[These notes were made in 1985:]. The first half of this volume is an interesting, occasionally incisive, albeit somewhat fragmented analysis of Orwell's 1984. It also serves, of course, as an indirect introduction of Burgess's own bleak novel, which forms the second half of the book. Burgess, whose views occasionally spill too far to the right for my tastes, premises that it is not a totalitarian state but unionism taken to its extreme which deprives the individual of his liberties, and sometimes of his life. His vision is closer to us and more recognizable than Orwell's. Its apocalypse occurs as the Arabs, principal landowners in England, stage a takeover. The moral lines blur, and Bev, who has resisted a reconditioning process, finds himself in the army of Colonel Lawrence (yeah, yeah) of the Arabs - for a while. As with Orwell's original, Burgess makes points with slightly surreal caricatures, the most disturbing of which is Bev's daughter, Bessie, physically developed but mentally retarded, who falls victim to the predatory systems which succeed each other (she ends up concubine to an Arab prince, then disappears). Bev's final response can be nothing but despair, and he throws himself on the electric fence after Bessie's death releases him from his last human connection.
