, which had some interesting observations to make about Orwell and his novel 1984. However, I couldn't bring myself finish Burgess' fictional response to 1984. This is set in a hyper-violent version of the UK, now called TUC Land because the trade unions have taken over. Burgess himself admitted that dystopian fiction is really about the time in which it is written and he chose here to focus on fears about the power of the unions, teenage violence, hyper-sexualisation and immigration. Interestingly, he predicted graphic images of lung cancer on cigarette packets (which didn't appear until much later), but otherwise Burgess doesn't seem to have foreseen the impact of technology on our lives. He definitely didn't predict the complete crushing of the Trade Union movement by Thatcher and subsequent Conservative governments, leading to the erosion of workers' rights. I still think Burgess is a provocative and erudite author: it's just not what I'm interested in reading at the moment.
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impala39
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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على الرغم من انه الكاتب اعطى العرب اكبر من حجمهم و ظن انهم رح يمسكو المجتمع الاوروبي بهيك وقت .. و على الرغم من نظرهم الي كلها حقد و كره للعرب .. الا انه الكتاب جدا و ممتع و في كتير من الشياء الصح الي صارت اجتماعيا و اقتصاديا بالعالم بشكل عام
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NoKIa_the_best
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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After repeatedly swooning over Burgess’ writing, the time has come for me to be deeply disappointed. ‘1985’ is meant as his response to Orwell’s ‘1984’, an alternative perspective of the future if you will.

The book is split into two parts, the first one is a non-fiction piece that analyses the historical context in which ‘1984’ was written and critiques the level of trust in that prediction. I didn’t find it as interesting as I had hoped: Burgess speaks about some elements that I would find any reader could think of, such as how language affects the way of thinking, sex vs. love and what this means for the main characters, and depicting a world that is constantly and forever going through war. It’s nothing that eye-opening. Also, Burgess comes across as quite offensive and even points out aspects he considered poorly constructed or political thoughts that I found really right wing.

The second part is his view of 1985, 10 years into the future at the time of the book being written. It’s just not that different? UK is now Islamic, children are being sexualised and there are bogus procedures, bureaucracy and mechanics, little job security but plenty of monitoring and supervision. We hear of Bev who loses his wife and job while having to provide for his sick daughter, yet he is just really meh. There is no reason to care, pity or gain any interest in him and the whole thing just drags on. Sadly, not even the writing worked for me, it seemed like the story was going in circles and it was far less original than hi other books.

Nope. I’m sad.
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Reiaika
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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It is always interesting to see one good author's take on another. In this case Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed, evaluates and criticizes George Orwell's 1984. After extensive interviews and essays on the nature of Orwell's seminal work, Burgess pens his own short novella, entitled 1985 (to avoid plagiarism, so he says.) Burgess's view of the cacotopian future is much closer to his own vantage point in strike plagued late 70's Britain, than was Orwell's in the immediate post WWII era. Orwell had originally envisioned calling his novel Nineteen Forty Eight such was the perceived similarity between his own environment and that of Winston Smith's, but the publisher persuaded him to set it in the future. Burgess, living through that era as well remembers clearly the chronic shortages of razor blades and soap, the pervasive smell of boiled cabbage, the ubiquitous rubble and the slogans emblazoned on walls and billboards. Burgess even suggests that 1984, rather than a dark forecast of a dystopian future is actually a satirical stab at socialist England in 1948. In his essays, Burgess addresses questions such as these: As a devoted lifelong Socialist, what made Orwell cast INGSOC in such horrific terms? Why does an author and novelist distrust words so much that he would create Newspeak? How does the rise of the Labour Party and the British trade unions foreshadow the real loss of personal freedom that underscored the horror of the totalitarian Big Brother? What is it about revolutions that are inherently progressive? If you loved 1984, read this and find out one man's answers to these and many other questions.
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MadisonLluvia
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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It would be hard to describe how disappointed I was by the author of Clockwork Orange when I heard his actual views on politics and government. First half of the book – the reflections on 1984 and Orwell – is mostly a collection of conservative right-wing half-truths like: state helping the poorest = killing the beauty of charity, workers in unions = state economy destroyed etc. What is saddening the most is the fact that one can actually find some interesting insights about (for example) the post-war British experience and Orwell's place in it. Also the author proves that he is well educated and read. But that doesn't change the fact that most of the book (the story itself including) is just notes-from-the-underground-like rambling of a dissatisfied conservative. The story itself is an anti-utopia, where union strikes lead to deaths of people (Wage increase for the working class? How dare they!) and loss of values leads to chaos. But in reality (in my opinion) it's just an internal dialogue of the author, continuation of the previous parts...
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TabbyCat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A sloppily-written, half-assed, woefully-conceived agenda piece. Burgess should have been publicly shamed for writing such vomit. And maybe he would have been, had he but lifted his nose out of his typewriter.
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