The Wanting Seed as AH

[zoomar]

"The Wanting Seed" by Anthony Burgess.

Who's read this and what do you think of it as AH. Like "A Clockwork Orange" it was written as dystopian future history and satire but can perhaps be enjoyed today as alternate history

 

[Leo Caesius]

It's something like the right-wing response to Atwood's A Handmaiden's Tale, isn't it? (and yes, I realize that it predates Atwood's novel).

I've always wanted to read it. I like Burgess very much - irascible, curmudgeonly, iconoclastic - he seems like my kind of guy. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a copy anywhere and I've been steering clear of public libraries. I'll check my university library and see what they have to offer (I found a copy of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, about a fascist takeover of the US, which I would never check out of a public library).

 

[Prunesquallor]

Actually it's not- it's very difficult to categorise politically. But it's very funny and extremely inventive with quite a few in-jokes.

 

[zoomar]

Leo, uh..why won't you go to a public library?

Anyway, I agree with Prunesquallor. It is not nearly as easy to categorize politically once you get past Burgess's basic "it is wrong to mess with basic human nature" message which enfuses much of his work.

 

[Leo Caesius]

I'd just rather not. When I was growing up, my mother always used to warn me not to take certain books out of the library because I'd end up on some sort of government watchlist. I used to think that she was crazy (even though she, a den mother and sunday school teacher, who dedicated her life to teaching children with learning disabilities, was hardly a radical), but after reading this, now I'm not so sure.

 

[zoomar]

I'd just rather not. When I was growing up, my mother always used to warn me not to take certain books out of the library because I'd end up on some sort of government watchlist. I used to think that she was crazy (even though she, a den mother and sunday school teacher, who dedicated her life to teaching children with learning disabilities, was hardly a radical), but after reading this, now I'm not so sure.

And they don't also have spies at Universities where the real enemies of America reside? Hey, if your public library is anything like mine, you don't need to check it out. Just walk briskly out the door with the book in hand. The bells will ring but nobody will stop you. Not that I've done anything of the sort, of course. I sit down in a corner with all the homeless people, child molesters and internet perverts and read.

 

[Leo Caesius]

I pity the special agent given the chump job of examining the list of books that I've check out of the university library. Even the titles are boring (to say nothing of the contents).

I have a Palestinian friend whose father was a Baathist and is an important figure in Fatah today. His specialty is computational linguistics, so we generally end up talking about linguistics, machine translation, and the problems inherent in developing a written standard for colloquial dialects of Arabic (such as Palestinian). Assuming that his phone is bugged (a good assumption, given that the Federal government is now shadowing romance novelists), I can tell you that I wouldn't want to be the federal agent responsible for recording these conversations; he must be bored to tears.