The Doctor Is Sick [Paperback]

Anthony Burgess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 1997

"Fine, sly, rich comedy. . . "—The New York Times Book Review

Dr. Edwin Spindrift has been sent home from Burma with a brain tumor. Closer to words than to people, his sense of reality is further altered by his condition. When he escapes from the hospital the night before his surgery, things and people he hardly knew existed outside of his dictionaries swoop down on him as he careens through adventures in nighttime London.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Fine, sly, rich comedy. -- New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Anthony Burgess is the author of many works, including The Wanting Seed, Nothing Like the Sun, The Doctor Is Sick, The Long Day Wanes, Honey for the Bears, and ReJoyce. He died in 1993.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316025
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316025
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #519,058 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

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burgess' Autobiographical Meeting with Hallucinatory Punks, June 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Doctor Is Sick (Paperback)

Burgess, when misdaignosed with a brain tumor began writing with a vengeance and purpose, having had what looked like a terminal illness and having come out misdiagnosed. He used this as a source for The Doctor is Sick, in which the narrator slips in and out of time due to the misfiring of his brain. One of the high points of the book is when, in his hospital bed, after surgery for a brain tumor, he is visited by some characters from A Clockwork Orange (which Burgess rightfully considered his worst book, even before the American publisher deleted the only redeeming quality of the book, the final chapter, in which the hoodlums become middle-aged and boring). Resurrected in The Doctor is Sick, the punk characters become more believable--we can see their backgrounds and families in their speech. Both the genius of his linguistic projections onto future slang and his humorous intent in the characters' personalities and speech are more clear here than in the Clockwork book/movie he's best known for by the public at large. As with nearly all his books, the characters, events, and quips blend together, and you'll want to keep it on your shelf for rereading after reading other pieces of his

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mindblowing, July 12, 2001

By 

KaguyaHime (Fomalhaut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Doctor Is Sick (Paperback)

I bought this book after being mesmerized by "A Clockwork Orange"

While nothing like ACO (except for Burgess's masterful use of language), this book was every bit as riveting.

Dr. Edwin Spindrift, a linguistics professor in Burma, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. He, accompanied by his oddball wife, goes to London for medical treatment.

In the hospital, the mellow Spindrift meets a whole assortment of people: unique patients, arrogant insensitive physicians, cold uncaring nurses, rude orderlies, distant medical technicians, and the people who love them. Confused, bored, and exasperated with painful medical tests, Spindrift "escapes" the brain ward to disappear into nighttime London.

Misty and cold "civilized" London is very alien to the doctor, who has grown accustomed to sunny tropical Burma. Fascinated and horrified at the same time, Spindrift wanders the dark recesses of a Modern Western City in search of... something. Or maybe he's just running.

Spindrift runs into some very strange and utterly believable people. He finds himself in unusual, bizarre situations, every one of them genuine and real. More at home with language and words than with people, Spindrift is nevertheless spellbound by the alien Londoners with their colorful speech and habits.

After numerous adventures (or misadventures), he finds himself back in the stark, bright, antiseptic hospital. The hospital being so very alien in its own way, Edwin Spindrift PhD wonders just how many of those bizarre memories were real... in retrospect, things seem so amazing.

The story is a bit dated yet enough has remained the same (proof that some things may never change) that Spindrift's wild trip is still understandable and imaginable. It's a story of perceptions, or false perceptions. TDIS was one of those rare books that I had to set down sometimes to THINK about what I had just read. I hadn't done that with a book in a long time. I enjoyed not only reading this book, but thinking about it, too.

A very sly tale. Highly recommended.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humanity is Sick, August 5, 2001

By 

"umd_cyberpunk" (MA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Doctor Is Sick (Paperback)

Anthony Burgess (the late), author of many books including, "A Clockwork Orange," brings another masterful piece of literature to the English language.

"The Doctor is Sick," showcases Burgess tallents as a linguistic master with a control of and look at the English language in its many forms. Burgess' use of the English language as a plot moving device is at the same level of pure genius that it reached in his most famous novel, "A Clockwork Orange."

At the same time, this is a sentimental tale that looks at the modern world and its tendancy to dehumanize and objectify people. Funny, and comedic in an off kilter satirical way, this novel tries to bring the humanity back to the protagonist, the sick professor, Edwin Spindrift.

The story shows the same cyincal look towards the hospital, and specifically mental health issues, that were later seen in the second of Burgess' "Enderby" tales.

This is truely the story of the humanization of Dr. Spindrift and his joining the "real" world for the first time in his life. A wonderfuly written, bittingly satrical and greatly humorous book, this is a must read for anyone who enjoyed "Clockwork," the widely read "Complete Enderby," or any of Burgess' other works of fiction.

There is an insider look at the medical world, Burgess, who himself was diagnossed with a brain tumor, brings his own knowledge of the condition and adds to it the satire on British institutions that was a common theme in his fiction.

Anthony Burgess shows us that humanity is sick as much as the good doctor, and that it might be out tendancy to lose the human in the machines of every day life, that is the real problem.