“A major statement on the contemporary human condition”: Anthony Burgess and the aftermath of A Clockwork Orange

Biswell, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5137-0613 (2023) “A major statement on the contemporary human condition”: Anthony Burgess and the aftermath of A Clockwork Orange. In: Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 47-65. ISBN 9783031055980 (hardcover); 9783031055997 (ebook)

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Abstract

Anthony Burgess’s responses to A Clockwork Orange took many forms. In 1972, shortly after the release of Stanley Kubrick’s film of A Clockwork Orange, Burgess signed a contract with an American publisher for a non-fiction sequel to his 1962 novel. He proposed to write “a philosophical investigation into la condition humaine” which would develop lines of thought and argument from the novel and apply them to the political realities of the 1970s. The intended book was never completed. Drawing on manuscripts and letters in the archive of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, I have made a speculative reconstruction of Burgess’s “Clockwork Condition” book, showing the ways in which it connects with Kubrick’s film-making and the culture of the 1970s. Burgess’s critical writing about McLuhan provides another layer of context and meaning around his incomplete manuscript.