Beard's Roman Women: A novel [Hardcover]

Anthony Burgess (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 155 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070089604
• ISBN-13: 978-0070089600
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,527,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anthony Burgess (25th February 1917-22nd November 1993) was one of the UK's leading academics and most respected literary figures. A prolific author, during his writing career Burgess found success as a novelist, critic, composer, playwright, screenwriter, travel writer, essayist, poet and librettist, as well as working as a translator, broadcaster, linguist and educationalist. His fiction also includes NOTHING LIKE THE SUN, a recreation of Shakespeare's love-life, but he is perhaps most famous for the complex and controversial novel A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, exploring the nature of evil. Born in Manchester, he spent time living in Southeast Asia, the USA and Mediterranean Europe as well as in England, until his death in 1993.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Anthony Burgess absurdism, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beard's Roman Women: A novel (Hardcover)

This book is a partially autobiographical sketch of Anthony's experience as a widower, featuring his quirky and unbalancing sense of humor. Some may find parts a little too disturbing, but if you like his writing its worth the read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cute little romp through, June 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Beard's Roman Women: A novel (Hardcover)

"Burgessian" Rome. Like the locations of many of his novels, Rome here takes on a texture that can only exist in Burgess. The plot concerns Mr. John Beard, a hack writer having a hell of a time (so to speak) in the Eternal City. Full of Nabokovian autoparody (a "better" writer visits Mr. Beard and pounds away at some of Burgess's own aesthetics) and some fairly relentless lascivity, "Beard's Roman Women" will be appreciated most by the Burgess-fanatics

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars four liberted girl-rapists in baroque Via Veneto, October 30, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beard's Roman Women: A novel (Hardcover)

Everything about this novel is superficial, and intentionally so. Ronald, the main character, speaks of his own utterances in Dante-esque terms.

Ronald closes the end of the novel speaking to Greg Greg. He says "TAXI, Stop you basturd. Christ, he has."

This novel is a summation of 1970's angst mired in the elusive and somewhat unrequired escapism so purported to be overly important in American culture.

Ronald wants so much from life that he is halted. He can't process the simple cold hard fact that life has brought him a cold hard unfeeling existence. He calls for a taxi (a vehicle to take him away) and he is in awe.

Ronald remains in denial and close to death at the novel's end.