This is such a fantastic deep dive into Burgess's philosophical fight with Skinner. The way Skinner's positive reinforcement framework gets conflated with the Ludovico treatment is somthing I've seen happen in discussions about A Clockwork Orange for years, so its nice to see that nuance acknowledged here. Freedom as choosing between good and evil rather than just having options at all is lowkey the crux of so much dystopian fiction.
I wonder whether Burgess ever read or wrote about The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel which fictionalizes the failed utopian experiment of Brook Farm - of which he was an unlikely participant. It’s been a while since I read it, but the central theme if I remember it right had to do with the idea that any heavily ordered society, no matter how well-intentioned, is at odds with the wilder, more creative, more passionate aspects of human nature and is doomed to failure. Do you know if Burgess ever wrote about it, or about Hawthorne?
Re: Hawthorne, there is a fleeting reference in 'The Making of a Writer', one of the pieces collected in The Devil Prefers Mozart: Essays on Music (published by Carcanet), as follows: 'Most musicians know about literature, but few littérateurs know about music. I have read already, from other writers, expressions of mystical devotion to the literary art, a sense of elation at having joined the pantheon to which Hawthorne and Henry James belong (or is it rather more frequently Updike and Vonnegut and Ken Kesey?). I do not feel this elation. I thank America, or rather part of the cornbelt of America, for granting me the only true artistic exaltation I have ever experienced. In Iowa, some seven years ago, there was a performance of my Third Symphony.'
In They Wrote in English, a work of literary history only ever published in Italy (though in English), AB gives a one-page summary of H's writing, beginning thus: 'With Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) the American novel becomes a major entity, subtle, international, sophisticated. Hawthorne wrote his novels and stories in the intervals of a crowded diplomatic career, and they show wide knowledge of the world of affairs, as well as profound skill in analysing the motives of human acts.'
According to the Foundation's book catalogue, Burgess owned a copy of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, or the romance of Montebeni, published by the New American Library in 1961.
This is such a fantastic deep dive into Burgess's philosophical fight with Skinner. The way Skinner's positive reinforcement framework gets conflated with the Ludovico treatment is somthing I've seen happen in discussions about A Clockwork Orange for years, so its nice to see that nuance acknowledged here. Freedom as choosing between good and evil rather than just having options at all is lowkey the crux of so much dystopian fiction.
I wonder whether Burgess ever read or wrote about The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel which fictionalizes the failed utopian experiment of Brook Farm - of which he was an unlikely participant. It’s been a while since I read it, but the central theme if I remember it right had to do with the idea that any heavily ordered society, no matter how well-intentioned, is at odds with the wilder, more creative, more passionate aspects of human nature and is doomed to failure. Do you know if Burgess ever wrote about it, or about Hawthorne?
Re: Hawthorne, there is a fleeting reference in 'The Making of a Writer', one of the pieces collected in The Devil Prefers Mozart: Essays on Music (published by Carcanet), as follows: 'Most musicians know about literature, but few littérateurs know about music. I have read already, from other writers, expressions of mystical devotion to the literary art, a sense of elation at having joined the pantheon to which Hawthorne and Henry James belong (or is it rather more frequently Updike and Vonnegut and Ken Kesey?). I do not feel this elation. I thank America, or rather part of the cornbelt of America, for granting me the only true artistic exaltation I have ever experienced. In Iowa, some seven years ago, there was a performance of my Third Symphony.'
In They Wrote in English, a work of literary history only ever published in Italy (though in English), AB gives a one-page summary of H's writing, beginning thus: 'With Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) the American novel becomes a major entity, subtle, international, sophisticated. Hawthorne wrote his novels and stories in the intervals of a crowded diplomatic career, and they show wide knowledge of the world of affairs, as well as profound skill in analysing the motives of human acts.'
According to the Foundation's book catalogue, Burgess owned a copy of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, or the romance of Montebeni, published by the New American Library in 1961.
Thank you for the info!