jsweet%uci-750a@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/84)
From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@uci-750a> Micro-review: read it--especially the Foreword--a howl. Macro-review: According to the introduction (a rather strange one, implying that the author is dead, when he probably isn't--well, is he?), the title of this book by Anthony Burgess is inspired by the BBC news signoff "That's the end of the World News". TEotWN is three almost completely separate stories mixed in alternating chapters into one book. One story is a historical dramatization of Freud's invention of psychoanalysis and his trials and tribulations from then until the beginning of World War Two, when he was rescued from the clutches of the Austrian Gestapo (Freud was a Jew, you see). The story is told in flashback, mostly from Freud's point of view. The second story is a quasi-musical, complete with song cues and lyrics, but no actual music, that describes a visit (fictional or not--I'm not sure) by Trotsky to New York just prior to the 1917 Communist revolution in Russia. The third story is really about the end of the world. A rogue planet named Lynx is due to make a destructive flyby of Earth, round the sun, and return to collide with Earth one year later. The story is a half-parody of "When Worlds Collide", with a dash of "A Clockwork Orange" (another book byy Burgess, which was made into an equally depraved movie by Kubrick) thrown in for good measure. The story about Freud is interesting, the Trotsky musical is awful, and the end of the world story is somewhat banal, but not too bad. The mixture is enough to keep your interest up; it's sort of like switching channels between three network shows without losing the thread of any one show. I'm probably dense, but I can't find any but the most superficial relationships among the three stories. Publication information: The End Of The World News by Anthony Burgess softcover from Penguin Books, New York; 1983 (the copyright is by Lianna Burgess; maybe AB actually croaked!) -jns