Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #420430 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
Dr. Edwin Spindrift, a linguist, decides to escape from the hospital the night before his brain tumor surgery is scheduled and discovers a world of people exists outside his universe of words.

Customer Reviews

Burgess' Autobiographical Meeting with Hallucinatory Punks
Burgess, when misdaignosed with a brain tumor began writing with a vengeance and purpose, having had what looked like a terminal illness and having come out misdiagnosed. He used this as a source for The Doctor is Sick, in which the narrator slips in and out of time due to the misfiring of his brain. One of the high points of the book is when, in his hospital bed, after surgery for a brain tumor, he is visited by some characters from A Clockwork Orange (which Burgess rightfully considered his worst book, even before the American publisher deleted the only redeeming quality of the book, the final chapter, in which the hoodlums become middle-aged and boring). Resurrected in The Doctor is Sick, the punk characters become more believable--we can see their backgrounds and families in their speech. Both the genius of his linguistic projections onto future slang and his humorous intent in the characters' personalities and speech are more clear here than in the Clockwork book/movie he's best known for by the public at large. As with nearly all his books, the characters, events, and quips blend together, and you'll want to keep it on your shelf for rereading after reading other pieces of his.