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35th out of 77 books
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Honey for the Bears
A sharply written satire, Honey for the Bears sends an unassuming antiques dealer, Paul Hussey, to Russia to do one final deal on the black market as a favor for a dead friend's wife. Even on the ship's voyage across, the Russian sensibility begins to pervade: lots of secrets and lots of vodka. When his American wife is stricken by a painful rash and he is interrogated at ...more
Paperback, Norton Paperback Fiction, 256 pages
Published
May 17th 1996
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published 1963)
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craige
rated it
Recommends it for:
wacky people
Recommended to craige by:
Violet, I think
Shelves:
recentlyread,
bookmooched
This book was totally wacky and awesome. Highly recommend.
Honey for the Bears, published originally in 1963, is meant to be commentary on the cold war. Burgess mocks both communism and capitalism in an effort to state the universal truth that The State is ultimately The State and people are ultimately people; the more different our social views and constructs, the more apparent the uniformity of humanity. The commentary isn't veiled in the slightest, and I suppose his point comes across. Perhaps it was even poignant in 1963, and I can only imagine i...more
This darkly comic tale of a visit to 1960s Soviet Russia has a nightmarish quality. Paul Hussey is trying to sell smuggled nylon dresses but he lurches drunkenly around the hotel bars, ballrooms and hospitals of a Leningrad that repels and seduces equally and makes him ask questions about who he is and where he belongs.
Kinda surprised Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney haven't adapted this 'un into a film yet either.
This book was pretty terrible in comparison to "A Clockwork Orange" or "The Wanting Seed." The events occurring in the book had potential to be interesting, but the way it was written made it boring from beginning to end. An easy read, but a waste of time.
When I first read this book, I remember being amazed that "There are other gay people! In literature!" The story is strange, very strange, but Burgess has such a unique storytelling style and microscopic attention to detail.
Burgess, best known for A Clockwork Orange sets this in Soviet Russia. Satirizes both capitalism and socialism, as I recall. What's most memorable is Burgess' incredible linguistic gifts.
Good read, pretty good story. One of his better books.
Couldn't even finish it. Not anywhere near "C.O."
see my review for One Hand Clapping.
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Anthony Burgess was a British novelist, critic and composer. He was also a librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, travel writer, broadcaster, translator, linguist and educationalist. Born in Manchester, he lived for long periods in Southeast Asia, the USA and Mediterranean Europe as well as in England. His fiction includes the Malayan trilogy (The Long Day Wanes) on the dying days o...more
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