Anthony Burgess on Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

Many thanks to GuildfordGhost for preserving this.

[@thewolf888]

Thank you so much for posting this. I'm sitting in my room drinking red wine and for the first time understanding life and its consequences. Brilliant, thank you.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Thanks for visiting In Search of Anthony Burgess!

[@jimnewcombe7584]

I'm doing precisely the same - cheers!

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

@@jimnewcombe7584 Cheers Mr N.

[@steverhodesvideos6244]

Well worth watching again and again.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

It certainly is. I like this bit (at 7:34): 'He was sent to University College hospital in London, and there, in a bedside ceremony, was married to Sonia Brownell, one of the loveliest girls I've ever known. She was a close friend of my first wife, who is now dead. Sonia is dead. We're all dying.' That last part of the passage sparkles. (I should point out, as Burgess's videobiographer, that Burgess of course never knew Brownell, even though he seems to hint that he might have bedded her; moreover, Brownell was not a close friend of Burgess's first wife. This is an instance of Burgess's mythomania. And does it matter? Not in the slightest. The passage is so memorable that any amount of fabulism is more than acceptable; indeed the endless fabrications are part of the fun and thrill of Burgess.)

[@culturewarp]

I mention this in my book George Orwell on Screen, but have only ever seen it at the BFI before. Thanks for posting!

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

😃👍

[@summess5567]

A good summary of the major issues of Orwell's satire on 'How things are done in politics and a (Oligarch) controlled media' - But all the more impressive as Burgess clearly and specifically outlines exactly what was to happen to England (possibly the UK) by 2020, after 14 years of Far-RightTory rule. We're there.

[@Melvinshermen]

Rip Orwell and burgess

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Rest in peace indeed. I'll second that.

[@danielschaeffer1294]

Not surprising that Orwell was also the idol and model for another great literary critic and journalist - Christopher Hitchens. Imagine what a filmed conversation between Hitchens and Burgess would be like!

[@JamesHadfield-qz9rv]

Huge Thanks! have been a student of the Magnificent Anthony Burgess since viewing the equally brilliant Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "A Clockwork Orange." For me, there has never been a Finer writer! His Combination of intellect and Humor is unequalled (Kurt Vonnegut, as well) Would Loved to have read his screenplay for "Clockwork" that was rejected by the tempermental Kubrick (Kuprick?) whom alledgedly wrote himself. it's possible, like the saying goes (anything's) I'm pretty sure it was mostly there from original, would love to read it, is it available? Anyway, Orwell's prophetic tome was tremendous and accurate (2024) top 10 or atleast 20! had once thought of going to england and seeing Burgess's Birthplace and where he would Drink, But the country has followed america's war/invasion addiction in lockstep,so that's been dismissed. Perhaps Basel, Switzerland where Mankind's Salvation was Created by the Genius chemist Albert Hoffman! thanks again, PEACE

[@CA-kp9lt]

Any luck on finding the other half of this program? Been scouring the internet with no luck Regardless thank you for uploading what you got🙌🏽

[@Hobbitydobbity]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGnThZajp5qoeKs This other video seems to show that it does in fact end here. Shame because it seems to end abruptly and I was hoping to hear more of Burgess’ amazing analysis. Maybe I’m wrong though?

[@boldertash]

Oh how things have changed!

[@noctomd8517]

Thank you so much for uploading this! Burgess has taught me so much. I remember watching a video on your channel where AB was debating Andrea Dworkin. Suppose it got taken down? Do you still have it? It'd be terrific if you could send it my way. I would be eternally grateful.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

Greetings and thanks for visiting In Search of Anthony Burgess. Open Media's great KZbin channel have it. Enjoy! (Burgess gets progressively more inebriated as the evening wears on.) kzbin.info/www/bejne/qaTFmaOkrqpogsU

[@dengelke]

Wow - my favorite new release of 2023. Thank you. Also, this was aired on the Sci-Fi Channel?

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

It was indeed.

[@MarcWiddowson]

If only Burgess, and indeed Orwell, were with us today. Burgess seems to regard 1984 as a thought experiment that failed to make contact with the real course of human affairs. I wonder whether he would come to the same conclusions if he had the perspective of the last 40 years, especially the last 20 years. 1984 was a brilliant work, a contemporary mythos, that gave us vital conceptual tools for understanding the operation of modern political systems. With Newspeak, for example, Orwell intuited the authoritarian instinct for language policing that is now reaching absurd heights with "American", "field" and even "the" itself now being declared offensive and off-limits.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

I strongly agree with the above. Modern Western élites, led by Klaus Schwab, have long ago abandoned any illusion that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a mere dystopian warning, and are now employing the novel straightforwardly as a guide and textbook for their activities.

[@MarcWiddowson]

@@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess The Signet edition, describing the book as "A startling view of life in 1984: Forbidden love...Fear...Betrayal", presents the book as precisely what it is not, a sci-fi novel in the manner of an Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars-based saga.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

@@MarcWiddowson A precise negative indeed. Some of these American pulp versions of Orwell novels are hilarious. A favourite of mine is the Popular Library's 1952 (I think) edition of Orwell's 1934 novel Burmese Days. The blurb on the cover reads: 'SAGA OF JUNGLE HATE AND LUST ◼︎SHE KNEW ALL ABOUT LOVE! ◼She was seventeen, she was beautiful and she was for sale to the highest bidder. Ma Hla May was her Burmese name, but in any language she was perfect, and well worth the 200 rupees Flory had paid for her. All the way back to his jungle camp the Englishman felt the hot desire mount in him, but there was also a shyness in him, an apprehension about the girl's tender age and knowledge of men. Then they were in his room. The girl made herself ready. Flory stared at her in surprise. Moments later he got an even greater surprise from innocent-eyed Ma Hla May. FLORY HAD BOUGHT HIMSELF A WILDCAT!'

[@MarcWiddowson]

@@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess Phwoar.

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

@@MarcWiddowson 🥵🌶😅

[@stormlad]

Great stuff, thank you. But I wonder what Burgess might have said about 2023

[@pfhastie]

Not this.

[@lionelmerbles9375]

It seems to be true now- or perhaps more like Burgess own vision in the book 1985

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

'Prophets never get their prophecies right,' as Burgess says in the video, though his '1985' novel's vision had prophetic elements: the corruption and degradation of youth, which becomes semi-criminal at best, drug-addled, violent, antinomian; the advance of Mohammedanism across the British society and polity to fill the vacuum left by the utterly debased Church; the country's endemic syndicalism, which although it seemed to recede during the Thatcher decade is today rather evident once again.

[@lionelmerbles9375]

@@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess I’d rather forgotten about this rise of IS lam. It was the syndicalism and strikes I was recalling. Can’t help thinking that both then and now they seem conveniently coordinated to foment social unrest

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

@@lionelmerbles9375 Social unrest - that's for sure, Mr M. As the West re-tribalises, we are going to see some very deep unrest indeed.

[@briangarrett2427]

Excellent comb-over

[@InSearchOfAnthonyBurgess]

A singular and pleasing coiffure indeed.

[@Eire_Go_Deo]

My favourite description of Burgess' hair that I've seen in the comment section is "an aggressive hairstyle" 😂😂😂😂