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A review by astroneatly
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess, John B. Wilson
dark
funny
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I’ve been looking for a moment to discuss infantilism and now, here we are, I’ve just read Anthony Burgess’s book which follows Sigmund Freud and Trotsky as an apocalyptic star or planet called “Lynx” is about to slide into her dm’s, Lynx is gonna steal ur girl… The Moon, that is, as if it was so simple. Well, anyway, Siggy and his ilk are busy getting psychoanalysis into the consciousness of humans, because it’s really good to know that all of our trauma can be summed up in Hamlet; The son wants to murder the father, because he had a genital fixation on his mother since birth, desiring nothing more than a return to the womb. Turns out, children aren’t as innocent as we thought, and Freud has the fanaticists up in arms… all this is happening in the midst of bourgeoisie planning to escape the wrath of Lynx and start up some space hotels and organized copulation, leaving the Proletarian working class in about the same spot it’s always been- the Capitalist’s line of fire. So Trotsky is in exile and planning an escape into Mexico, Siggy is dying of mouth cancer and distrustful of his successor, Jung, and the cast of Hamlet are going to acquisition a rocket into space, professing that Noah wouldn’t have needed a boat to escape the flood, he’d need a spaceship.
“The ports had always had words ready for the end of the world.” So I’ve read another book about Sigmund Freud that followed the very same formula as a murder mystery. That was “The Interpretation of Murder” by Jed Rubenfeld. That was kind of a silly book, but it’s very hard to read anything by Anthony Burgess without taking it seriously, if you know anything about him and what he wrote about.
Ultimately I was given some of the answers to a past I had kept locked away and buried… I have to wonder how Freud nailed it on the head. I wouldn’t discredit his work, because it all makes sense: You want to kill your father because of sexually coveting your mother. The whole curse I live with can be boiled down to Freudian speculation; “You didn’t want to replace your father - you wanted to punish him for being a weak man, dominated by your powerfully aggressive mother. Is that a just summary?” Another Anthony Burgess knocked out this year, a profound and illuminating author and one of my favs.
“The ports had always had words ready for the end of the world.” So I’ve read another book about Sigmund Freud that followed the very same formula as a murder mystery. That was “The Interpretation of Murder” by Jed Rubenfeld. That was kind of a silly book, but it’s very hard to read anything by Anthony Burgess without taking it seriously, if you know anything about him and what he wrote about.
Ultimately I was given some of the answers to a past I had kept locked away and buried… I have to wonder how Freud nailed it on the head. I wouldn’t discredit his work, because it all makes sense: You want to kill your father because of sexually coveting your mother. The whole curse I live with can be boiled down to Freudian speculation; “You didn’t want to replace your father - you wanted to punish him for being a weak man, dominated by your powerfully aggressive mother. Is that a just summary?” Another Anthony Burgess knocked out this year, a profound and illuminating author and one of my favs.