The Doctor Is Sick

This is one of my top 3 favorite books of all time--a book I'd want with me on a desert island. (The other two are Gone With The Wind and a book written in the 1950's called Horseracing, but I digress.)

Full of rich language, implausible situations, and intellectual fun, this tale of a PhD who finds himself in the hospital due to a brain tumor is very close to what actually happened in Burgess' life. He was told he had one year to live and subsequently started churning out books. He lived a good long life, and kept writing, much to my happiness. Burgess is, of course, my favorite author.

I hadn't re-read this in a few years, and it's so much funnier now. Every time it's read new nuances appear. I love this book.

A dog called nigger and the opportunist but criminal Jewish Stone brothers are all rolled into this comedy satire along with the cockney proletariat, the medical profession, professors of linguistics, a loss of libido, promiscuous women and sexual perversions. Farcical and satirical by turns it does poke much fun at "Johnny Foreigner" and could have been an inspiration for the idea of dog whistle politics (not that there is any politicians in this novel). Anthony Burgess had just arrived back in England from Burma in order to seek medical help for a suspected brain tumour. His hospital experiences and his fresh look at London (he was a Mancunian) gave him all the inspiration he needed to dash off this novel in six weeks. The authors show more name and a price of 50p in a charity bookshop was all that was needed for it to appear on my bookshelves, where it has rested in quiet contemplation for about 30 years.

In the novel a doctor of linguistics: a doctor Spindrift is in hospital after collapsing during a lecture, he undergoes a number of tests and is told that there might be something in his brain and he needs an operation, his wife is told the full facts but has been sworn to secrecy. Spindrift suspects his wife is conducting one of her love affairs, they have an open marriage and so he creeps out of hospital for an evening to find his wife. She persuades him to return and he undergoes preparation for his operation, while under a preliminary anaesthetic he dreams he has escaped from hospital again and is again on the track of his wife. He has no money, it is cold and his head has been shaven for an operation, he embarks on a series of adventures when he meets the Stone Brothers who run an illegal speakeasy. They earmark him as a contestant in a bald headed man competition and he runs foul of Bob Courage who is a sado-masochist. Spindrift spends a madcap three days chasing round London after his wife, getting kidnapped by Bob, trying to avoid the Stone brothers and their dog called nigger.

Burgess has great fun with the language of his characters many who boast heavy accents or different modes of speech; his parodies of characters from a 1950's depressed London come alive for me. I found myself laughing a little guiltily at their antics, after all we should not be amused by a dog named nigger or of foreigners with heavily accented English. Having finally read it, I dare not put it back on my book shelf and so into the charity box it goes 3 stars. Sorry Borrie show less

Edwin Spindrift, a dedicated linguist, is in the hospital with a tumor that might also be the cause of his lost libido. Meanwhile, his wife revels in her freedom from his bilabial fricatives by pushing the concept of an open marriage to its limit. Frustrated with endless tests and fearful of his impending operation, Edwin escapes from the hospital and embarks on a number of weird and humorous adventures with gay masochistic watch fences, Jewish twins who own an after-hours bar, and a dog named Nigger. As his situation gets more desperate, his previously absolute morality begins to falter, illustrating very keenly the subjective nature of morality.

Burgess wrote this book in the 50s, and it certainly shows to a modern reader. Described on show more its cover as “one of the funniest of all Burgess novels”, it neglects to mention that most of the humor comes out of social situations and mores that are no longer relevant and are lost on the modern reader. There are still comical situations, but throughout the book I had a vague feeling that I was missing a lot of the humor that depended on this professor interacting with Cockney lowlifes. show less

8401380863