THE DEVIL'S MODE

Nine short stories from the English-born author of the Enderby series, Clockwork Orange, Any Old Iron, and numerous other milestones. Scoring rather poorly in the Burgess Olympics—some 55 publications to date—this collection presents the author in an uncharacteristically terse mode. In the most ambitious entry, "Hun," Burgess portrays Attila as a young barbarian briefly introduced to the Roman society he ultimately ransacks. "The Most Beatified" similarly scrutinizes the distance between myth and history, but in this case a lighter touch is invoked by the subject matter: What did Helen of Troy really look like? A unifying strand is suggested in Burgess' fanciful use of historical characters throughout most of these pieces. In "A Meeting in Valladolid," young Will Shakespeare meets a crotchety Cervantes in Spain. Likewise, "1889 and the Devil's Mode" is structured around a meeting between Browning and Debussy. On a quite different note, and out of place here, is "The Endless Voyager," in which a frequent-flyer relates the tale of a fellow traveller who refuses to carry a passport. Only one piece has been previously published in English, and that in a work compiled by the New York Metropolitan Opera Company. On the whole: scraps from the master's table. Familiar flashes of the famed Enderbian verbal intensity, but unsustained throughout the course of the entire collection. For serious fans only.