Talk:Anthony Burgess

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

Contents

[edit] Conflict of Information

Under Tax Exile, Burgess' son is listed as killing himself, however, under Death, it claims that he died of natural causes. Neither statement has a citation. Njj4 (talk) 07:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brinsford Lodge (places of residence)

Citation provided, and Brinsford Lodge page updated.

[edit] Quest for Burgess image

It seems that a public domain photo of Burgess remains elusive. Can anyone advise whether it would be permissible, under Wikipedia rules, to include on the Anthony Burgess page an image of the front cover of the Roger Lewis biography of Burgess downloaded from Amazon?

[edit] New plea for a Burgess photo

A public domain image of the writer is needed for the Anthony Burgess Wikipedia page. Can anyone oblige?

[edit] Appeal for a Burgess photo

The page would benefit from a Wikipedia-acceptable, public-domain photo of Anthony Burgess, if such an image could be found.

The need for a Wikipedia-approved image of this important writer has become urgent. Is there not a single photo of Burgess anywhere in the public domain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 145.246.240.14 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 14 April 2006 UTC.

Not that I'm aware of, no. Most of the images are owned by various media outlets, and those that are not are probably owned by Liana. I know some folks at the HRC in Austin, and I keep meaning to ask around about it. Microtonal 00:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Anything Microtonal or anyone else can do in the direction of tracking down a Burgess image will for certain be greatly appreciated by Burgess readers and scholars worldwide...

[edit]  ???

Didn't Burgess work with the british government making propaganda and whatnot? that's what i heard.

Why delete "composer" from the opening paragraph? Burgess was, in fact, a composer his entire life. A rather good one, at that. I'm re-inserting it. Microtonal 8 July 2005 04:16 (UTC)


He enjoyed a miscellany of sexual partners from other lands, however, including Buginese, Japanese, Welsh, Malay, Chinese, Siamese, Italian and Singhalese

Those links are ridiculous. Why should 'Siamese' link to 'Prostitution in Thailand'? That's beyond me. Such useless links have no reason to be. :)

[edit] Conflict of Information

It says Burgess's father died twice. In the beginning it says 1948, but later on under Education it says 1938.

[edit] Really?

Anthony Burgess, known in Argentina as the British Borges, and Jorge Luis Borges, known in Britain as the Argentine Burgess, each spoke both English and Spanish fluently. But when Burgess-Borges met, each decided it would be unequal and unfair to the other, and inappropriate, to plump for either of the two languages when conversing. So the polyglot pair forged a compromise, deciding to conduct their lengthy, wide-ranging philological and literary conversations in Old Norse.

Bollocks. Someone has made this up based on Burgess's story of reciting a poem in Old English with Borges. Monogloto 00:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too Much Trivia!

The trivia section takes up over half the article. Delete or serious edit required (I daresay it 'trivialises' his achievements)

One of my pet gripes is the large amount of trivia and pop-culture references in Wikipedia articles, however having read through the trivia in this article, most of it seems pretty interesting, and much of it not so trivial. Perhaps we could break out some of the subsections into their own sections? For example, I find the work methods points quite interesting, and I think one of the things that makes Burgess notable is the sheer quantity of his output. Presumably this point could be made outside the trivia section, and the points included there. Perhaps we could take the following steps:
  • draft a new table of contents
  • move as many of the interesting trivia points as we can into the new sections
  • edit, prune, and tidy
  • if any sections seem disproportionately large break them off into their own 'main articles' (this is how, for example the articles Posthumous fame of Vincent van Gogh and Vincent van Gogh's medical condition came into being)

What do you think? Stumps 08:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree. Perhaps a great deal of the 'trivia' could be inserted into the main biographical chapters? Such a task would be somewhat daunting though. Doktor Waterhouse 07:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

re Habits Section. Health is of cardinal importance to Man, but why don't we leave the farts aside? I sure am glad I don't have to read about Burgess's flatulence and bout of chickenpox (in 1969) in Encyclopedia Britannica. You are genuflecting to the Gods of Gossip, gentlemen. (I seem to remember he also picked his nose.) Lahoratius 14:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Health section/circumcision status

In view of Burgess' date and place of birth and his (Roman) Catholic origins, it is hardly surprising that he was not circumcised. However, two things occur to me:

1) how does the writer of the article know; and

2) what the <blank> does it matter?

Surely, this is hardly relevant, let alone being grist to any "normal" encyclopædia writer's mill!

Hair Commodore 21:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more! Alfista inglese 22:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, are we going to write that about everyone who isn't circumcised? But "A lot of talk, no workshop" as we say in Sweden,so I'll remove it and not just talk about it. Zeck 07:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I noticed it had crept back in, so I removed it again. Salmanazar 09:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brinsford Lodge (odyssey)

I'm intrigued by the reference to Brinsford Lodge in Wolverhampton (1946). Can anyone offer any further information on this claim, as it may inform the history of the Brinsford Lodge WP entry, if subtantiated. RichardEll 13:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book Cover Images Violation of Copyright Laws?

Aren't the book cover images listed in this article a violation of copyright law? Clearly book covers are copyrighted to protect the graphic artist... Stevenmitchell 23:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linguistic gifts

Is there any document of just how many languages he spoke?

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:AnthonyBurgess InsideMrEnderby.jpg

Image:AnthonyBurgess InsideMrEnderby.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 20:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use removal

The use of images not in compliance with our fair-use criteria or our policy on nonfree content is not appropriate, and the images have been removed. Please do not restore them. -Mask? 07:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV-check

There has been a great deal of pop-world plagiarism from Burgess. Some examples:

Plagiarism? Sounds POV to me. Can this be rewritten to sound more objective? David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 02:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paolo-Andrea

When adding info on Paolo Andrea, Burgess' step/son, I moved his death from the "Death" section (which is about Burgess' death), into "Tax exile", so all the info on Paolo was together. It has now been reinstated in "Death", so is in twice.

Don't think we should have a separate "family" section, as Burgess' family is integral to his life story and writings

Rather than just revert it, would welcome second opinion as to where Paolo's death should be noted? Arjayay (talk) 09:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Teaching post

Anthony Burgess (aka John Wilson) taught me English at Banbury Grammar School during the 1950s.Oyster24 (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)