Anthony Burgess’ favourite dystopian novels
When Stanley Kubrick‘s A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971, the movie amassed widespread controversy for its depiction of physical and sexual violence. The film even caused a string of copycat crimes, leading the director to pull it from British cinemas amid safety fears. Thus, the film wasn’t widely available to view in the United Kingdom until the early 2000s, a couple of years after Kubrick’s passing.
The contested film was based on Anthony Burgess’ novel of the same name, published nine years prior. Initially adapted loosely for the big screen by Andy Warhol, Kubrick eventually got his hands on the book’s rights, subsequently producing one of his finest films. The American director wanted his adaptation to closely mirror Burgess’ book, which he was obsessed with.
Kubrick explained: “I was excited by everything about it: the plot, the ideas, the characters, and, of course, the language. The story functions, of course, on several levels: political, sociological, philosophical, and, what’s most important, on a dreamlike psychological-symbolic level.”
A Clockwork Orange is a seminal dystopian text exploring a society where youth violence is rampant. At the forefront is Alex DeLarge, a teenage delinquent who loves nothing more than ‘ultraviolence’, engaging in activities like rape and murder. However, when he is placed in a rehabilitation centre and subjected to the Ludovico Technique, Burgess forces us to question the relationship between the individual and the state.
The popular novel is a staple of many high school and university curriculums, even if it was initially banned in various schools due to its violent content. Often found in dystopia modules, A Clockwork Orange remains a staple of the subgenre. Naturally, Burgess was a fan of other dystopian novels, like George Orwell’s 1984, one of the most renowned entries to the canon.
He explained: “This is one of the few dystopian or cacotopian visions which have changed our habits of thought. It is possible to say that the ghastly future Orwell foretold has not come about simply because he foretold it: we were warned in time. On the other hand, it is possible to think of this novel as less a prophecy than the comic joining together of two disparate things — an image of England as it was in the immediate post-war era, a land of gloom and shortages, and the bizarrely impossible notion of British intellectuals taking over the government of the country (and, for that matter, the whole of the English-speaking world).”
Moreover, Burgess was a fan of Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker. He said: “England after nuclear war, is trying to organize tribal culture after the total destruction of a centralized industrial civilization. The past has been forgotten, and even the art of making fire has to be relearned. The novel is remarkable not only for its language but for its creation of a whole set of rituals, myths and poems. Hoban has built a whole world from scratch.”
Facial Justice by L.P Hartley was also one of Burgess’ favourite dystopian novels, claiming, “This is a brilliant projection of tendencies already apparent in the post-war British welfare state but, because the book lacks the expected horrors of cacotopian fiction, it has met less appreciation than Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
Discover the complete list below.
Anthony Burgess’ favourite dystopian novels:
- 1984 – George Orwell
- Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban
- Facial Justice – L.P Hartley
- Island – Aldous Huxley
- The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
