The End of the World News

What Hacker News says

1. nolanlMar 2017
   As a teenager I came across the eclectic medley of Anthony Burgess novels in my school's library, and fell in love. They're all so vastly different and weird and yet they made for great reading:

   - The Wanting Seed: sci-fi about an overpopulated planet, full of dry humor

   - The End of the World News: a musical about Trotsky's final days in Mexico, mixed with Freud and an Earth-destroying comet. Supremely weird but entertaining

   - Tremor of Intent: Ian Fleming-style spy novel

   He also wrote books on linguistics and was a composer. (Not sure about his compositions, but I have a degree in linguistics and found "A Mouthful of Air" to be solid.) Really underrated writer.

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2. cafardApr 2020
   My recollection is that the foreword to The End of the World News said essentially that it wasn't worth writing well any more. But I read that thirty-five years ago or so, and may have it wrong.

   Burgess's autobiographies, Little Wilson and Big God and You've Had Your Time are worth reading and quickly read. The former says a good deal about languages, and his experience teaching English to those whose first language might have been Malay, Chinese, or an Indian language; also the revolution in his thinking caused by learning Malay, where semantics trumped syntax.

   And I do like "I always quote the word violence, because the word violence is the most unviolent word in the world, because it contains violin, viol, violets." With a bit of searching on YouTube you should be able to find a Rocky and Bullwinkle sketch on just that notion.

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